quote:
Originally posted by The Violin Beautifulquote:
Originally posted by tonyelderquote:
Originally posted by The Violin Beautifulquote:
Originally posted by bacfirequote:
Originally posted by NCnotesRich's jam does sound kind of scary.
Must be the same one we heard about where the less accomplished fiddlers leave in tears. Brutal.
No, one was an Old Time jam, the other was an Irish session. I haven't been to the really brutal sessions, but I have played at one where one of the leaders would stop a tune in the middle if someone was playing the wrong notes, tell the player to stop playing, and restart the tune. That last one is overall a friendly one as well, but you have to know the tunes if you play (no learning as you go).
...and that is what supposedly defines the genre?
Absolutely not. I have already given the definition I think describes the genre. Playing in group settings like jams or sessions is merely one method of playing the music, although it could perhaps be argued that these settings excise the music from its traditions of being played for dances.
The social etiquette that players use at gatherings does not define the genre itself, just the practices that are popular with players.
I appreciate what you are trying to say - but I'm not aware of any universal consensus among players about any of this - anywhere. Every artist performing this music on stage - and every fiddler at every dance - and every jam you could attend - is going to play these same tunes - in the way they learned them and in their own particular style of fiddling - usually based on their skill level. It has been that way, it is that way, and it will continue that way.
That is a fact that I have learned from experience. I have started more one topic here talking about that very thing. When I play with a different group of players as an outsider... the tunes will be the same - but they won't always be played the same way I learned them. Same with dances or stage performances. That might sound like I'm complaining, and I am - but my complaining has more to do with me wanting to be a fiddler who would be welcomed back instead of one that causes a collective groan when they see me coming. I will never say - "they aren't playing old time", because they don't them the way I do. And you'll never hear me confess that I'm not an old time fiddler because I don't play the tunes the same way they do. I will continue to make an honest effort to play those tunes the way they are familiar with - when I'm playing with them - and for me - that is "old time".
The key. They are the same tunes from a common source. And that is why I suggested the collection of tunes we play is a better way to define "old time" - if it needs a definition - than the way those tunes are played. Most of the time the variations don't really matter - sometimes they do. No one has ever "kicked me out" - but occasionally we will have a "discussion" after we finish a tune. I will be quick to add - those discussions have never been heated - never. The discussion never included anything like "that's not old time" - more like "that's not how we play it".
My complaint is about my short comings. I'm not in the place where I can pick up on those thing quick enough for me to feel good about what I am contributing. But I get excited when a tune is called that I can play. I'd like to stay excited while we are playing it. ...that is "old time".
Anyway... enough.
tonyelder - You have moose in Mississippi? Looks like you have quite a bit of snow there too!
Or as the Scots would say "There's a Moose aboot the hoose"
quote: Originally posted by DougD tonyelder - You have moose in Mississippi? Looks like you have quite a bit of snow there too!
...I'll let you determine how and why the picture got posted... I must have clicked on the photo (in attachments below Message window) without knowing...
We lived in Anchorage, AK from 2000 - 2014. That was a picture of a bull moose in our back yard. That was not un-common. The ones below I'm posting "on purpose". I hope you enjoy. 
I've got pictures of black bear and brown bear too. They were almost as common as the moose.
We really really loved living there. And where we lived (location in the city) - magic. Friends? none better anywhere - and a bunch of them too. Culture out the kazoo. That was music heaven. I remember saying the you had met Kalia Yeagle - her and her dad (Bill) were good friends and band mates for a good while.
And to keep in the spirit of this being an attempt to "define" - a listen to the attached interview with Kalia is interesting. She would come closer to anyone else that I would know for defining the genre.
Anyway - great memories.
Edited by - tonyelder on 03/19/2026 15:43:38
A consistent problem with a lot of the attempts to define the genre is that the act of playing it is confused with its identity. It’s like trying to explain what a car is by giving instructions for driving it; of course all the driving information is relevant to the car in that you need to know how to drive to operate it safely, but that doesn’t define the car. For anyone who hadn’t seen a car before, driving instructions would be mostly useless for explaining what it was.
