I’ve seen a couple of videos from this YouTuber. I think he makes some interesting points and brings up some useful bits of history, although I don’t always agree with his conclusions.

I think it’s undeniable that recording technology had a permanent effect on the world, in many instances a good one, and in a few, to the detriment of some players. However, I don’t think recording was the death of music playing at home or the idea of being an amateur. Professional musicians toured much more extensively than they do today and they often went to venues that were far more remote, even though infrastructure and transportation advances have made it easier to travel than in the past. So people didn’t only hear professional musicians when they first heard recordings—they heard it at their local music venues, like concert halls, theaters, or churches. There were all kinds of traveling minstrels who played in public areas. And when recordings came out, people didn’t stop playing music at home. Many people still played as a pastime, often listening to records for inspiration. The sale of sheet music grew as popular tunes were recorded and people bought the sheet music to play themselves. Just like the “As Seen on TV” badge, popular tunes would often feature an ad on their covers to promote the fact that you were buying music that was just like what your favorite stars were recording.

There was eventually a decline in playing music at home, but I think that was more a result of changes in culture and a move away from a lifestyle where people spent more time at home or in their neighborhoods to one where they went out into public places to find their entertainment.

Recording did not always elevate the level of the music being played. It’s not as though only great players made records—there are plenty of awful ones. Florence Foster Jenkins is a prime example. A little while later The Shaggs released a record that became infamous as the worst recording ever made. If listening to records was supposed to train people to feel bad about their mediocre playing, it clearly didn’t succeed in that aim. I don’t buy that argument.

I also think it’s a cop-out to say that the goal in music is to “just have fun.” In the same video he says to “make good music,” but he’s also saying that it doesn’t matter if you’re a good musician or not. I don’t think anyone should stop playing, and I don’t like the idea of people quitting because they’re not good players. But telling everyone that it’s all about having fun is like giving out participation trophies—the incentive to become skilled disappears and the culture collapses. If there aren’t ideals to which to aspire, it’s actually quite discouraging. Teachers often go to extreme lengths to try to make lessons for their students “fun” with games and pop music thrown in, but that approach doesn’t have a better success rate (in terms of long-term commitment from students as well as in playing ability). On the other hand, there are teachers who are so strict that their students genuinely fear them, yet these teachers often produce excellent players who learn quickly, play more musically, stay committed to the instrument, and end up very passionate about playing.

When I listen to music, I’m listening for the power in the music and the musicality of the player. I don’t have any way of knowing how the player actually feels about anything (good musicians are able to play well regardless of whatever may be going on in their heads and they learn how to put all that aside when they’re on stage). Looking like you’re enjoying the performance you’re giving is a routine part of stage presence, and that’s good for making the audience feel at ease, but it doesn’t actually make the music better. As an act of rebellion, some musicians have chosen to intentionally go against the norms of performance by doing things like fighting with the audience, insulting them, ignoring them, smashing their equipment, or doing things to try to rile them up. It’s ironic because in establishing an alternative idea of stage presence, those behaviors have become standardized and expected in certain genres. What was originally done as an act of nonconformity has spawned its own conformity.

So in the end, I don’t agree at all that the most important thing is having fun. I think what’s most important is striving to become better. It’s not bad for a player to struggle and make a recording that isn’t to the highest standard; it’s bad for that player to make a bad record and then decide it’s just as good as a professional recording just because it was fun to play. If there’s no incentives to improve, there will just be a lot more Florence Foster Jenkinses out in the world without the advantage of a wealthy spouse who can maintain the illusion that what’s being recorded is excellent.

As long as people like playing music and sharing it there will be no end to home made music.

i just enjoy the practice of trying to improve.

It's hard to imagine that home music will end. I think music is like water, it changes from one form to another.

AW love that video! and I think he makes really good points. Reminds of things that Peggy has said (Peggy I do hope you will rejoin us!)

