Origins: Breakdowns

Subject: Origins: Breakdowns
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 07:05 PM

What makes an instrumental a "Breakdown"?? I assume they are uniquely American. I've never heard "The Galtee Mountain Breakdown"
or "The Ruhr Valley Breakdown". Does the style have another name in another place?

Don

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 07:15 PM

I can't support the authenticity of it, but the explanation given to me many years ago was that any song can be played as a "breakdown," in which the normal "dance pace" is abandoned in order to show off the virtuosity of the musicians. A few tunes that were easy to play at "breakdown speed," or were frequently played that way, picked up the "breakdown" in the customary titles.

It was also - by the same sources - claimed that the musicians would play pieces late in the evening at increasingly rapid pace - speeding up during each piece - to wear out the dancers so they'd let the band go home.

Since bluegrass became popular, they seem all to be played that way, so one might question the need for the term - if there's anything to that explanation (which there may not be).

John

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: Ernest
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 02:02 AM

Don:
You never heard of the Ruhr valley breakdown, because it`s done by politicians instead of musicians ;0)
Yours
Ernest

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 02:36 AM

A friend of mine had a breakdown, but as long as he keeps taking the tablets, he's all right.

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 08:08 AM

In England the term breakdown was used to refer to fast hornpipes especially to accompany step dancing.

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: Inükshük
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 05:28 PM

At the old time dances in Southern Ontario when I was a kid, they always did three square dances in a row. The first two were usually fairly tame but the third was always called the "breakdown"; fast and vigorous. In the course of the evening's dancing there would be three such sets. Some of those callers had a sadistic streak.

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 06:11 PM

As far as I know, a "breakdown" is the final figure of a set quadrille--the one where all four couples are active at the same time, rather than "first couple out" or "head couples out" or "single visitor"
figures. Music (as befit the figure) was frenetic.

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 12:57 AM

The description/definition(?) in The New Harvard Dictionary of Music 1986, is rather vague:

"Breakdown. In U.S. folk music of the rural South beginning about 1850, an animated instrumental (especially fiddle) tune in duple meter, often to accompany dancing; also the associated lively dance."

Except for the implied (ca, 1850) era of origin, it doesn't really say much.

John

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:56 PM

I could swear we've been through this before (on Mudcat), but a search on "breakdowns" gets so many results and with the new "summaries" they're slower to scan... so I didn't take the time to sort through it all. :-(

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:51 PM

I like teh new search, but is it still possible to use the old one?

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: DonMeixner
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:40 PM

Thanks for answering my question everyone.

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 11:23 PM

The Oxford Dictionary has a quote from New England Tales, by Bartlett, 1864- "Don't clear out when the quadrilles are over, for we are going to have a breakdown to wind up with." Often used for a riotous dance; later applied to Negro dances. Little to go on.

Subject: RE: Origins: Breakdowns
From: IanC
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 08:38 AM

In England, a breakdown (in this context) is a set of hornpipes played as a medley. The most famous being the Boscastle Breakdown. The term seems to be at least 19th Century.

:-)