I was listening to the acoustic program tonight on public radio and heard right in a row three nice fiddle tunes by different artists. And it started me wondering about some questions re. fiddling terminology.

I feel a bit like Fionn, I think, in the "Sopranos" thread, trying to describe a certain sound that I know you'd recognize in two seconds if you heard it, but ... here goes:

* In some country or bluegrass music, the fiddle starts the song with this distinctive attack that I most often associate with "hoedown" music. What's that called and where does it come from? Is it found in other sorts of music, e.g. Scots/Irish, as is the case for so much other Appalachian and bluegrass music.

* What's it called when the bow skips across the strings to create that little stutter sound?

* What makes a song a "breakdown?" Does a breakdown have a particular form (as in ABA, etc.) or is a breakdown just a really fast fiddle song that gets faster and faster until at least one of the musicians falls over in a heap (which is sort of what it appears to be to me)?

That last question might be a separate thread, but let's see where that takes us ...

Thanks, WW