I do beat myself up from listening to recordings of great fiddlers…people say to me, “Hey, you’re good!” and I’m always surprised. In my mind the bar is set by the recordings of great fiddlers and I’ll be thinking: No, actually, I am not. THEY are what’s good, they are the real deal …I am just a pale attempt…

But we have a new beginner fiddler and I’ve been playing with him after sesh sometimes, and he’s a joy. Playing a tune slowly together - whenever he messes up, he makes a face and we both laugh. HIs attitude of discovery and fun is so refreshing! Just like what the guy in the video mentions.

I am still very afraid to mess up….it’s a remnant of classical. If I lead a set, it will be a polished rehearsed thing that I have played 50x at home first. I need to let my hair down … :-)

I’m starting to get the feeling that this is one of those things that, to quote the conspiracy-theorists (sorry!): “If you know, you know.” He’s not saying that no one is ever going to play music within the four walls of their home again; he’s talking about the home as seat of an informal familial/communal music culture. An analogy is story-telling: I saw a news report on an Appalachian story-teller talking about how when he was a child, the kids would sit down after supper and listen to their father tell stories. He’s taken to youtube to tell stories, because the tradition he grew up with is gone – he’s not saying that no one tells stories any more, but that a particular context for a certain type of story-telling is no more. Perhaps you had to have grown up with this kind of thing to really get it.

Another analogy, to step-dancing: if we watched step-dancing at a concert, with its polished technique and ‘professional’ presentation, my mother’s invariable review would be, “I used to like it when some old fella would just jump up and give a step ….. “ You either get it or you don’t, I suppose.

I just looked at that video. That fella is a good talker. He talked for seven minutes but I didn’t hear any music?

I gather he's got lots of other videos with music ... !

But what does “home made music” even really mean? Is it music played at home? Is it music played by amateur musicians? Is it music not intended for the stage? It’s one of those terms that get bandied about a lot without a lot of thought.

If it’s meant to describe music played at home for fun, that’s still happening. A lot of musicians do just that. Many play at home for family or themselves and invite others over for informal gatherings. Some of my customers play chamber music at home just because they enjoy playing or like to get together to read through some quartets without any pressure and then have a nice meal afterward. My first formal accompanist had her house built to accommodate her piano playing, and she played for herself, gave lessons, rehearsed, and held little gatherings periodically.

Children may not be playing instruments at home as much for fun as they used to, but that’s partly because they tend to play in school already, their schedules are so tightly packed that they barely have time to blink, or because they’re just not living in places that are set up well for it. However, children are often participating in informal groups that form to sing music that they like. Go to almost any playground and you’ll probably hear some K-Pop Demon Hunters songs being sung. Once one child starts, it’s common for a group to form. That's not too different from a group of housewives singing songs together while doing laundry or quilting. 

Adults aren’t playing at home quite as often now that work schedules are more packed and it takes so much effort to pay bills and stock the refrigerator. I think the desire to play music is still there, but a lot of people are just too tired and stressed out to feel like they can take a moment to play music, something that sounds like work if it’s not already a critical part of your life.

I think the perspective of Appalachian music making is also viewed through very rosy glasses. There’s a romantic notion that everyone sat on a porch making music after a good day’s work and that music was the sole form of entertainment. While it wasn’t uncommon to play music, it wasn’t quite so universal as is suggested. Having an instrument hanging on a wall was more common than playing it regularly even back then. A lot of people went through their day humming or singing songs they liked as they worked, but that’s something a lot of people still do today. In more densely populated areas or work environments, it just isn’t considered polite to be making noise and potentially distracting others, so that leads to silence or the use of headphones.

I think a lot of the “the old music just isn’t being played anymore” argument is more about certain forms of music no longer being as popular as they once were rather than about people not playing music in general. There’s still a lot of playing going on, it’s just not all mountain music. But mountain music was never a common form of music outside the mountains other than as a curiosity through Old Time recordings. Even when those recordings were made, the point wasn’t “Listen to the music that people play in the maintains,” it was really more like “Listen to the music that people USED to play in the mountains.” At the same time people interested in historic preservation were going around trying to make field recordings where they could before the musical forms died out. But not long after that, the people who were playing the “old tunes” were also listening to records and the radio for entertainment.

