Peggy Duesenberry

Peggy Duesenberry is an ethnomusicologist and fiddler with a special interest in Scottish music.  In the School of Music, she offers supervision and more general training to postgraduate research students. She also teaches a performing arts research module in the PG Cert in Supervision (Creative Practices) at the Glasgow School of Art.  Her research interests are in Scottish fiddle music, and traditional music and the mass media;  she is developing a new interest in disability studies, pursuing research on artistic inclusion in music.

Peggy was formerly ethnomusicology editor for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.), and joint Course Leader for RSAMD’s BA(Scottish Music), and she has performed as a dance fiddler throughout Scotland and New England.  She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for research for her PhD thesis “Fiddle Tunes on Air:  A Study of Gatekeeping and Traditional Music at the BBC in Scotland, 1923 – 1957” (University of California Berkeley, 2000).

Supervision of Completed Doctorates:

Simon McKerrell (2005) “Scottish competition bagpipe music: sound, mode and aesthetics"

Selected Publications and Papers

With Aonghas Grant, Barabara McOwen and Laura Risk.  [in press] The Glengarry Collection:  the Highland Fiddle Music of Aonghas Grant (Pacific, MO: Mel Bay), 2 vols.

With Raymond MacDonald. (2008) “Sounds of Progress in the Academy:  an Emerging Creative Partnership.”  The Review of Disability Studies 4(1):6-18.

With Jo Miller (2007) “Where are they now? The First Graduates of the BA (Scottish Music) degree.”  Paper presented at True North Palatine Conference, Perth College/UHI, June 2007.  Read it here.

“Ethnomusicology and the Performer-Researcher:  synergies for practice-based research in music.”  Paper presented at Teaching, Learning and Performing Music (Palatine), Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK, July 2006.

“Early broadcasting of fiddle tunes,”  Over the Waves:  Music in/and Broadcasting conference, MacMaster Unversity, Hamilton Canada, supported by British Academy Overseas Conference Grant, 2005.

“Scotland II: Traditional music,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London:  Macmillan, 2001).

“Ceilidh at the Conservatory:  Formal teaching and learning for traditional musicians in Scotland,” Society for Ethnomusicology conference, Detroit, 2001.

“Rhythmic aspects of notation and oral tradition in Scottish traditional music,” European Seminar in Ethnomusicology conference, Jerusalem, 1998.

“Reception theory and the Scottish Fiddle Tradition:  Notes from a Study of Mass-mediated Performance,”  British Forum for Ethnomusicology conference, Winchester, March 1996.

Guest Editor for British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vol. 4, 1995.

“Fiddlers and Violinists in Scottish Traditional Music,”  International Council for Traditional Music (UK) annual conference, Belfast, 1994.

Transcriptions for booklet to accompany “The Fiddler and His Art,”  Scottish Tradition Series, no.9 (Tangent Records, for the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1989).

Book and recording reviews (various) for World of Music, Folk Music Journal, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Notes.