Americas (corregir

4. The Americas.

The violin arrived in large numbers in North America during the 17th century, and has flourished ever since as both concert violin and folk fiddle. Fiddling is marked not just by a heavy reliance on oral tradition, but also by customary functions, venues, repertories, and, especially in certain parts of the southern states, by playing techniques and some use of scordaturas. The categories of violin and fiddle overlapped considerably at first, and still do: some violinists also play old tunes from memory at dances, and some fiddlers did and do aspire to music literacy, and may play for passive listeners or solely for their own enjoyment. Manuscript music commonplace books from the decades flanking the turn of the 19th century contain reels and hornpipes and popular song tunes alongside classical excerpts. While the romantic image of the illiterate backwoods fiddler of later decades bears more than a germ of truth, many fiddlers were educated community leaders: a steady stream of publications of dance tunes testifies to continued music literacy on the part of some of these men. And while modern contest fiddlers (now including both men and women) include musicians who play only by ear, others puzzle out tunes laboriously from print, and yet others are converted classical violinists.

While violin and fiddle still look alike, the fiddle is less narrowly defined in terms of quality and style of woodworking and varnish application, and in range of desirable timbres. Indeed, in many eras and locations, the relatively nasal and cutting timbres associated with rough-and-ready construction and cheap metal strings helped a solo fiddler be heard by vigorous dancers. The fiddle was the main instrument for the performance of British-American and French-American folk music from the late 18th century well into the 20th. Fiddlers in the colonies that were later to become the USA drew primarily on British traditions (initially Scottish and English, later also Irish) for tunes, ways to compose tunes and shape repertories, and playing styles. The young USA then spawned regional styles, with the North drawing closely on English models and retaining a greater degree of music literacy, and a burgeoning array of southern substyles more strongly linked to Scottish repertories, transmitted both through print and orally, and which absorbed considerable black American influence in performance styles. French Canada drew on French traditions and nurtured new ones (notably in Nova Scotia), while English-speaking Canada nourished styles related to that of New England. The imported tunes and home-grown tunes on imported models that formed the core of the fiddlers' repertory were usually linked with dance genres. During the early 19th century the repertory was supplemented with vocal airs, marches and other popular tunes. As decades passed, and the solo fiddler, fifer or flautist was replaced in cultivated circles by ensembles or keyboard instruments, fiddle music emerged as a discrete, generally rural array of older dances, plus a few descriptive airs and hymn tunes. British hornpipes and reels became American hoedowns, just as other duple-time social dance tunes were eventually fitted into the polka category and various triple-time dances were reworked as waltzes.

As American fiddling became less British or French and more American, other instruments more frequently joined in performance. The fife, which had been closely associated with the fiddle since the Revolutionary War era, was also played in fife and drum corps, so military and dance tunes came to be shared between fiddlers and fifers. Fiddle and banjo duos became widespread in the wake of the popularity of blackface minstrelsy (from 1843; see Minstrelsy, american) and of medicine shows, and significantly more common when late 19th-century mail-order catalogues helped disseminate a wide range of cut-price products, including families of instruments. Although minstrel-style banjo playing, which survives down to the present day in the upper South as ‘clawhammer’ or ‘frailing’ styles, included African-derived playing techniques, the central repertory for the Southeastern string band (fiddle, banjo, and a few supplementary string instruments including guitar, upright bass, mandolin etc.) has always focussed on British-American dance tunes.

The common-time reel and breakdown usually consist of two (or rarely more) eight-bar strains which contrast in tessitura. A typical performance in older, dance-oriented style consists of one strain twice, the other twice, the first twice, and so on until the dancers are sated. While a few Northern contradances preserve a formerly more common linkage of specific tunes with specific sets of dance figures, many tunes are used interchangeably. That certain tunes are irregularly phrased or otherwise inapt for dance accompaniment reflects the fact that fiddlers have always also played purely for their own and their peers’ pleasure. Today's regional styles are characterized by the degree of melodic ornamentation and variation employed (primarily linear styles predominate in areas such as Texas and Ontario), the degree of affinity with older published models (New England style leads here), and the amount of African- and Scottish-derived syncopation, both bold and subtle. The latter is particularly characteristic of the various styles of the Southastern USA, which are in turn differentiated by whether the high or low strain of a tune is played first, and other factors.

Although most other dance genres have been assimilated into the breakdown, the British hornpipe remains vital in Canada and New England, and a few marches, jigs and descriptive pieces have survived here and there. The most widespread alternative to the breakdown remains the waltz, which arrived in large numbers in the 1810s and 20s, received new impetus around the turn of the 20th century from the new pop song styles of Tin Pan Alley, and has returned as a standard ingredient in modern fiddle contests in most of North America. These contests represent a nativistic folk revival, in which a blend of rural and urban brands of nostalgia, the modern luxury of plenty of practice time for players of all socio-economic backgrounds, and the listening-oriented venue, has spawned legions of polished instrumentalists, again blurring the line between folk and art performance, and between violin and fiddle.
For further discussion of the use of the violin in particular cultures, see the entry on the country or countries in which that culture is contained.