Once upon a time there were these poor farmers living in Ireland. Times eventually got to be so hard for them that they had to leave their native land in big, overcrowded, leaky boats. It was a very long trip on those days. (Some people are still arriving even now) At any rate, During the long trip in those leaky boats, the music of the Irish and Scots-Irish Immigrants got watered down! Furthermore, When they got to America, their financial situation wasn't much better, and they ended up being in the bottom of American society, working on the railroads. With them was another of the poorest ethnic groups in the country at the time; the freed slave. Well these people of African descent, thought the watered down music of the Irishman was the funniest thing they'd ever heard so they played their own version of it. The Irish workers thought THAT was the funniest thing they'd ever heard so they played a version of that! And so it came to pass that watered-down Irish music put through 2 generations of ridicule became what we now know as Old-Time music. Finally, if you take your instruments and tune them to absolutely perfect then bang them on the floor right before playing, that's old-time music.

Sorry, I couldn't resist

Rich