Nicholas Poss

Nicholas Poss received his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire and his M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the Ohio State University. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at Ohio State where he also teaches courses on world music, rock, jazz, and other topics. His research has focused on the music of Hmong people living in the United States, including traditional music, popular music and rap. Hmong musicians are able to communicate verbal messages through melodies on instruments, a practice known as speech surrogacy. Mr. Poss's dissertation analyzes this phenomenon using methodology from psycholinguistics to look for links between music and language cognition. He has presented his research at the Ohio State Musicology Lecture Series, the Midwest chapter meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the national SEM conference. He has an article on Hmong rap in a forthcoming collection of essays on Hmong American culture as well as two entries in the Encyclopedia of Asian Pacific American Folklore.