Looking at it simply as a playing style makes the definition unclear. I’ve listened to descriptions that suggest that Old Time is any fiddle music that was played once the Scots-Irish and English migrated to America and everything after until 1945. I really don’t like that explanation because it just rolls everything into one category, and there was so much more to it than that narrow interpretation allows. There was a period of time where European music was being played in the colonies exactly as it was in Europe, partly because musicians traveled and partly because music was being written and sent overseas for the colonies. Eventually there began to be some differences as people blended the European and African styles and then set off into the hills to let it percolate for a century or so before it was discovered. And in some areas the style of playing did not change as drastically. There was such a wide variety of musical style then, and it’s a shame to paint over it all in one color to simplify the picture.
I also see the discrepancies in approach, even in the same descriptions sometimes, where it’s suggested that Old Time goes back to the 17th or 18th centuries yet also suggested that Old Time is a style that’s indicative of the past. I don’t think players thought the music was nostalgic when it was new.
I think everybody knows all that, Rich...how many times have we heard that? Anything here that's not Native American came from the Old Country from back as far as the Middle Ages, or even earlier...the Church Modes or even Pythagoras ...yeah, yeah, yeah...we all know American music evolved from ancestors across the pond over many centuries and then American got a hold of it and had some influence from enslaved folks, etc. So what? Shouldn't we spend more time and thought just playing the wonderful stuff we love instead of worrying about the exact semantics?
quote:
Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful
I don’t think players thought the music was nostalgic when it was new.
I disagree with that point. It's not that unusual to hear musicians on field recordings from the 1930s to old tunes, old-time tunes, introducing tunes/songs from "way back in the old Civil War days" and such. Print ads for fiddle contests refer to "old fiddlers", "old tunes", etc.; occasionally as far back as the 1880s and commonly by the very early 20th century. Sounds like nostalgia to me. Alternately, many fiddlers played current popular music...tin pan alley, ragtime, swing and blues numbers...alongside the old tunes and seemed in interviews to regard them as very different types of music. Lowe Stokes is a good example.
This conversation really bothers me...and I'm trying to figure out why...lol. A lot of parsing out would be in order, but I have no time. And my personal, internal "Worry sponge" is currently so saturated it's dripping out into the universe and I cannot absorb any more in my world to consume me with worry. Therefore, I must admit I do not care...lol.
Well now that I think about it, I know why this conversation has bothered me. It's like I'm witnessing the innocence, the very verisimilitudinous heart of folk music being slaughtered by ruthlessness in the practice of plain ol' fussiness. Yeah, that's it. That bothers me. It ain't just academia figuring out musical evolution, it feels more like an assault on folk music enjoyed by people who love to play. Maybe I'm wrong...forgive me if that's the case. But it's hurting to watch, so I gotta stop watching. As I said before, my internal Worry sponge is saturated and dripping and cannot absorb any more....which my music sponge sits dry. Not a good place to be.
Well, we did have wildlife photos…(my European friends would ask, “Why is it Goose and Geese, but it’s not Moose and Meese?!” Like, this drove them a little crazy, especially when I said, “I dunno. That’s the way it is.”)
I dunno, I did learn something by the attempts to define OT….basic questions like when did it emerge, where it was played, who played it, and I think that’s all fairly clear. Although rather than words, a central archive of organized recordings would probably work better…
Whether it’s important to fit strictly into the genre label (which was invented for marketing purposes, apparently) is something every player has to answer for themselves! Some of my favorite music defies categorization, and also I feel it would get pretty boring if we all played exactly within the bounds defined by music historians/ethnographers and if we all played it the same way as ‘the fiddlers of yore.’
