Hi! I'm a student at Cal Poly State University
and I'm studying to get a music minor. I am doing my senior project
on fiddling and had a couple of questions for you. First of all,
is there a distinguishable difference between fiddle music and
cowboy songs such as red river valley or the streets of laredo?
I'm having trouble defining what fiddling is exactly and thought
I might try and define what fiddling is not...
Also, are there certain songs that you consider specific to a
certain style or are most songs played in different fiddling styles,
but just played differently?
thanks, Katy
Hi Katy,
You ask a good question. "Songs," and "Tunes,"
are two different things! A song has words, but a tune is usually
instrumental only. Most fiddle music consists of "tunes,"
which can be described as "dance music." Cowboy songs
are not tunes, but "songs," because they have words,
and were originally composed for people to sing.
I can play the melody of a cowboy song on my fiddle, but it is
still considered a song, and not a "fiddle tune." Most
fiddle music is dance music, and designed to be danced to, and
not designed to have words put to in order to sing. Occasionally,
however, someone will be intrigued by a fiddle tune's melody,
and be inspired to put words to it. In that case I suppose it
could then be defined as either a tune or a song, depending upon
how it was performed and whether it was first either a tune or
a song.
Your other question refered to styles. There are a lot of general
rules but no absolutes. I'd say that most traditional tunes (out
of the tens of thousands that exist in many ethnic fiddle traditions
from many countries) are usually played in only one style. There
is a much smaller subset of tunes that are played in several styles.
For example, Many thousands of Irish and Scottish jigs(tunes in
6/8 time) are never played in bluegrass style, because 99.9% of
bluegrass doesn't use music in 6/8 time. On the other hand, a
certain handful of Irish or Scottish reels(in 2/4 or 4/4 time)
are regularly played in bluegrass or other American styles, even
though they were originally played only in Scottish or Irish style.
Another example is in traditional Jewish Klesmer music. Some klesmer
tunes are also played as Romanian fiddle tunes, and vice versa.
They are recognizable as the same tunes, but played in different
styles depending upon whether they are played by klesmer bands
or Romanian violinists.
Hope this helps! Ryan Thomson