The Culture and Content of Appalachian Music

Introduction 

People are the essence of music as it is composed for and by them. This makes the people on both sides of the music, being production and consumption, a great way to understand music. In the quest to understand the famous Appalachian music, it is important to have an understanding of who made the music from a folk perspective and who the music was made for. The music itself is also an important component. There are several aspects of the music itself that is crucial. This includes the nature of the message and how it is communicated and also the reasons for that message. The second aspect of the music is how the vocals are represented within the song. Finally, there is also the issue of instruments, their existence or absence, and also how they interrelate with the vocals within the composition. This research paper will, therefore include both study and actual listening in a bid to understand the culture and content of Appalachian music. 

Appalachia 

There remains a great dispute to this very date about which section of the USA are included in Appalachia since there are no demarcate geographical precincts. The definition of Appalachia that best suits the instant research paper is the cultural definition that defines Appalachia based on the people and not the place. This region is defined as the mountainous region within Appalachia where poorer settlers from Europe settled and got separated from the rest of society (Stimeling, 2012) . This separation has been associated with the relative poverty of the Appalachian people as compared to the rest of America. The aspect of poverty becomes pronounced because, in Appalachia, poverty did not discriminate between race and ethnicity. It is perhaps for this reason that an element of oneness developed amongst the Appalachian people that saw a form of music develop that cannot be accurately traced to a particular race or ethnicity during the times of extreme segregation in America (Guthrie & Petrino, 2015) . 

The Advent of the Music 

Two different aspects of the music can be traced to two different origins. As aforementioned, the Appalachia music cannot be traced to one definite source. The vocals for the music can be traced back to English and Scottish Ballads (Appalachian Music) . These were fork songs specifically designed as a means of oral narrative thus entailing the telling of a story. There is thus a lot of content in the Appalachia music, as carried by the voice of the lead singer or singers. This seeks to tell a story or in some instances address a certain issue, person or individual. However, English and Scottish Ballads were always sung Acapella , meaning there was no instrumental accompaniment. Yet, among the prominent components of Appalachia music is the instrumental accompaniments involved. This is where the African American component of the advent of this music comes in (Appalachian Music) . It is the African Americans who contributed the instrumentation. The instrumentation combined with and affected the vocals as adopted from the Ballads making for the development of a new form of folk music known as the Appalachia music. 

Composition 

The Appalachian Musical narrative is extremely varied and depends on the composer, musician, and the targeted audience. Some composers have focused almost entirely on gospel music, perhaps as a form of inspiration. As aforementioned, for many decades poverty was endemic in Appalachia and few things operate as a bearing factor to religious affiliation like adversity (Goad, 2015) . Others focus on sad themes such as death, pain, and despair while others focus on issues of morality and societal norms. Unlike most modern music, every original Appalachian song would be dominated by a definitive message and geared towards communicating it. It is the kind of songs a listener would need to listen to again and again to understand the theme and message with more clarity. At no time is the instrumentation allowed to dominate over the vocals as communication is fundamental. A lot, therefore, lay in the initial composition of the song, before the composition of the music (Goad, 2015) . The message in the song would be well developed and comprehensive and cover a topic that the audience would be interested in. With would either be a religious or secular topic. Unlike today where the beat is the main focus of the music , the Appalachian music placed major emphasis on the message itself, not just how it is presented. The audience would be keen to listen to both the singer and the singing, making composition as much about the message as it was about the music (Guthrie & Petrino, 2015) . Indeed, at the beginning, the message dominated the music with the music coming to catch up later in the 20 th century. 

The Instruments 

There were three main instrumental accompaniments two of which have come to be considered as being specifically associated with the region and its music. The three are the Banjo, the Appalachian dulcimer, and fiddles. In most cases, this instruments were not played in combination but rather independently. Some musicians would solely focus on one instrument or play different instruments alternatively (McCollough, 2010) . Every song would, therefore, have a definite dominant instrument. The Banjo is a stringed instrument played through plucking. Its development has been credited to the African American community. It produces sharp and not very melodious music and has come to be synonymous with Appalachia. The common banjo varies from four to six strings and has a thin membrane stretched over a resonator mainly made out of plastics or animal skins (McCollough, 2010) . The Appalachian dulcimer is also a stringed instrument played through plucking and belongs to the zither family of instruments. Its body stretched the length of the fingerboard making it different from the modern day guitar. Typically the Appalachian dulcimer has three or four strings. Finally, the fiddle is also a stringed instrument and the only common instrument in Appalachia not played through plucking but through fiddling. These instruments would accompany the vocals and not carry the melody on their own (Guthrie & Petrino, 2015) . 