Today there are musicians who are getting attention for making recordings in their homes or backyards or in settings meant to evoke a sense of the homestead (like the YouTuber in the video), often playing their own music or traditional folk music. Does that count as homemade music or is it too commercial if it’s uploaded to a global platform? Does it only count if the listeners are all in the same spot as the player? If you’re watching the video instead of making music, are you killing home made music just by the act of watching or listening instead of just playing your own instrument?

Hmm well, I sit around at my own kitchen table and play along with their video, so I guess we’re making homemade music together…remotely?

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Originally posted by NCnotes

Hmm well, I sit around at my own kitchen table and play along with their video, so I guess we’re making homemade music together…remotely?

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That's one way to interpret it: musicians making music from their homes, whether it's alone or connected via the internet. 
 

However, I get the sense that that's not what Sean is talking about when he describes home made music. He paints a picture of music being a part of family life at home, where it's not just one person finding a spot to play music as a personal endeavor, but an activity that engages all of the family, ideally with everyone joining in. It reminds me of some lyrics from an old Barbershop song:

"Daddy sang bass

Mama sang tenor

Me and little brother just joined right in there..."

During the pandemic, many people did just what you're describing--joining in virtual jams by playing in their homes and sharing or by recording livestreams of their own jams. There was a massive surge in music played at home in those years, but that doesn't seem to be the kind of home made music the video promotes.

It's a convoluted argument, especially given the nature of the video itself. It's a nostalgic acting performance put on by a novelist, columnist, humorist, and storyteller who plays music in public venues and describes his attendance at a Charlie Daniels concert as his inspiration for learning the fiddle. The end of the video gets a lot more complicated when he makes the argument that you don't have to be a good musician to make incredible music and says that that's what Old Time music is all about. The suggestion to just have fun and enjoy every step of the learning process sounds nice and easy to swallow, but it unintentionally reinforces the stereotype that Old Time musicians are not good players, a belief that Old Time players are desperate to disprove. It also encourages complacency, something that can really quash musical development. I fiddled for a dance at my college once when I was a freshman. A classmate who played guitar had agreed to accompany me but showed up to the dance having just drunk seven pints of rye. He was so hammered that he couldn't even recognize it when chords changed and I had to ask him to stop playing because it was throwing everyone off. But he was having a great time playing. Things didn't go well for him, as he ruined everything by making bad decisions and was asked not to return after that year. He could have been a good musician but he undid all his progress. 

To some degree you might argue that what he does is more akin to Old Time than mountain music: it's a nostalgic portrayal of the "Old Timer" personality that longs for a forgotten or lost past.

Even if our likes and styles have drifted apart over the years, me and my wife still have a heck of a good time strumming tunes on our guitars, with me cranking out solos & fills at the appropriate times.

I also don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I've always gotten together with buddies for jam sessions. Yeah, I'm generally on guitar because it's my strongest instrument, but that's okay by me. I've also found a new set of people to jam with now that I live on the Big Island. A couple of Sundays each month, we gather at one of the prettiest beaches on the planet and play tunes. No, we ain't very good, but so what? It's the fun that counts.

Finally, yeah it's sad but true that I can't track down any old time players in this neck of the woods. But as Walter Cronkite used to intone each evening, "That's the way it is."

The violin beautiful - "Daddy Sang Bass" was written by rockabilly star Carl Perkins and was a hit for Johnny Cash in 1969. It references "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" by the Carter Family.
youtu.be/NGUP8oc9Bgs?si=12-Rt9_ILugyFdmJ

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Originally posted by DougD

The violin beautiful - "Daddy Sang Bass" was written by rockabilly star Carl Perkins and was a hit for Johnny Cash in 1969. It references "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" by the Carter Family.
youtu.be/NGUP8oc9Bgs?si=12-Rt9_ILugyFdmJ

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I was talking about a Barbershop song whose title I don't remember (I'll have to look for it when I have time),  but the original "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" was not written by the Carter Family. They reworked the original composition from 1907 written by Ada R.  Habershon and Charles H. Gabriel and renamed it "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" and then Carl Perkins adapted the song and called it "Daddy Sang Bass" later.