I wonder - are there people creating “new” OT tunes? In Irish Trad there are new ‘modern’ tunes appearing all the time…I can tell it’s new by listening, but that doesn’t mean I like it less than the classic old tunes. I think part of the survival of a genre is modern players being engaged enough to create new tunes in the genre…
Ok that’s a mouthful! Back to the drawing board! (literally)
quote:
Originally posted by NCnotesI wonder - are there people creating “new” OT tunes? In Irish Trad there are new ‘modern’ tunes appearing all the time…I can tell it’s new by listening, but that doesn’t mean I like it less than the classic old tunes. I think part of the survival of a genre is modern players being engaged enough to create new tunes in the genre…
Ok that’s a mouthful! Back to the drawing board! (literally)
Yes, there are a number of folks creating new "old time" tunes - and most of them are very well done (imo). I'm sure there are some that won't consider them old time - but that is how they have been identified by most everyone I know. I play a number of them, and almost always everyone at the session knows them and will play along.
...a welcomed mouthful! 
Edited by - tonyelder on 03/20/2026 07:52:55
quote:
Originally posted by NCnotes
I dunno, I did learn something by the attempts to define OT….basic questions like when did it emerge, where it was played, who played it, and I think that’s all fairly clear. Although rather than words, a central archive of organized recordings would probably work better…
I think Larry Warren and his gang have done that for us over on https://www.slippery-hill.com/ .
quote:
Originally posted by bacfirequote:
Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful
I don’t think players thought the music was nostalgic when it was new.
I disagree with that point. It's not that unusual to hear musicians on field recordings from the 1930s to old tunes, old-time tunes, introducing tunes/songs from "way back in the old Civil War days" and such. Print ads for fiddle contests refer to "old fiddlers", "old tunes", etc.; occasionally as far back as the 1880s and commonly by the very early 20th century. Sounds like nostalgia to me. Alternately, many fiddlers played current popular music...tin pan alley, ragtime, swing and blues numbers...alongside the old tunes and seemed in interviews to regard them as very different types of music. Lowe Stokes is a good example.
I was referring to the players of the source material here, not the players who originally recorded Old Time. In other words, players going back as far as the 1600s. They didn't think of their tunes as nostalgic. The disctinction I made in my definition of Old Time was that the players of the defining recorded era WERE playing nostalgically.
So we're actually in agreement--the players and promotion from the 1930s were very much focused on looking back.
quote:
Originally posted by groundhogpeggyI think everybody knows all that, Rich...how many times have we heard that? Anything here that's not Native American came from the Old Country from back as far as the Middle Ages, or even earlier...the Church Modes or even Pythagoras ...yeah, yeah, yeah...we all know American music evolved from ancestors across the pond over many centuries and then American got a hold of it and had some influence from enslaved folks, etc. So what? Shouldn't we spend more time and thought just playing the wonderful stuff we love instead of worrying about the exact semantics?
I don't see learning as something to fear. Of course everyone should spend time playing, but spending a little time reading and thinking about what's at the heart of the music is a way to improve playing, not just personal understanding.
Your comment reminds me of a story a colleague told me: he worked a summer internship at a bike shop when he was young. While reading a book during his lunch break, a mechanic walked by and saw that he was reading and commented "I don't like to read. It hurts my brain having to think." My colleague wrote that remark down on a piece of card stock and used it as a bookmark after that. It was amusing because the quote was hilarious, but also because it was not originally intended as a joke. Keeping it immortalized on the bookmark was both a cause of mirth and a bit of encouragement to read more.
Edited by - The Violin Beautiful on 03/20/2026 10:52:39
The only analogy I have in real life is from art school…yea, we all love to draw and paint and sculpt, and some students were annoyed that all were required to take one year of art history. Despite grumbling, everybody took the class and then I have never heard anybody regret it. Art history turned out to be interesting, inspiring … and even useful for work! ( Even those cave painters back in the Neolithic era had cool ideas and symbolism in their art LOL….)
So I don’t think a bit of music history would hurt us as players…as long as it’s not used to tear people down, or box them in.
Not an "outlandish conclusion", but a point difficult to refute...
On "The Myth of Isolation"...
musicofourmountains.com/on-the...solation/
Edited by - ShawnCraver on 03/20/2026 16:18:40
Rich, I'm not saying it's not good to know...I'm saying we've all known it, we've all heard it, we've all heard and studied history... why keep running it through the ground? Why don't you play us a tune...let's have some music for a change!