Popular Appalachian Musicians 

Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs 

Dock Boggs can be considered as an acquired taste as he can only be considered as a great musician by the ear that understands what Appalachia music all about. The first listen of one of his most famous songs “Oh Death” might seem a bit confusing to the modern listener. It almost feels as if a Banjo was playing alone, then a song was sung Acapella then the two combined with little if any consideration for rhythm. It is only upon careful focus in the message that the instrumentation makes sense. Boggs is both imploring and fighting with death seeking for it to wait another year. It is indeed a wonderful song. 

Boggs was not a musician until much later in his life although he was a recording artist in the 1920s and 1930s. The contention about poverty in the Appalachian region is manifested by the fact that in spite of being a great recording artist, Boggs had to work in a coal mine to earn a living. It is only in the 1960s when Appalachian music developed a following outside the region that music earned enough to sustain Boggs and enable his focus on being an actual musician. He is celebrated as among the greatest original composers and pacesetters for Appalachian music (Goad, 2015) . 

Fiddlin' John Carson 

As his name suggests, Fiddlin' John Carson focused on fiddling for which he excelled. Focusing on him immediately after Boggs is intentional as it reflects how diverse Appalachian music was. As opposed to the rough and ragged Boggs, Carson’s music is smooth and silky and tends more towards the Ballad roots of Appalachian music. Carson wrote and recorded over one hundred and fifty great songs although only nine of them were copyrighted. Just as with Boggs, music could not meet his daily needs and he needed an extra source of income. Fortunately for him, music was able to get him a job as an elevator operator, through his friends. His music is widely circulated and also redone in many versions making him a major contributor to this folk music (Cohen, 2015) . 

Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson 

Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson can be considered as among the Appalachian musicians who were able to climb the shoulders of the earlier greats like Boggs and Carson by living to eat the fruits of Appalachia music. Having been born in 1923 and living up to 2012 Watson was able to seek Appalachian music becoming adopted into mainstream music and joined the commercialized and high earning music segments. In his long and illustrious career, Watson won seven Grammy awards capped by a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He recorded hundreds of songs and made several records most of which were economic success stories. Having begun with the traditional Banjo, Watson was able to transit to the more modern guitar and thus be part of the modernization of Appalachian music (Cohen, 2015) . 

The Carter Family 

It is perhaps not fair to complete any narrative about the Appalachian music without discussing the Carter family who made a great contribution towards bringing this music to the limelight. The group was led by A.P. Carter and included his wife Sara Carter, and his sister-in-law Maybelle Carter, all from Virginia. By 1930, this team had already sold over three hundred thousand copies on their first recording made in 1928 (Cohen, 2015) . This is clear evidence of Appalachian music going national and to the next level. Reading about them does not, however, beat hearing their music. Unlike earlier players such as Boggs and Carson, the Carter family combined both different vocals and instruments in the same piece to create harmony. Their music varied from gospel to secular and included an extremely wide variety of songs. As Appalachian music was expanded into a variety of genres the Carter family became a Yardstick for quality within this expansion (Cohen, 2015) . 

Conclusion 

The Appalachian region may no longer be poor or marginalized due to decades of New Deal initiatives in the 20 th century. The region, however, still takes pride in its heritage, culture, and music. The Appalachia music has since made many contributions to the development of many modern forms of music. It all began with groups of poor European settlers who got separated from the rest of the settlers by the mountains of Appalachia. Faced with a harsh living but engendering a strong resilience, these pioneers endeavored to flourish and unite in spite of calamities. They combined the ballads of their home countries with the message of their new country alongside the instrumentation of the new communities that they interacted with. This resulted in the formation of an entirely new and unique form of music. Its earliest champion’s such as Boggs and Carson had to undertake menial jobs to earn a living in spite of the excellence of their music. Their sacrifice was not wasted as this folk music grew to great heights and influenced generations. 

References 

Appalachian Music . [Online Text] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200152683/ 

Cohen, N. (2015).  Traditional Anglo-American folk music: an annotated discography of published sound recordings . New York: Routledge 

Goad, J. C. G. (2015).  Tracing Appalachian Musical History through Fiction: Representations of Appalachian Music in Selected Works by Mildred Haun and Lee Smith  (Doctoral dissertation, East Tennessee State University) 

Guthrie, J. L., & Petrino, T. J. (2015). At the Roots of the Mountains: Ancient Influences on the Appalachian Sound 

McCollough, S. K. (2010). Hear John Henry’s Hammer Ring: Moving beyond Black and White Images of Appalachian Music. In  Kaleidoscope of Cultures: A Celebration of Multicultural Research and Practice: Proceedings of the MENC/University of Tennessee National Symposium on Multicultural Music  (pp. 93-99). R&L Education 

Stimeling, T. D. (2012). Music, place, and identity in the central Appalachian mountaintop removal mining debate.  American Music ,  30 (1), 1-29