Jean Ritchie's

Abstract

The study also provides a chronology of Ritchie's fieldwork, reconstructed through letters, diaries and personal interviews with her and others. Appendices include brief rhythmic, melodic and formal analyses of the songs, additional recordings of the songs found in the School of Scottish Studies Sound Archives and transcripts of interviews with Jean Ritchie, George Pickow and Hamish Henderson.

Since the late 1960s, interest in the "Kodaly Method" of music education has spread throughout the United States. Zoltan Kodaly (1882--1967) was a Hungarian composer, musician, ethnomusicologist and teacher whose efforts toward educational reform resulted in the pedagogical method now associated with his name. Among other philosophical tenets, Kodaly insisted that only music of highest quality be used for teaching, including the country's indigenous folk music, folk music of other countries and the finest examples of art music.

A number of teacher training programs in the U.S. and Hungary offer specialized study of Kodaly's approach. These programs emphasize the importance of studying not only the musical traditions, but the tradition bearers in each culture, as Kodaly did in his. Kentucky folk singer Jean Ritchie is undeniably one of America's greatest living examples of such a tradition-bearer. Her stature as such validates the exploration of her work by a Kodaly-inspired music educator.

Though Jean Ritchie's life and career as a folk singer and songwriter have been chronicled in books, articles and dissertations, this study focuses specifically on her research in Scotland as a Fulbright scholar in 1952--53. Ritchie's work, closely tied to that of folklorists Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson, had a significant impact on the folk music revivals which would soon follow in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

This dissertation contains transcriptions and analyses of fifteen unpublished field recordings collected by Ritchie in Scotland during her Fulbright year, as well as discussion of the historical, cultural and contextual aspects of each song. The songs were selected for examination from more than two hundred field recordings made by Ritchie in Scotland. Ritchie's selection of songs for inclusion on her unreleased "Scottish Sampler" anthology was the primary reason for this decision.