Well ok...I'll play a tune then. If you're offended by my links to my own youtubes, don't watch. If you're offended by the amateurish nature of my efforts...don't watch/don't listen.
But here's one that's interesting to me because it's probably not exactly OT, yet barely of the modern age...probably a little over a hundred years ago...maybe some would consider that OT...doesn't matter to me. To me...it's folk music. I have never lived in the deep south and never really been there, but we've all heard the cotton stories...the whole history of cotton in the south. The boll weevil came in and destroyed the whole dang idea of growing cotton...but from what I hear, once people caught on to to growing peanuts in them ol' cotton fields, they ended up kinda grateful to the ol' boll weevil. I believe Alabama even has a statue and plaque in admiration to the ol' boll weevil for getting them out of cotton and into more lucrative and easier-to-grow peanuts. So...maybe a light at the end of the tunnel after a long stretch of hard luck and struggle. Still...I haven't experienced that thing and I don't need to know about it...musically, this tune tugs on the right heart strings for the right mood for me to enjoy playing it very much. Our old friends used to call it a "State of Strum," being mainly teenage mutant ninja guitarists...but it applies to fiddling, banjoing, dulcimering, singing...whatever. You get that state of Strum, with a tune that just speaks to you from your own perspective...just play it...your own way. Plus, I would say if I ever did this one in an OT or BG jam, other than whatever key they wanted it in, I'd be able to play very similar to this and not have to adjust too much to keep the flow going smoothly for the jam. My points I tried to make above. So, yeah, you can appreciate the history if you hear it or bother to look it up out of curiosity...but it doesn't affect how the tune strikes me and how it gives me that state of Strum I'm looking for in playing a tune for myself. By the way, with me, words are normally just because I love to sing and something to do besides just la la la. So here we go...if you are offended...please close out the post now.
youtu.be/akgDul7TYTc?si=XoGDwmXr_X4sxPAo or this way
youtu.be/FM_KsUNi2uE?si=l-Nmoinx4EnqBZ0c
I would play it fresh today but as I've bemoaned before...I can't fit music into my life at this point. No states of Strum for me now...'bout to kill me.
Your turn , Rich...play us one. Play us one that puts you into that state of Strum, regardless of its history or what famous person played it this way or that...one that you could easily adjust to fit into a local jam without them having to crash and burn...lol. Let's have music.
On new old time tunes, there's a ton. Folks like Garry Harrison, Chirps Smith, tunes like "Nail that Catfish to a Tree" and many others are regularly a part of jams. You could probably add in dramatic reworkings of old time tunes that have become popular to the point of becoming the norms, things from folks like Rayna Gellert. Are there interesting conversations when someone brings one of those to a jam? Sometimes, yes. Are there folks who question whether that's the right way to play it? Certainly. Does that mean that they don't get played that way? Absolutely not.
So, I'm one of those academics who is interested in tradition. If you'll allow me to push my glasses a bit further up my nose... There's a long history of academic work—especially in folklore—attempting to define traditions in isolation. At this point, though, that's a pretty outdated way of thinking about things. Most have recognized that ideas have been circulating in ways that are far more important than was recognized in the collection projects of the early and mid-20th century.
From my own view, tradition is much, much more interesting as a changing process in its own right. What folks see as traditional (and as tradition) is always shifting with the same circulations of ideas and pressures. It's an ideological thing and power matters: record companies or festivals have reasons to promote certain musics in certain ways. Recognizing those pressures makes for a much more honest and nuanced understanding of the musical creativity of the folks we celebrate (and helps us to celebrate the ones who have been left out of those narratives of tradition). Happy to go on, but I'll step off of my soap box. Thanks for the great back and forth on this thread!
as much as i like the old fashioned spirit of a 'challenge' for a person to play (i can get real 1970s upper-south playground brain real quick-like myself) but it really shifts the conversation...one person's music is going to be a whole nother conversation.
which may be a key, at least to me, in understanding the genre... and a tension in these conversations...i've said it before, but when tommy jarrel plays his fiddle, that's tommy's music. or spiffy mcgee or sporty jenkins or spaz dunright or old doc smithwick or fiddlin johnny dewmire or whatever fiddler name you stick in there...it's their music
it's romantic to put it up one fiddler as an example of something or representative of a region...we like to categorize and compartmentalize things in the brain... some more than others. for every "authentic" fiddler out there, there's one just down the road that does it differently.
that individualism in old time fiddling is a quandary.... for some, the quandary perhaps.
