I was out of town when this post first went up and it looks to be pretty well covered by now - but as an Old Time guitarist I still want to put my two cents on the dead horse.

Old Time music in its current form covers a fair amount of ground (much of it overlapping other genres) as does any "label".   There are certain tendencies, however, many of which you find frequently in Old Time. Naturally little of the following applies in all cases – exceptions are the rule.

The Old Time body of music is based to some degree on the written compilations and audio recordings made in and around the 1920s and 30s (and the recorded rural radio shows of the time) by, of and/or from musicians who played the music and style they had learned over the previous 50 years, including materials they had in turn learned from older generations.   Much of it did come from the US south and southern midwest – but by no means all.   Some of the music was "performed music" that had been played professionally in city dance halls and minstrel shows, but some of it was just tunes played in the hills on back porches or at the Saturday night barn dance. A lot of it originally was vocal including ballads – but some of that is being lost and in some groups the instrumental component is emphasized.   Since that is the portion of Old Time Music with which I deal and am most familiar I am going to limit most of the rest of my comments to that subgroup – but it is not the only aspect of Old Time Music. To some degree it is an economic issue – one of the easiest ways for an Old Time musician to make money is by playing at square and contradances - so that aspect - the instrumental dance music portion of the Old Time spectrum - tends to be played and passed on disproportionately to some of the other parts.

The instrumental music tends to include a blend of old English, Irish and Scottish based fiddle tunes (reels and hornpipes, a few waltzes etc) fused with African American banjo music all mish-mashed together over the generations but there are other influences - such as French and Canadian. Two examples of the types of tune considered as Old Time instrumental dance tunes which are still somewhat widely known are Turkey in the Straw (known by various other names) and Arkansas Traveler. They do have words but we tend to treat the words as being secondary and normally omit them. Some of the words of these tunes were just floating verses that musicians tacked onto the tune becuase the local church didnt like tunes without words (dance music) as opposed to tunes with words (parlor games). Other times the words just dont make much sense today - but a lot of Old Time music is still sung - check out Bruce Molsky or Dirk Powell, they always include some vocals.

People do write new tunes in the Old Time style which receive various degrees of acceptance - some insist on a 19th or early 20th century pedigree – but others are more flexible and many tunes written since 1940 are played by most Old Time groups if the style is right.   Even some Old Time vocal music is recently written.

A significant percentage of the tunes are relatively short often two 8 measure (in 4/4 time at least) stanzas - which are often played in an AA BB format.   Many tunes which didn't quite fit this mold have been "adapted" to it because 32 measures is what works best for square and contra dances - this is called "squaring" a "crooked" tune.   However a lot of "crooked" tunes remain out there and we enjoy playing them in non dance settings because they are so different sounding.

Many of the same tunes are played in both Old Time and Bluegrass styles – the difference is in the style of presentation. Old Time instrumental music and much of its vocal music is typically fiddle driven - with the fiddle providing the primary melody line. Banjo, which is a typical second instrument in the combo, doodles around loosely following the melody – often with clawhammer but finger styles are also used, albiet some effort is made to stay clear of true Scruggs playing.   The guitar is relegated to a backup roll – typically providing the bass, rhythm and harmony chords often with a boom-chuck approach (although this is somewhat dependent on what other instruments are available and local variations as well). Other instruments can include bass, mando (which may track the melody),and occasionally dulcimer, harmonica, jaws harp, banjo/uke, dobro, penny whistle, and accordian, among others. When these tunes are sung the vocal is almost like a break from the instrumental – with the instruments playing softly while the singer does and verse or verse and chorus, and then coming back in.

Besides the heavy reliance on the fiddle and lack of Scruggs banjo, the general style of play is also distinct from bluegrass . In Old Time the musicians typically do not take solo breaks and do not attempt the level of virtuoso adornment (including the guitar G runs) that make bluegrass so unique. The fast dance music is frequently played no faster than the walking pace needed for square of contradances – bluegrass frequently goes at a faster clip.   The lack of solos (other than the voice in vocal songs) and the repetitive nature of the short AABB format tends to make the music seem like the same thing is being played over and over again – especially since dance tunes frequently need to be played for at least 6 to 8 minutes in order to get the dancers back to their starting positions in the dance cycle.   In fact there is a lot of subtle variation going on but it is not as varied as bluegrass – so it is boring to some people.

Much has been made of the hypnotic state that Old Time instrumental players can get into.   There are a number of things going on.   A major goal of many Old Time instrumental players is to achieve a type of perfection of simplicity - sort of an "it's not fancy so lets get every nuance perfect" attitude.   Getting the timing exactly in synch, and making sure the banjo and mando are tracking the fiddle melody just right and having the guitar find just right bass run to compliment it all etc becomes a quest that requires playing the tune over and over with everyone concentrating really hard on all the little details until all are satisfied.   It is important that the players be able to see and hear what each other instrument is doing – so they tend to try to get as much in a circle as possible. Since the fiddle frequently does make minor variations in the course of playing the tune over and over the other players must be attuned to pick those up so you have to practice playing it over and over and over.   Keep in mind that Old Time music is frequently played by groups of musicians who do not regularly play together and the tunes by their nature have a huge number of versions and variations so it is critical to make sure everyone ends up playing the same version – So you play the tune until everyone musically "agrees" on the version, play it a few more times until everyone has all their subtleties perfected, play it a few more times to make sure everyone agrees that the perfect blend has been reached and then play it a few more time because it sounds so good at that point.    The more instruments you have the harder it is to achieve the right blend, but much depends on the experience of the players, their familiarity with the tune and with each other, the nature of the tune etc.   Crooked tunes - which may have a 9 measure part followed by a 7 measure part – or just an extra beat here and there - can take more time than normal because usually every one messes up a few times the first 5 times through it.

This is all called finding the "groove".   It looks dumb to outsiders but it has its place.   You will see this at informal gatherings at festivals and jam sessions more than in performed versions of the tunes – musicians who regularly have played together as a group don't need that many reps and are more sensitive to the audience when performing in public.   As such I suppose there is a sort of selfishness to it in that Old Time musicians that are jamming may care less about how they sound to other people than how they sound to themselves. Since it supposed to be a participatory music form, most of the OT musicians I know would rather that an outsider try to join in a jam than sit and watch it in anyway.   Another aspect of the repetition is in teaching the tunes to people who don't know them at all.   Most people learn a lot of this music by just listening and playing – at our little school here we make an effort at our jams to play the tunes enough times that a person who didn't know it at all at the beginning can play it pretty well by the end.

Yes it bores some people but we love it just the same.