The history of the song is interesting here because it shows that the music recorded as Old Time was not written at that time as is often mistakenly assumed. In many cases the tunes were actually written out and composed but became popular as musicians heard them and took them up into the mountains. 

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Originally posted by Lonesome Fiddler

Even if our likes and styles have drifted apart over the years, me and my wife still have a heck of a good time strumming tunes on our guitars, with me cranking out solos & fills at the appropriate times.

I also don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I've always gotten together with buddies for jam sessions. Yeah, I'm generally on guitar because it's my strongest instrument, but that's okay by me. I've also found a new set of people to jam with now that I live on the Big Island. A couple of Sundays each month, we gather at one of the prettiest beaches on the planet and play tunes. No, we ain't very good, but so what? It's the fun that counts.

Finally, yeah it's sad but true that I can't track down any old time players in this neck of the woods. But as Walter Cronkite used to intone each evening, "That's the way it is."

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I wish I could get my wife to learn an instrument.  She's a lovely and talented women who loves listening to music and has a good ear, but has no interest in learning to play - a pity.

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

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The end of the video gets a lot more complicated when he makes the argument that you don't have to be a good musician to make incredible music and says that that's what Old Time music is all about. The suggestion to just have fun and enjoy every step of the learning process sounds nice and easy to swallow, but it unintentionally reinforces the stereotype that Old Time musicians are not good players, a belief that Old Time players are desperate to disprove. It also encourages complacency, something that can really quash musical development.

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The necessity of some quest for improvement seems to be a very common theme in your posts.  While I agree that most everybody here is on that quest at one level or another, that's not true for a large swath of the picking public.  I know plenty of amateur musicians who show up at weekly jams and even play in local bands who never uncase their instruments between jams/shows.  They have sung the same handful of songs for decades without any discernible improvement and are probably happier with their music than many of us who struggle to check each hard-earned tune and technique off our "to learn" list.  It may be tough on the rest of our ears, but they're having a grand time.

Also, not everybody is out to prove to the wider world the merits of old-time music.  Some of us really do play (and struggle to improve) for our own enjoyment and don't need the validation of anyone outside our own musical circles.

I'm reminded of this bit from Thomas Hardy, in Return of the Native (1912) - Hardy was a dance fiddler on the side, btw, although he wasn't necessarily thinking about fiddling here, and I'm not saying it applies precisely, but - a thought:

"For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The mummers themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for their art, though at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A traditional pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted parts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of performance is the true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival may be known from a spurious reproduction."

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Originally posted by bacfire

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

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The end of the video gets a lot more complicated when he makes the argument that you don't have to be a good musician to make incredible music and says that that's what Old Time music is all about. The suggestion to just have fun and enjoy every step of the learning process sounds nice and easy to swallow, but it unintentionally reinforces the stereotype that Old Time musicians are not good players, a belief that Old Time players are desperate to disprove. It also encourages complacency, something that can really quash musical development.

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The necessity of some quest for improvement seems to be a very common theme in your posts.  While I agree that most everybody here is on that quest at one level or another, that's not true for a large swath of the picking public.  I know plenty of amateur musicians who show up at weekly jams and even play in local bands who never uncase their instruments between jams/shows.  They have sung the same handful of songs for decades without any discernible improvement and are probably happier with their music than many of us who struggle to check each hard-earned tune and technique off our "to learn" list.  It may be tough on the rest of our ears, but they're having a grand time.

Also, not everybody is out to prove to the wider world the merits of old-time music.  Some of us really do play (and struggle to improve) for our own enjoyment and don't need the validation of anyone outside our own musical circles.

 

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Yes, I do think that the desire for learning and improvement is critical for anyone who wants to play well or make good music. I also agree that there are a lot of players who are perfectly content with their playing exactly as it is. However, as I was saying previously, I think that complacency is very bad for the genre. Of course I would like for everyone to enjoy playing, but as a listener, it really doesn't matter at all whether the player is having any fun or not, only whether the music is well made.

