Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T09:13:01.911Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Sale You Can Dance To: Entrainment, Flexibility, and Improvisation in the Metric Practice of the American Auctioneer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2013

NIKKI MALLEY
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although most auctioneers do not self-identify as musicians, the practice of auctioneering in the United States reveals a sophisticated musical approach to metric improvisation based on the establishment of musical expectation and the strategic thwarting of that expectation through flexible treatment of meter. Auctioneers establish a “referential” meter wherein a consistent organization of the pulse returns repeatedly, alternating with expansions or contractions of that primary meter. Listeners are entrained to expect musical consistency, but through disruptions of familiar musical patterns, the auctioneer focuses bidder attention on the chant rather than the realities of the economic transaction in progress. Thus, meter is employed as an improvisational tool that unites the listening and bidding audience within a musical space and plays with expectations just enough to keep bidders alert and engaged.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 235 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bauman, Richard. Verbal Art as Performance. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Behr, Paul C.Auctioneering Practice Training CD. Mason City, IA: World Wide College of Auctioneering, CD-ROM, 2007.Google Scholar
Behr, Paul C.. “Lot No. 77-2010 Ford Escape.” Recorded live by the author, Aurora, CO, 1 September 2010.Google Scholar
Cannon, Darrell. Phone interview with author, 10 August 2010.Google Scholar
Cassady, Ralph Jr. Auctions and Auctioneering. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 1997.Google Scholar
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.Google Scholar
Flores, Eva Ordóñez, and Jeannin, Marc. “Metrical and Rhythmic Interpretations in Cante Flamenco.” The World of Music 50/1 (2008): 49–62.Google Scholar
Gehres, Peter. Phone interview with author, 22 August 2010.Google Scholar
Gerd, Grupe. “It Dread Inna Inglan: Linton Kwesi Johnson—Eine Ikone Afro-Jamaikanischen Sprechgesangs in Grossbritannien.” Jazzforschung/Jazz Research 39 (2007): 249–60.Google Scholar
Hasty, Christopher. Meter as Rhythm. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Hood, Mantle. “The Challenge of Bi-Musicality.” Ethnomusicology 4/2 (1960): 55–59.Google Scholar
Kaleva, Daniela. “Melodrama Insertions in Opera: Performance Practice Aspects within Historical Context.” In Studien zu den deutsch-französischen Musikbeziehungen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert: Bericht über die erste gemeinsame Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung und der Société française de musicologie, Saarbrücken 1999, ed. Schneider, Herbert, 228–39. Olms: Hildesheim, Germany, 2002.Google Scholar
Kramer, Jonathan D.The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies. New York: Schirmer Books, 1988.Google Scholar
Kravitt, Edward. “The Joining of Words and Music in Late Romantic Melodrama.” Musical Quarterly 62/4 (1976): 571–90.Google Scholar
Kuiper, Koenraad.Smooth Talkers: The Linguistic Performance of Auctioneers and Sportscasters. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996.Google Scholar
Kuiper, Koenraad, and Frederick, Tillis. “The Chant of the Tobacco Auctioneer.” American Speech 60/2 (1985): 141–49.Google Scholar
List, George. “The Boundaries of Speech and Song.” Ethnomusicology 7/1 (1963): 1–16.Google Scholar
London, Justin. Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Malley, Nikki. “The Sound That Sells: The Musical and Improvisatory Practices of the American Auctioneer.” Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 2012.Google Scholar
Miller, Geoffrey. “‘Are You All Unhappy at a Twenty Dollar Bill?’: Text, Tune and Context at Antique Auctions.” Ethnomusicology 28/2 (1984): 187–208.Google Scholar
National Auctioneers Association. “Education—Auction Schools.” http://www.auctioneers.org/schools.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Willard. “Musical Creativity of Hausa Children.” Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council 9 (1977): 38–49.Google Scholar
Riggs, L. A. “Speed.” Lucky Strike Radio Commercial. Date unknown. Archives of the National Auctioneers Association.Google Scholar
Seeck, Jim. “Lot 4: Pinecone saucer-shaped plate in green.” Recorded live by the author, St. Louis, MO, 2 October 2010.Google Scholar
Seeck, Jim. Phone interview with author, 13 September 2010.Google Scholar
Shearin, Denise. “Denise Shearin, CAI, CES 2007 International Auctioneer Champion.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2uKbeLHQJ8.Google Scholar
Smith, Charles. Auctions: The Social Construction of Value. London: Harvester Wheatshef, 1989.Google Scholar
Smith, Thérèse. “Chanted Prayer in Southern Black Churches.” Southern Quarterly 23/3 (1985): 70–82.Google Scholar
Williams, Darrah. Phone interview with author, 4 August 2010.Google Scholar
Wilson Kimber, Marian. “The Peerless Reciter: Reconstructing the Lost Art of Elocution with Music.” In Performance Practice: Issues and Approaches, ed. Watkins, Timothy, 202–33. Ann Arbor, MI: Steglein Press, 2009.Google Scholar
World Wide College of Auctioneering. “Tongue Twisters and Number Scales: The Daily Dozen Drills to a Successful Chant.” Mason City, IA: World Wide College of Auctioneering, instructional worksheet, 2010.Google Scholar