Abstract
In the audio paper which forms the center piece of this exposition I have examined the idiolect of country harmonica player Charlie McCoy. In order to gain a multifarious understanding of McCoy’s idiolect I have made transcriptions of his recordings and interviewed McCoy himself and two other prominent harmonica players. With the aim of obtaining a more refined engagement with the performance, I have sought to embody McCoy’s playing by learning to play my transcriptions. The paper shows the prominent features of McCoy’s idiolect and how he created his idiolect while negotiating the affordances of the diatonic harmonica. The paper also shows how I am using transcriptions of his recordings with the intent of transforming my own artistic voice.
Keywords: Harmonica, Charlie McCoy, Idiolect, Voice, Affordances, Country music
This is the artistic documentation referred to in my chapter Finding Voice: Developing Student Autonomy from Imitation to Performer Agency in the book Teaching Music Performance in Higher Music Education: Exploring the Potential of Artistic Research. Edited by Helen Julia Minor, Stefan Östersjö, Gilvano Dalagna, and Jorge Salgado Correia.