There's a part of me that is nearly convinced that people make much better music when they're miserable than when they're happy--so much music that's really moving and great  comes as the result of suffering and longing. A lot of people are convinced that the early blues singers had an almost supernatural power over listeners because the difficulties of their lives placed them in circumstances where their livelihoods depended on their making excellent music, and that desperation came across clearly and added a vital sense of urgency to the music that later blues singers have never quite been able to replicate. If that's true, then the trials and tribulations of players have had a major positive impact on their ability to make great music.

One of the most common complaints I've heard about Old Time players is that they are intractable. Comments usually run along the lines of "They just can't be told anything. They think they know everything already and they think their playing is perfect as it is no matter how it sounds. Some of them are even so brazen as to offer their playing as good examples for others to emulate." Sometimes when I mention the Old Time discussions about various topics to other musicians, I'm asked "Why do you waste your time on that? Those people aren't going to listen to anything but their own voices. They're only online because they either can't play anymore or never could." The ironic thing is that some of the harshest comments come from fiddlers! I don't quite agree with those sentiments, and thats why I haven't quit the Fiddle Hangout. But I do see a problem with the way Old Time regularly comes off to people who aren't part of the fold already. I'd like to see it do well, and that's why I've looked for ways to promote it or clarify it so it doesn't come off so negatively to potential players.

I think that to a lot of Old Time players, the idea of self-teaching and the development of a personal style without being told how to do it by someone else is appealing because it stems from the belief that music is innate and it's just a matter of unlocking what's already within, like the slave boy in Plato's Meno, who, through Socrates' goading, discovers that he "knows" the answer to a mathematical problem about which he previously knew nothing. The problem with this is that is it not necessarily how anyone else perceives it. To a lot of other people, the insistence on everything being DIY is the sign of major hubris and ignorance. What to the player may be a monumental personal accomplishment comes across to the listener as a perfect illustration of the necessity for good instruction in playing. Perhaps there's some middle ground, but the state of the genre suggests that it hasn't been found yet. 

I dunno Rich…I come from a “violin” background like you, and I don’t think that about Old Time? I think it’s cool catchy music. I like listening to it. I have been to a couple of jams and know 3 tunes! I don’t feel like I play it well because you can’t sound truly good without cross-tunings (love those doublestops and drones!) and I have no idea about shuffling my bow. The OT players seem creative, have a good ear, good rhythm, and are having fun. Uh, so that’s as far as my thinking on that goes.

I agree that good musicians want to improve. The best players that I know are always taking lessons, attending workshops (even flying over to Ireland to do it), and always working on something they want to improve about their playing, learning new tunes.

But there is also a large swath of people to whom playing music is just a relaxed social community activity - like knitting circle, or book club. I think that’s great too! These two groups (the serious players and the social players) tend to segregate themselves, but are on friendly terms.

I mean, think of running club. A few people are high-school athletes trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. But the majority of us will be just trying to lose a few pounds, make a few friends, etc…What’s wrong with that! The serious ones can meet to train and run 2 hours of 6-min miles … but I’m perfectly content slogging around slowly with my friends…

Yah, for me it’s all about learning. For as long as I can remember I have been motivated to learn new things, to discover what makes things work, and to figure out how I can do things better. Over the years I have become reasonably accomplished at a variety of interesting skills.

I’ve always been interested in music and for the last 10-15 years my main focus has been mandolin and fiddle. I know that I’ll never play like Chubby Wise or Jay Ungar, so the whole “end-goal” thing means nothing to me. What motivates me is to be better next week than this week.

Old Time music fits my needs perfectly (though not exclusively). Its underlying simplicity is very appealing (Yay for 1-4-5!) and there is plenty of underlying nuance to keep anyone challenged for a lifetime. I’m not old enough or good enough to feel any sort of ownership for the genre, so I’m quite happy with old time just the way it is.

