My pedal steel dissertation is now published online

[Jordan Stern]

Hello everyone! After 2 and a half years of study, 2500+ hours of steel practice, 96 steel gigs, and a near case of carpal tunnel from so much typing, my doctoral dissertation entitled "Full Circle: Becoming a Pedal Steel Guitarist" is now available online for free. Here is the link:
https://hdl.handle.net/2144/45005

Here is the abstract:

Considering the cultural importance of country-western music in the United States, especially in places such as Texas, the exclusion of country-western music from the musical offerings of public schools and universities (Bates, 2019; Bates, Gossett, & Stimeling, 2020) could be seen as problematic. Furthermore, the absence of the country-western style from formal music education has led to the concomitant exclusion of an an entire musical instrument from formal music study: the pedal steel guitar. The purpose of this inquiry was to engage in the lived experience of becoming a pedal steel guitarist in order to ascertain how I, as a learner of an instrument primarily used in country-western music, could interact with others within both the country-western and pedal steel guitar communities of practice as I gained competence as a pedal steel guitarist. Using communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) and landscapes of practice (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner 2014) as a theoretical framework, I employed autoethnographic methods to document the lived experiences contained within an 18-month period in which I progressed from a nascent pedal steel guitarist, to performing professional gigs at various dance halls and honky-tonk bars. Data collection methods included journal entries, interviews with accomplished pedal steel guitarists, and the creation of artifacts such as tablature transcriptions and recordings. I created a short ethnodrama (Saldaña, 2011) to elucidate the conflict I felt between various aspects of my musical identity as my previous musical experiences both enabled and inhibited my new learning project. After analyzing my pedal steel learning project using language from Wenger’s (1998) framework of communities of practice, I concluded that Wenger’s interlocking concepts of participation and reification respectively served as the propulsion and rudder that allowed me to traverse my learning trajectory. In addition, I discussed impications of my research for music teachers, such as destigmatizing the role of mistakes (such as wrong notes) in the learning process; music teacher educators, such as the importance of facilitating boundary experiences for preservice teachers in order to broaden knowledgeability; and music learners¬, such as the benefits that can come from—to quote my pedal steel mentor Bobby Flores—“diving into that cold river with no inhibitions” when it comes to learning a new instrument.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this project along the way!

Dr. Jordan Stern

[John McClung]

Spoken like a true academic!

I look forward to reading you dissertation, Jordan. Hoping your experiences might lead me to ways to improve how I teach the pedal steel in private lessons. As it is, my approach is always evolving as I strive to condense what I'm trying to convey to an ultimate diamond-like absolute core of knowledge and perspective.

I think I just spoke in Academian! Ha.

[Jordan Stern]

Thanks John! Yes, the writing definitely comes off very academic at times, as dissertations tend to be... but I am also working on a couple of book projects that are geared towards a larger audience, dealing with the same subject matter. I will have more to share on this front in the months to come.

[Guy Cundell]

Congratulations, Jordan. It is a long row to hoe but is great that you have achieved it!

[Jon Jaffe]

I read your dissertation. It was quite interesting. I sent you an email from the address you posted on the IRB form. Although I am more than 30 years your senior, I feel like our trajectories were similar.

[Gary Hoetker]

Congratulations sir !! Johnny Bush's take on what is required to play this beast of a musical instrument is the truth. It probably made perfect sense to Buddy Emmons.

[Ethan Verderber]

Wow! This is great, I'm reading through the whole thing and I think I'm going to take notes just for my own personal understanding. As a student who just started college this semester this paper is opening my eyes to what I could potentially be studying in the future. I didn't find this by scrolling through the forum; I found it by searching "how to become a professional pedal 'steel guitarist'" online and I was shocked to find such a wonderful source as the first result!