Old-time music
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle (see old time fiddling) and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band, which has historically been the most common configuration to play old-time music. The genre is considered a precursor to modern country music.
Old-time music
English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, French, German, Spanish, African, Native American
Instrumentation[edit]
Old-time music is played using a wide variety of stringed instruments. The instrumentation of an old-time group is often determined by what instruments are available, as well as by tradition. The most common instruments are acoustic string instruments. Historically, the fiddle was nearly always the leading melodic instrument, and in many instances (if no other instruments were available) dances were accompanied only by a single fiddler, who often also acted as dance caller.
By the early 19th century, the banjo had become an essential partner to the fiddle, particularly in the southern United States. The banjo, originally a fretless instrument made from a gourd,[5] provided rhythmic accompaniment to song, dance and the fiddle, incorporating a high drone provided by the instrument's short "drone string." The banjo used in old-time music is typically a 5-string model with an open back (i.e., without the resonator found on most bluegrass banjos).
Today old-time banjo players most commonly utilize the clawhammer style, but there were numerous styles, most of which are still used to some extent today. The major styles are down-picking (generally referred to today as "clawhammer," though historically myriad names were used to describe it), two-finger index lead, two-finger thumb lead, and a three-finger "fiddle style" that seems to have been influenced in part by late-19th century urban classical style. Young players might learn whatever style a parent or older sibling favored, or take inspiration from phonograph records, radio, traveling performers and migrant workers, local guitarists and banjo players, as well as other musicians they met when traveling to neighboring areas. Having a fiddle play the lead melody with a banjo playing rhythmic accompaniment is the most common form of Appalachian old-time music today.
Individualistic three-finger styles were developed independently by such important figures as Uncle Dave Macon, Dock Boggs, and Snuffy Jenkins. Those early three-finger styles, especially the technique developed by Jenkins, led to the three-finger Scruggs style created by Earl Scruggs in the 1940s, which helped advance the split between the old-time genre and the solo-centric style that became known as bluegrass. Jenkins developed a three-finger "roll" method that, while obviously part of the old-time tradition, inspired Scruggs to develop the smoother, faster and more complex rolls that are now standard fare in bluegrass music.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, musicians began to add other stringed instruments to the fiddle-banjo duo—including guitar, mandolin, and double bass (or washtub bass). These provided chordal, bass line, and pitched rhythmic accompaniment, and occasionally took over the melody, usually during a "break" section that lasted the duration of a verse, refrain, or verse and refrain. This, along with a Dobro (resonator guitar), is also considered 'standard' bluegrass instrumentation, but old-time music tends to focus on sparser instrumentation and arrangements compared to bluegrass. Such an assemblage, of whatever instrumentation, became known simply as a "string band." Less frequently used are the cello, piano, hammered dulcimer, Appalachian dulcimer, tenor banjo, tenor guitar, lap-steel guitar, mandola, mouth bow, as well as other instruments such as the jug, harmonica, autoharp, jaw harp, concertina, button or accordion, washboard, spoons, or bones.
The fiddle is sometimes played by two people at the same time, with one player using the bow and fingers, while another player stands to the side and taps out a rhythm on the fiddle strings using small sticks called fiddlesticks (also spelled "fiddle sticks"). This technique (also sometimes called "beating the straws") is utilized in performance most notably by the duo of Al and Emily Cantrell.[6][7]
Each regional old-time tradition accompanies different dance styles. Some of these include clogging and flatfoot dancing (Appalachia), contra dancing (New England), square dancing (Southern states) and step dancing (Nova Scotia, particularly Cape Breton Island), though there is some overlap between regions.
Contemporary musicians[edit]
The current old-time music scene is alive and well, sparked since the mid-1990s by the combined exposure resulting from several prominent films, more accessible depositories of source material, and the work of some touring bands, including The Freight Hoppers, The Wilders, Uncle Earl, Old Crow Medicine Show, and the Glade City Rounders.
A new generation of old-time musicians performs as solo acts and band leaders all over the country, including: Brad Leftwich, Dan Levenson,[17] Bruce Molsky, Rafe Stefanini, Bruce Greene, Rhys Jones, Rayna Gellert, Riley Baugus, Leroy Troy, Alice Gerrard, Dirk Powell, Walt Koken, Clifton Hicks,[18] and Martha Scanlan. The Appalachian dulcimer has long been a part of string bands in the Galax, Virginia, area and is seeing new popularity re-emerging as a key instrument for old-time music, thanks to the influence of musicians such as Don Pedi, David Schnaufer, Lois Hornbostel, Wayne Seymour his disciples, Milltown and Stephen Seifert. American hammered dulcimer players like Ken Kolodner, Mark Alan Wade and Rick Thum continue this tradition.[19] Family bands, such as The Martin Family Band, from Maryland, are continuing the traditions of old time music played on fiddle, banjo, lap dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, mandolin, piano, guitar, bass and percussion. The Carolina Chocolate Drops directly address the lost tradition of black stringband music.
Living elders of the music include Charlie Acuff of Alcoa, Tennessee, Chester McMillian of Mount Airy, North Carolina, Lee Sexton of Line Fork, Kentucky, Thomas Maupin of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, George Gibson of Knott Co., Kentucky, Michael Defosche Jackson Co., TN, Rob Morrison of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Jimmy Costa of Talcott, West Virginia, Curtis Hicks of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Clyde Davenport of Monticello, Kentucky, Delmer Holland of Waverly, Tennessee, and Harold Luce of Chelsea, Vermont.
Prominent old-time music festivals (some of which also include bluegrass, dance, and other related arts) include the Northern Lights Bluegrass and Old Tyme Music Camp and Festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada (established 2005),[20] Old Fiddler's Convention in Galax, Virginia (established 1935), the West Virginia State Folk Festival[21] in Glenville, West Virginia (established 1950), the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest in Weiser, Idaho (established 1953), the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention in Mount Airy, North Carolina (established 1972), Uncle Dave Macon Days in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston, West Virginia (established 1977), the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, Fayette County, West Virginia (established 1990), Breakin' Up Winter in Lebanon, Tennessee, the Winfield Music Festival is held in Winfield, Kansas and the Smithville Fiddlers' Jamboree and Crafts Festival held in Smithville, Tennessee (established in 1972).[22]
Dancing[edit]
Because old-time fiddle-based string band music is often played for dances, it is often characterized as dance music. There are also long-standing traditions of solo listening pieces and fiddle songs, such as those documented in West Virginia by Erynn Marshall in Music in the Air Somewhere: The Shifting Borders of West Virginia's Fiddle and Song Traditions (WVU Press, 2006). In dance music as played by old-time string bands, emphasis is placed on providing a strong beat, and instrumental solos, or breaks, are rarely taken. This contrasts with bluegrass music, which developed in the 1940s as concert music. Bluegrass music developed from old-time music and shares many of the same songs and instruments, but is more oriented toward solo performance than is old-time music.
Many different types of dancing are done to old-time music, such as square dancing, contra dancing, and buck dancing.
While in the British Isles reels and jigs both remain popular, the reel is by far the predominant metric structure preferred by old-time musicians in the United States (though a few hornpipes are also still performed). Canadian musicians, particularly in the Maritime provinces where the Scottish influence is strong, perform both reels and jigs (as well as other types of tunes such as marches and strathspeys).