I think it’s interesting to compare the video the same YouTuber posted more recently. In it he explores the idea that American traditional music was preserved because the business tycoon Henry Ford was interested in the fiddle, paid good fiddlers to teach him (Dietrich doesn’t mention it, but he also collected both fine old violins and those by new makers he admired), and pumped a great deal of money into the genre by sponsoring fiddling competitions throughout the country. He also makes the claim that it’s in the nature of fiddlers to want to see how they stack up against each other through competition, a tradition that predates the country.

youtu.be/csxM6vvKfNI?si=42VErwADVybVcFT3

This is quite a different tack from the previous video. I couldn’t help thinking as he was describing how Ford rewarded Uncle Bud for winning one competition with a car, a $1000 cash prize, and a new set of teeth, that it’s somewhat pitiful to see the kind of prizes awarded for competitors now. At the first recorded American competition (held in Virginia in the 1790s), the prize was a Cremonese violin. Looking at what’s offered to players now, the prizes are often so small that they barely cover air fare, and they’re certainly not enough to buy a very good violin. Most of the money seems to be going to workshops, and that money is coming from the players who attend. There are some humanities organizations that offer grants to help in apprenticeship programs, but there isn’t a lot of investment from the public in the music on a large scale.

I see so many classical violin players who are competing, and they are often aiming for scholarships or much larger cash prizes. There are numerous foundations that will give students full rides to major music schools, winners of big competitions often get significant winnings as well as recording contracts, and major shops that have precious instruments will often loan the instruments out to prize winners to help them along in their careers. And the competition only gets more intense with each year. I was just talking with a father whose daughter just got a full ride to one of the best graduate programs in the country. She was interested in the auditions for a major orchestra, but there was only one spot open and the competition was so intense that she decided to take the scholarship instead and think about auditioning for a major orchestra with another couple years of experience under her belt. I’m regularly in awe of what players like this can do and how much they can advance even in such a competitive environment. Then I look at Old Time, where young players get bored and quit because they don’t see room for growth. It’s especially alarming to me when I see kids who show enthusiasm and promise giving up on it.

The “Move along. There’s nothing to see here!” or “Don’t worry about it. Everything is just fine as it is” attitude isn’t pulling people in.

Maybe it has something to do with youth. I was once a bluegrass evangelist. Back in the '90s, I felt compelled to help "save the music". All caught up in the "bluegrass is dying" hoopla on the old BGrass-L, I was moved to lose a good bit of money promoting shows, helping other promoters lose money, organizing interest groups, and just generally preaching the wonders of bluegrass and fiddle music to anyone who'd listen...and plenty who wouldn't. There was a very active bluegrass scene in South MS/LA at the time, but it was mostly old folks. We were sure the music would die out and be lost forever for lack of younger blood.

At some point, I grew out of it. Maybe I got tired. Maybe I got old. Maybe I noticed that the more popular the music became, the more it changed into something I liked less. Maybe I just found some solace snuggled into a niche that most people couldn't even find (OT/early BG). I don't care who's got hillbilly jokes. Don't care if anyone stops to listen. It would be nice to have a few more folks to pick with and to have a few jam-centric events within a day's drive, but I don't need to grow the music. I don't need to raise the musical bar. I just need a little more time for tunes.

"Maybe I noticed that the more popular the music became, the more it changed into something I liked less." Yup, that's the way it goes ... !

Yes, that is a good line.

A sort of homogeneity sets in, a knocking off of the edges.

Perhaps, a resistance to change sometimes found amongst participants of traditional music, can be attributed to an understanding of this.

Looking into the fiddler with the odd bow hold from another recent thread took me to a whole YouTube page of young people, most of whom I'd never heard of, playing acoustic music ("old time" based) in various new ways. I thought it was great. I don't need to hear people playing like the Skillet Lickers today - that's already been done.
On this forum people tend to think of "homemade" as string band music, but in the 19th century and beyond, a village brass band would have been more common. Kingsport, TN has a community band that's been playing since 1907. If this link works you can hear them.
facebook.com/watch/?v=90358683...601175890
All ages and skill levels, and pretty good. They'll be playing at that location this weekend too. I think there's a similar group in Johnson City.
I couldn't watch much of that video - I didn't like his style, or the sound of his voice on that microphone. But I did learn that Scott's early recording device used a cylinder of sorts - I'd thought it used a disc. A couple of those recordings have actually been played using modern technology - they're on Wikipedia. So it wasn't a total waste of time.