Man Yar Pyae U Tin and the Burmese Slide Guitar: Constructing and Deconstructing Narratives of Cultural Exchange

Abstract

Abstract:The slide guitar's history in Burmese culture is interlaced with narratives that bind together themes of romance, modernization, royal patronage, and colonial maritime economies. Drawing from fieldwork with the last Burmese slide guitar master, Man Yar Pyae U Tin, this paper details the instrument's adaptation to Burmese musical tonalities and aesthetics and its role in the performing arts renaissance of the early twentieth century. This ethnographic project connects to a discussion on the framing of cultural exchange and the rhetoric of terminological choice, promoting a symbolic, functional, and material approach to understanding the slide guitar's journey through Asia.