String Teacher Preparation Programs in the United States

The rise in demand for string teachers is a sign of support for string programs across the United States. Despite an increase in string teacher positions, there is growing concern regarding the lack of qualified string music education graduates to fill the vacancies, sometimes leading administrators to close programs. This study investigated the status of string teacher education programs in the United States. Participants for this study were degree-granting institutions ( N = 636) accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). The NASM directory listings and institution websites were examined to determine what type of degrees were offered, and presence of a full-time string music education faculty member. Results indicated that while most NASM-accredited institutions offer some type of undergraduate degree in music education, very few institutions (16%) were shown to have a full-time string music education specialist. Results also indicated a significant relationship between the size of school and likelihood of having a full-time string music education specialist, χ2 (7, N = 526) = 80.03, p < .001.

She's A Country Girl All Right

Classically trained vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and 2017 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Rhiannon Giddens has in recent years enjoyed increased visibility in the contemporary country music world. In 2016, she was a featured singer on Eric Church's top-ten country hit, “Kill a Word,” and she won the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass that same year. Giddens also had a recurring role as social worker Hanna Lee “Hallie” Jordan on the long-running musical drama Nashville in 2017 and 2018. While Giddens now enjoys a certain degree of acceptance in the country music world, she has not always felt included in the various largely white, contemporary American roots scenes. As such, she continues to speak out to audiences and the press about the erasure of African Americans from histories of string music, bluegrass, country, and other styles and forms of American roots music. Using Giddens's 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) keynote, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops' music video for the song “Country Girl” from 2012's Leaving Eden, I demonstrate that Giddens effectively reclaims American old-time string music and country culture as black, subverting historically inaccurate racialized notions of country music authenticity.

“Don’t Keep It a Secret”: E. Daniel Long and His Career in Music Education

Music teachers are central to the effective implementation of the school curriculum; however, researchers know little about their careers in music education. In order to understand the work of music teachers, researchers must document experiences of those educators who may appear ordinary but who led extraordinary lives and careers. The purpose of this study was to create a biographical primary source on E. Daniel Long, one of the esteemed educators in American string music education during the second half of the twentieth century. Long’s memories of his life and teaching position with Ann Arbor Public Schools, alongside additional sources, were used to explore aspects of his career in music education. This article includes additional biographical information not previously documented in past interviews as well as his philosophical beliefs about teaching youth.

String Music: Creating Coronary Artery and other Vascular Anastomoses

This initial version of this treatise was written as I (Curt Tribble) was learning to do coronary anastomoses over 30 years ago, and I worried that I was not being taught very well how go about it doing them. It seemed to me that my teachers were channeling Dr. Alain Carpentier, who often answered questions about his mitral valve repair techniques by saying, “Oh, you just know.” These frustrations were compounded by the fact that the best cardiovascular techniques books, including even those texts dedicated to coronary artery bypass techniques, did not describe these anastomotic techniques in detail, which remains the case to the present day [Kaiser 2007; Copeland 1986].

Design and Analysis of a Micro Actuating Mechanism Driving Multi-Degree of Freedom

This paper presents design concept and implementation of a micro actuating mechanism that uses a single drive to operate many degrees of freedom. The challenge of this research is to reduce the complexity of the multi-dof actuator mechanism in order to optimize its size and weight so that it is small and light enough to be implemented on other robots or automatic systems where mobility is needed. For example, on the development of the automatic tuning system of multi-string music instruments like piano or harp, instead of implementing one actuator to tune each string, this paper proposed an actuator mechanism that uses a single motor to tune several strings at a time. In the proposed actuator mechanism, a new tiny magnetic clutch is designed to control the direction of the rotation. The worm gear trains are selected to hold the position of the rotation with self-locking ability, which helps prevent rotation when the clutch is disengaged. The size and weight of the mechanism are optimized to fit properly on the musical stringed instrument. In this paper, the prototype and analysis of performance of the proposed mechanism is presented.