I'll have to go reread Rich's pots but I think there that I can relate to that might be what is the root of this.
I hate to see things go negative. i like spirited, but hoping for good crops from all this **** (of which we've probably all spread a little)
Yes, the one thing they had in common - more than anything else is what they played - not necessarily how they played. But I'm not willing to "die on that hill" - mainly because I know how easy it is to take a tune to another place. A lot of "old time" tunes made it into to country - certainly made it into bluegrass, and even rock. And so, what's it called then? 
Edited by - tonyelder on 03/21/2026 14:15:41
If it quacks like a duck, or smells like a rose...then you see the power of and place for words and prose. Gee it rhymes.
Don't say it, just play it, for heaven's sake. I'm so frustrated by not being able to play at this point in our lives...if you have a minute and a bow, I hope you can play and enjoy playing.
And I think Rich the Beautiful Violinist is enjoying playing now, but I'm wondering if he put this whole post together with super glue...lol...because as much as it bothers me and as much as I don't like the angels on the head of a pin type constructions, for some reason I keep feeling it sticking on me and not letting me go...lol. But it's Sunday...play that fiddle. I sure wish I could. I fear with all the time away, and with only barely over a decade of having played the fiddle...I'm gonna completely forget how to play and my bows will all rot away...that rhymes...so I'll sing it into a song while I'm washing the dishes.
Edited by - groundhogpeggy on 03/22/2026 05:18:45
quote:
Originally posted by tonyelderYes, the one thing they had in common - more than anything else is what they played - not necessarily how they played. But I'm not willing to "die on that hill" - mainly because I know how easy it is to take a tune to another place. A lot of "old time" tunes made it into to country - certainly made it into bluegrass, and even rock. And so, what's it called then?
But the players weren't all playing the same tunes. The various musicians who were recorded at the defining time played many tunes that were unique to them. There might have been some tunes that were common among musicians, but that was the case long before the existence of Old Time. The tunes alone don't define the genre. The classic old tunes are fiddle tunes, not Old Time tunes.
Looking at it as though everyone was playing the same things ignores that they lived in different regions and developed any of their own tunes there over time. Fiddle tunes were less and less standardized as people moved farther into the hills and stayed there.
Edited by - The Violin Beautiful on 03/22/2026 06:34:31
Groundhog Peggy - I enjoyed your "Boll Weevils." That photo of the kitchen reminds me of a pleasant weekend from long ago. I had a girlriend who was from a tiny town on the VA side of Cumberland Gap. One summer she worked as an intrepretive naturalist in the Great Smoky Mountains park, in Oconoluftee on the Cherokee side (long before the casino era). Part of her job was to spend a weekend every month or so at what was then called the "Pioneer Farmstead," and one weekend she got permission for me to join her. There were animals to feed and other chores, and the kitchen in the log house looked a lot like the one in your photo. Saturday morning she cooked breakfast on the open hearth while I sat in the doorway on one of those chairs and played the banjo. There was a working pump organ in the main room, and Sunday morning I played a few hymns for the tourists on the other side of the rope. A few people asked if we really lived there, so I guess we were convincing enough. It was a lot of fun.
So here are a couple of songs that people probably don't hear in their local jam sessions:
quote:
Originally posted by groundhogpeggyIf it quacks like a duck, or smells like a rose...then you see the power of and place for words and prose. Gee it rhymes.
Don't say it, just play it, for heaven's sake.
The Fiddle Hangout is a discussion forum. Regular life is the place for just playing the tunes. A discussion forum is for discussion.
Posting a recording of a tune doesn't change the factual validity of an argument. A good player doesn't necessarily have anything valid to say and a bad one isn't necessarily unable to share something insightful.
Your constant badgering to post recordings is just a distraction from the discussion.
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