Old-time music
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Old-time music, a traditional style of American music, has roots in Irish, English, Scottish and African folk music. During the late 19th and early 20th century, minstrel, tin pan alley and other popular music also entered the genre. Practitioners play it with stringed instruments such as the fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin and bass. Old time music was originally associated with the Appalachia region of the United States of America.
The term "old-time" as a label goes back to 1923. Fiddlin' John Carson made some of the very first commercial recordings of traditional American country music for the Okeh label. The recordings became hits and Okeh, which had previously coined the term "race recording" for African-American recording artists, began using old time music as a descriptive term for records by artists of Carson's style.
Instrumental old-time music is traditionally played at dances, and is considered to be dance music. This contrasts with bluegrass music which is largely 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.
Old-time music experienced a great revival in the early 1960s in areas such as Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Alan Jabbour, founding director of the Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, became a leader of this revival while a student at Duke University.
Traditionally, players learn old-time music by ear. Even those musicians who can read music will learn and play old-time tunes by ear. A broad selection of written music does exist. However, it is widely acknowledged that the style of old time music cannot be practically notated by written music.
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Appalachian regional influences
Appalachian folk music is a distinctive genre of folk music Appalachian music is believed to have developed from traditional Scottish, English and Irish music brought to the USA by immigrants from those countries, and in turn it influenced country music and Old Time Music.
A Scottish fiddler named Neil Gow is usually credited with developing (during the 1740s) the short bow sawstroke technique that defined Appalachian fiddling. This technique was altered during the next century, with European waltzes and polkas being most influential.
Appalachian folk became a major influence on styles like country music and bluegrass.
See also
Samples
- Download recording - “The Old Grey Mare” Appalachian folk music from the Library of Congress' Gordon Collection (http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Gordon/sideAbandA3.html#oldgraymare); performed by Bascom Lamar Lunsford in the Asheville, North Carolina area on October 19, 1925.
- The Henry Reed Collection at the Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hrhtml/hrhome.html) Collection of traditional fiddle tunes performed by Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia. Recorded by folklorist Alan Jabbour in 1966-67.
External links
The folowing are links to traditional old time string band websites.
- The Southern String Band (http://southernstringband.net)
- Big Medicine (http://www.bigmedmusic.com/)