The difference between Fiddle Tunes and Cowboy Songs,

by Ryan Thomson,

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