J. R. Wren once sold guitars, basses, banjos and more at the iconic House of Guitars in Rochester, NY. He soldered horns, rebuilt clarinets, and restored flutes for students. He even helped gut and restore a 1924 Aeolian pipe organ built for a long-dead circus magnate, which is soon to be reinstalled at the Ringling Museum’s Ca’ d’Zan in Sarasota, Florida. 

Now Jacob is a Ph.D. student in Cornell’s Music and Sound Studies program, where he applies a decade of experience in the musical trades to scholarly inquiries into musical labor; working-class expression; and American folk and roots traditions. His hands know what his theory suspects: it’s just sound, but it’s never just sound.