Open up the MusicBox Project
30 May 2012
Musician Gaye Adegbalola performs during an oral history interview at her home.
Coming Sunday: A Mill Creek couple travel the nation to find and record women playing the music of our roots
Dyann and Rick Arthur of Mill Creek have been traveling the country, seeking out women who perform traditional music: folk, blues, bluegrass, jazz, gospel and more. The couple are collecting oral histories from the women and recording them as they perform.
Their work, called the the MusicBox Project, has become a treasure trove; a portion is catalogued in the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and much of it is gathered for viewing online. “Women adopt and adapt. We found pockets of traditional culture everywhere,†Dyann Arthur said. “And the response we got for the project was very enthusiastic. They got it.â€
Get a feel for what the project is all about in the video below, a trailer for MusicBox's short film, "Americana Women." And come back Sunday to read more about the Arthurs, the project, and some of the Northwest musicians who are part of it.
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Oral History of 40 Years
One of the main hypotheses regarding the reason for the growth and expansion of oral history in the modern era relates to the fact that oral history is the best tool for addressing lesser-known topics of contemporary history. Topics that, particularly because little information is available about them, have received less attention.Omissions in the Editing of Oral History
After the completion of interview sessions, the original recordings are archived, the interviews are transcribed, proofread, and re-listened to. If the material possesses the qualities required for publication in the form of an article or a book, the editing process must begin. In general, understanding a verbatim transcription of an interview is often not straightforward and requires editing so that it may be transformed into a fluent, well-documented text that is easy to comprehend.100 Questions/8
We asked several researchers and activists in the field of oral history to express their views on oral history questions. The names of each participant are listed at the beginning of their answers, and the text of all answers will be published on this portal by the end of the week. The goal of this project is to open new doors to an issue and promote scientific discussions in the field of oral history.The Role of Objects in Oral Narrative
Philosophers refer to anything that exists—or possesses the potential to exist—as an object. This concept may manifest in material forms, abstract notions, and even human emotions and lived experiences. In other words, an object encompasses a vast spectrum of beings and phenomena, each endowed with particular attributes and characteristics, and apprehensible in diverse modalities.
