Old-time music

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Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music.It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle, 5-string banjo without a resonator pan (usually played without finger picks), guitar, mandolin, and possibly bass. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band. Also called "old-timey", the genre is distinct from the more widely known bluegrass genre despite the wide (but not complete) intersection of the tunes and songs in the repertoire.

Many documentaries and public commentaries fail to understand the distinctions in bluegrass and old-time playing styles. Some of the differences are:

Old-time music often uses cross-tunings on the fiddle^[1]
In old-time sessions, all melody instruments will try to play the melody in unison.
In old-time music, individual instruments do not take breaks to provide jazz-like improvisations on the melody, but instead try to repeat the given melody faithfully during each tune repetition.
Old-time sessions typically remain in one tuning or key for an extended period (because fiddles and banjos are tuned especially for that key or even for one tune^[1])
Old-time banjos are typically frailed^[2] instead of finger-picked and usually lack resonators pans (and are thus softer and mellower sounding than in bluegrass)
Bluegrass singing has developed its own stylisms that include tight, barber-shop style harmonies (especially on choruses) and, often, bend notes at the beginnings and ends of phrases.
Bluegrass has developed specific stylisms, especially a distinctive 6-note descending or ascending run often inserted by instruments in the space at the ends of melodic phrases.

History[edit]

Old-time music developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, contra dancing and buck dancing. The genre is considered by some to be a precursor to modern country music, but it is also has a contemporary active subculture of musicians in various parts of the United States.

Footnotes[edit]

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 (1989) Old-Time Fiddling Across America. Mel Bay. ISBN 0-7866-5381-7. “Some cross-tunings are named for the key they imply; others are named after tunes usually played in that tuning.”
↑ Frailing is not really the same as clawhammer. Frailing is done with the outermost knuckles instead of fingertips, and it is prevalent in old-time string band music. Fingerpicking (clawhammer style) of banjos is not confined to old-time music and may be found in sessions for other genres such as Cape Breton fiddle tunes.

[cross-1] 1.0 ^1.1 (1989) Old-Time Fiddling Across America. Mel Bay. ISBN 0-7866-5381-7. “Some cross-tunings are named for the key they imply; others are named after tunes usually played in that tuning.”

[2] Frailing is not really the same as clawhammer. Frailing is done with the outermost knuckles instead of fingertips, and it is prevalent in old-time string band music. Fingerpicking (clawhammer style) of banjos is not confined to old-time music and may be found in sessions for other genres such as Cape Breton fiddle tunes.

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