The Triangle Threshold Singers: Communication, Performance, Ritual, and Impact in Bedside Singing

(UNC Folklore Masters Thesis)

Using the Triangle Threshold Singers—a volunteer musical group that provides bedside singing for the dying in North Carolina—as a case study, this collaborative ethnography considers how vernacular creativity shared from person to person can mediate experiences of death and dying on a personal, communal, and societal level. Drawing on a combination of participant-observation methods, ethnographic interviews, and related folklore and interdisciplinary research, this thesis foregrounds the singers’ experiences to explore how Threshold singing’s elements of communication, performance, and ritual contribute to its potential for transformative impact. Full recordings of the ethnographic interviews are available to the public through the StoryCorps Archive.

You can download a copy of the entire thesis here.