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date: 05 March 2021

Abstract and Keywords

This article has been commissioned as part of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Music Revival edited by Caroline Bithell and Juniper Hill. Grassroots associations and clubs devoted to reviving old-time fiddling and other types of Western traditional instrumental music continue to flourish in the early twenty-first century. Many old-time fiddlers’ associations in the United States established in the 1960s are still active today. The growth of special interest groups devoted to forms of traditional music believed to be in danger of dying out helps their devotees maintain a coherent sense of distinctive identity in a rapidly changing world. The advent of personal computers and the internet have enabled these groups to create their own special interest communications networks. They have created new social and cultural patterns in attempting to revive older ones. This postrevival culture can be explained by Anthony F. C. Wallace’s revitalization movement theory, which basically asserts that such movements inevitably reinvent the traditions they set out to revive.

Keywords: Grassroots associations, traditional instrumental music, special interest groups, internet, communications networks, postrevival culture, revitalization movement, fiddlers associations, American folk music, European folk music

Richard Blaustein

Richard Blaustein, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology and Adjunct Professor of Bluegrass, Old Time and Country Music, Eastern Tennessee State University, USA

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