Blog Post #9-Sound Analysis

For this assignment, I chose to ask about how John Lomax was able to capture the cultures and lifestyles of Americans as he traveled across the country, recording their different songs and sounds. Traveling the southern states with his wife Ruby, John recorded nearly 25 hours worth of folk music of the different people from Texas to the Library of Congress encased in over 700 recordings, ¹ using “improved recording equipment.” A goal of the Lomaxes was to introduce folk (vernacular) music into popular culture. ² This shows as an example of welcoming music for all the people, created by the people, a foundation block of the Federal Music Project. ³

While in Houston, Lomax made multiple recordings of a man named John B. Jones. Interestingly, he was able to capture the essence of an instrument that hunters used to communicate with their dogs while in the field. The hunting horns were created from a cow’s horn, and emitted a high-pitched sound, called a hunting horn call. From the audio file, this seemed to be an early rendition of a dog whistle. Lomax notes in the recording that these sounds were able to potentially alter signals from other hunters, but that the dogs only knew of this sound and one other, used to alert the dog back to the hunter when it may have strayed away, in a sort of effort to say come back here you [fools]. ⁴

As a visual learner, it can be very effective to read a description of any time period and create a picture of the story in your mind. However, when reading about audio, there is a disconnect when analyzing a work. Embedding an audio file directly into the text makes it possible for the reader to experience the story in a number of ways, which can help to believe the argument of the author. I feel that this was an extremely effective way to understand what was being addressed. By including these audio files into our blog posts, we are continuing to pass on the recordings of the folk music in the 1930s, preventing it from disappearance, in a way helping the influential figures of the Federal Music Project preserve history. ⁵

1. “Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip,” Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/collections/john-and-ruby-lomax/about-this-collection/
2. Benjamin Filene, “Searching for Folk Music’s Institutional Niche,” in Romancing the Folk (UNC Press Books, 2000), 133, 136
3. Peter Gough, “Introduction,” in Sounds of the New Deal: The Federal Music Project in the West (University of Illinois Press, 2015), 7-9
4. “Hunting Horn Calls,” Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/lomaxbib000103/
5. Peter Gough, “Introduction,” in Sounds of the New Deal: The Federal Music Project in the West (University of Illinois Press, 2015), 7-9