The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #115115 Message #2461154
Posted By: Desert Dancer
09-Oct-08 - 12:27 PM
Thread Name: What's a breakdown?
Subject: RE: What's a breakdown?
Here are two good responses for the same questions from The Session:
1) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/reed/hrabout.html Breakdown: instrumental tunes in duple meter (2/4 or 4/4) at a quick dance speed. This general term in the American South is roughly equivalent to the term "reel" elsewhere in the English-speaking world. But it does not imply a particular type of dance; a "breakdown" tune may be used for square dances, longways dances, or other group dances, as well as for solo fancy dancing. Reels: a class of dance tunes in duple meter (2/4 or 4/4 time), played at a fast tempo. The reel as a dance was originally a "longways" dance with couples forming facing lines, but the reel as a tune class is used for all sorts of group dances. In the American South the reel class has expanded into the large and generic breakdown class of dance tunes. # Posted on October 19th 2007 by wyogal
2) In American Old Time fiddling the term "Breakdown" is used mostly in the Southern mountainous regions of the U.S ranging from the Appalachian chain westward into the Ozarks - with some spill over into the bordering areas.
In these regions the term "Breakdown" means an up-tempo dance tune that's played mostly by bowing two adjacent strings simultaneously while noting one or the other of'em. The two adjacent string pairs that are bowed will change as the tune's played.
This technique's especially effective when the fiddle's "cross-tuned" usually to ADAE for the key of D or AEAE for the key of A. The effective is to create a louder sound and to impart greater energy to the dancers - who are usually clogging.
In these regions a tune that's played by using mostly single note sequences to impart the melody and rhythm is often called a "Hornpipe" - without regard the how the term's used outside these regions - dotted eighth rhythm.
Southern OT fiddlers who prefer to render a tune using mostly single notes sequencesare sometimes referred to as "Hornpipe Fiddlers". This usually a derisive term unless the target's especially good at it. Probably Cyril Stinnett from Missouri was one of our best - if not the best - American "hornpipe fiddler".
Most OT fiddle tunes combine a bit of both styles of playing. Any of these might be called a Breakdown, or sometimes a Reel, or sometimes even a hornpipes, though usually they just have a name that doesn't include any of these terms. We don't really have a rule book... ;-)
In Texas and points West the term "Breakdown" has been replaced by the term "Hoedown". I don't know the origin of the newer term. In Texas - and many of the Prairie states" - it's too hot to clog so the dance of choice there is the "Two step" that wants a slower tempo than that used for clogging. As dancing to live fiddling as has died off over the years, Texas fiddlers have used the slower tempo of the Hoedown as an opportunity to improvise on the older Breakdown tunes - creating the newer "Texas Style" of contest fiddling.
--OTJ # Posted on October 19th 2007 by OTJunky
and, from the Online Etymology Dictionary, under the entry for "break dancing": breakdown "a riotous dance, in the style of the negroes" is recorded from 1864.