ABSTRACT

Detailing the holistic process of becoming a traditional musician, this ethnography explores the social lives of traditional musicians – their motivations, interests, musicking, and the development of their identities over time. The introduction outlines how the ethnography was constructed using multiple research methods, including intensive fieldwork, autoethnography, and interviews with twenty-two experienced traditional musicians. Using ‘communities of practice’ as a theoretical lens, the book describes the shifting of identities from novice to skilled musician, exploring the ways learners absorb and are absorbed into Irish traditional music. In the opening, key features of the transmission process are introduced, including the significance of aural and informal learning. As the first book to focus on enculturation from the perspective of traditional musicians, Becoming an Irish Traditional Musician contributes new insights into a major aspect of traditional music culture and reconceptualizes the learning process as inseparable to cultural phenomena.