"Rebecca S. Miller's ethnographic precision, her experience of performing with a variety of musicians in Carriacou, and her detailed musical transcriptions and analyses enable her to capture the complexity of musical form and meaning in this island community. Moreover, her enthusiasm for her subject matter and her crystal-clear prose will make the book a pleasure for students and general readers, as well as specialists."
~Stephen Stuempfle, Journal of Folklore Research
"Carriacou String Band Serenade is a valuable contribution to the ethnographic literature on music in the Caribbean. Overall, this book provides an evocative ethnographic portrait of historically important musical traditions, many of which are on the brink of disappearance or transformation."
~Tina K. Ramnarine, Ethnomusicology
"Adapted and modified to fit local circumstances, string band music provides a worthwhile tool for studying some of the Caribbean's cultural and social complexities. Despite its potential relevance, however, the music has received only nominal research, making Rebecca S. Miller's Carriacou String Band Serenade – the first-ever book on the topic – a welcome addition to existing scholarship. Her thoughtful approach to the materials and detail of research make this book a particularly strong and exciting contribution."
~Nanette de Jong, New West Indian Guide
"Rebecca Miller has taken full advantage of her lengthy fieldwork—and her own experience as one of the only living exponents of Canute Caliste's style of violin playing—to create the most complete study ever made of this historically important tradition."
~Donald R. Hill, professor of Africana/Latino studies and anthropology, SUNY College at Oneonta
"In Carriacou String Band Serenade, Rebecca Miller provides a compelling analysis of the string band music of Carriacou through the lens of the boisterous Parang Festival. Regionalists will enjoy Miller's thorough and original account of Parang's history and significance within the Caribbean, and theorists will appreciate her deft analysis of double-dependency theory in a postcolonial context. An accomplished fiddler herself, Miller gives us an in-depth account of the music and musicians of Parang."
~Katherine J. Hagedorn, author of Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santeria
"Miller herself is led to the music of Carriacou via the streets of New York, where she first encounters the diasporic sounds of this community. Indeed, it is Miller's own reflexive voice that is one of the most compelling aspects of the study. Situating herself as an outsider but also as a musician, she is able to draw the reader into her own process of discovery and doubt in conducting the study. Miller's engagement with the music and the community of Carriacou artfully comments on the repeating process of constructing an Afro-Caribbean identity through festival and song."
~Solimar Otero, Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University
