Unlike classical music, where we have composers, conductors, musical scores, and musicians, in old-time fiddling a tune's composer is very seldom known. No musical notation is definitive; there is no score, no composer's intention, no written down single source, no conductor.
Old-time tunes live in memory and performance; they pass from one fiddler to another. There are only the fiddler, the idea of the tune, and the way the fiddler brings it out, or sets it. An old-time fiddle tune is a little like an empty room: the dimensions are pretty much fixed, and the doors and windows are in place, but the fiddler furnishes the room with a setting according to individual taste.
Over the years, the fiddler changes the setting, improving it a little, making it his or her own. Just as there is no single "correct" way to furnish a room, there is no one right way to play a fiddle tune. There are many right settings, some more satisfying than others.
The above content comes from Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes by Jeff Todd Titon.
Old-time tunes live in memory and performance; they pass from one fiddler to another,
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