During the early twentieth century, research on African American music focused primarily on spirituals and jazz. Investigations on the secular music of blacks living in rural areas were nonexistent except for the work of folklorists researching blues. Researchers and record companies avoided black fiddling because many viewed it not only as a relic of the past, but also a tradition identified with whites. In the second half of the twentieth century, rural-based musical traditions continued to be ignored because researchers tended to be music historians who relied almost exclusively on print or sound materials for analyses. Because rural black musicians who performed secular music rarely had an opportunity to record and few print data were available, sources were lacking. Thus, much of what we know about twentieth-century black secular music is based on styles created and performed by African Americans living in urban areas. And it is these styles that are often represented as the musical creations for all black people, in spite of the fact that other traditions were preferred and performed. This article explores how the (mis)representation of African American music has affected our understanding of black music generally and the development of black fiddling specifically.

中文翻译：

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非裔美国音乐的（错误）表现：小提琴的作用

在 20 世纪初，对非裔美国人音乐的研究主要集中在灵歌和爵士乐上。除了民俗学家研究布鲁斯的工作外，没有对生活在农村地区的黑人世俗音乐的调查。研究人员和唱片公司避免黑人摆弄，因为许多人不仅将其视为过去的遗物，而且将其视为白人的传统。在 20 世纪下半叶，以乡村为基础的音乐传统继续被忽视，因为研究人员往往是几乎完全依赖印刷或声音材料进行分析的音乐历史学家。由于演奏世俗音乐的农村黑人音乐家很少有机会录制，而且可用的印刷数据很少，因此缺乏来源。因此，我们对 20 世纪黑人世俗音乐的了解大多基于居住在城市地区的非裔美国人创作和演奏的风格。正是这些风格经常被代表为所有黑人的音乐创作，尽管其他传统更受青睐和表演。本文探讨了非裔美国音乐的（错误）表现如何影响了我们对黑人音乐的总体理解以及黑人小提琴的发展。