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Podcast: New Books in the American South
Episode: Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth, "Finding the Singing Spruce: Musical Instrument Makers and Appalachia's Mountain Forests" (West Virginia UP, 2023)
Description: 2023 Weatherford Award Finalist, Nonfiction
How can the craft of musical instrument making help reconnect people to place and reenchant work in Appalachia? How does the sonic search for musical tone change relationships with trees and forests? Following three craftspeople in the mountain forests of Appalachia through their processes of making instruments, Finding the Singing Spruce: Musical Instrument Makers and Appalachia's Mountain Forests (West Virginia UP, 2023) considers the meanings of work, place, and creative expression in drawing music from wood.
Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth explores the complexities and contradictions of instrument-making labor, which is deeply rooted in mountain fores...