I play Americana music - folk, old-timey, bluegrass, country-western, swing, etc. Within those genres, only old-timey seems to have a noticable difference in length. 've heard some fiddler/banjo duos go on for 5 minutes and longer, whereas most of the other genres run around 2 to 3 minutes - except of course for some of the old ballads.

In chatting with a staff member I just learned that the Siamese Shadow Puppet tradition has a show which lasts, non-stop, for 24 hours. I also know that some Egyptian/Arabic song performances are 20 minutes in length.

Would anyone care to elaborate on the time differences in "performance" in different cultures ?

I see the American forms as being shaped by the commercial aspects of radio & TV, but there's also the "squirm factor" - an audience gets tired of sitting in a seat after a period of time. What do you all think ?