Barry,

There are some oldtime/fiddle tunes that include sung passages, a few lines sort of shouted out to break the monotony of the incessant tune in a long dance... While the words themselves may vary (floating/zipper verses) in a tune that has 'em, a given tune generally either does include them, or doesn't. Sung intervals don't generally get spontaneously added later on in the history, except maybe for Uncle Dave Macon's comedic embroidering on well-known tunes of his time. I guess some tunes just lend themselves more to that than others, or give more room for voiced syllables within the fast-paced fiddling.

The main thing about oldtime fiddle tunes, although many of them are as pretty as sung songs, is their rhythm-- because they are, first and foremost, dance music. They are more related to session tunes in the UK than to sung music of the US. They evolved in the US into un-dance-ably fast bluegrass style, as instrumental interludes between sung bluegrass music in a set or jam.

Some tunes are known nowadays both in bluegrass circles and in oldtime circles, though they are played somewhat differently as to speed, ornamentations, and technique.

~Susan