to record my singing!
Somehow having your voice out there on the 'net is a bit more personal than having
your fiddle tunes on the net.
Like I did with the first fiddle tunes,
I had to "just do it" and let my perfectionism go hang. Having got my feet wet, I'll probably record some others, including some with banjo.
It can only get better... this is allergy
season, the hardest time of the year for singing for me, and my voice is a bit gritty...
I think I tried to pick songs that might even benefit from a bit of that.

There are three basic bowing styles or categories that get talked about in various North American fiddling styles, and a fourth approach that doesn't fit so neatly in the categories.

Because of the way the fiddle/violin is held, gravity has a different effect on downstrokes than on upstrokes. (Cello doesn't have this) The different bowing approaches or styles have different ways of dealing with this influence of gravity.

The commonest style is what I call "bidirectional" or "balanced" bowing... although it doesn't really have a popular name. Because so many fiddlers start out with Nashville Shuffle, (2-1-1, 2-1-1) it naturally starts them off in this direction. As in Nashville Shuffle, the patterns come in pairs- one will start in one direction, and then the next will usually be a mirror image of it in the opposite directions.

In this approach, you have to learn to compensate for gravity, and make the patterns in opposite directions sound as much alike as possible.  If you have an odd number of bowstrokes per measure, then you will have reversed directions for the next measure, and will need to "balance" the pattern with the first one, which is why I call it "balanced" bowing.  The more complicated the pattern, the more complex the backward or "mirror" version is going to be, so this approach tends to either stay simple, or require lots more practice to get complex rhythms.

This "balancing" requires a bit of additional effort to do the compensating.  Many well known Old Time fiddlers use this approach, at least most of the time. I started out with this approach, and still use it for a few certain tunes.

Another approach is called "downbowing" or "downbow fiddling". This is the approach I use 95% of the time.  This approach works gravity, taking advantage of it to accent the notes you want to accent.  Most downstrokes are single strokes, and the slurs are mostly 3 note slurs, most of them on an upbow. Georgia Shuffle is the best known example of this, and the Sawshuffle I talked about earlier in my blog is another one. "Rag bow", which I call Smoothshuffle (3-3-1-1) also fits within this category. I like this approach because I find it easy on my wrist, and is rhythmically very flexible. I also find it easy to get good clarity and good tone with this approach... but that may be just because I'm used to it.

 Another approach is called "upbow fiddling". I'm least familiar with it, but I believe that it is effectively downbow fiddling done backwards!  The accents are on upbows, and the 3 note slurs are on downbows, and even the sawstroking is backwards- up-down, up down, instead of down-up, down-up.  Because the accents have to be stronger, this sometimes gets called "pushing the bow", and this tends to have a somewhat rougher sound.  Most of the fiddlers I have seen using this approach are Appalachian style, although some Appalachian style fiddlers are bidirectional or downbow fiddlers too.

There is another very simple approach that sometimes gets classified as downbow fiddling, because it starts a measure or phrase on a downstroke, and ends on an upstroke. This approach basically chains together pairs of Nashville Shuffles,often at the beginning, and then switches to down-up-down-up sawstroke as the tune gets more complicated. Pairs of two note slurs also fit easily with this approach.  You need a good sounding sawstroke to do this, and your Nashville Shuffle has to be phrased to match the sawstroke well.  Aside from that, it's not very demanding.  Some classic fiddle recordings use this approach though- with good phrasing and tone, it can really sparkle.

Why is all this important? If you are trying to imitate a specific style or a specific fiddler,if that style or fiddler uses one of these approaches almost exclusively, you will need to use that same approach if you really want to "nail" that style fiddling. For instance, Tommy Jarrell himself categorized his style as being downbow fiddling.

Also, I have heard fiddlers trying to blend bowing patterns from these different approaches willy-nilly, and the rhythmic effect is muddled or jumbled sounding. While I'm mostly a downbow fiddler, I occasionally do use balanced bowings, but I'm very aware I'm doing something quite different.

One bowing pattern that is very useful, but is somewhat hard to categorize is what I call "Syncoshuffle" (because it is so useful for syncopated phrases) and Brad Leftwich calls "Tommy's Shuffle".

1-2-1, 2-1-1.

It is very similar to Nashville Shuffle, and fits in very well with it. There is a YouTube video of Graham Townshend doing Arkansas Traveller, Turkey in the Straw, and Bill Cheatham, and he uses mostly Nashville Shuffle with Syncoshuffle thrown in occasionally for syncopated spice.

On the other hand, I'm a downbow fiddler, and I find it fits in nicely with my sawstroke, Sawshuffles, Georgia Shuffles, etc., probably because it starts with a single downstroke like Sawshuffle.

Some people say that such talk gives them a headache. You may have a visual learning style. If you have a pretty well developed sense of rhythm, you might be able to "wing it" without the analysis. Remember, though, that the whole point of Old Time dance fiddling is to lay down a danceable rhythm.

A lot of times when I'm playing the fiddle in public,
people say things that show that they think I'm a bluegrass fiddler.
This is somewhat understandable, because the general public is somewhat
aware of bluegrass music, since it's had some presence in television and the movies (Foggy Mtn. Breakdown on the film "Bonnie and Clyde", Roy Clark on Hee-Haw, Duelling Banjos on "Deliverance, etc), but Old-Time music has not had that kind of presence or exposure. When I started playing banjo in 1970, I didn't know the difference myself!
Old Time Music and Bluegrass music are related. They use most of the same instruments (fiddle, 5-string banjo, guitar, mandolin, and upright bass , which is optional for Old Time. Bluegrass adds dobro. Both occasionally use harmonica).
Old Time is to Bluegrass somewhat like Dixieland Jazz is to Modern Jazz,
or like Blues is to Rock Music. It's the predecessor music.
Bluegrass is by definition string band music. The most popular forms of Old Time music are the string band music and fiddle tunes, but it really also includes ballad singing, older hymn singing styles, and solo banjo tunes.

Old Time is called that, because it's been around since before the Civil War.
It's core is the music that came over from the Great Britain and Ireland,
including the ballad music, Sacred Harp (shaped note) hymns, and the
fiddle tunes for dances. It also includes the clawhammer banjo, sometimes used for the material brought from the Old Country, other times bringing songs of African-American origin (or minstrel imitations of them) into the repertoire.
In Old Time music, the emphasis is on the melody, with some chord backup, but little in the way of harmony, except in church music.
The ballads were mostly unaccompanied, and the religious music tended to be as well, although sometimes they were accompanied by guitar, mandolin, and autoharp after those instruments became widely available through catalog stores.
The fiddle and banjo were mostly used as dance music, and occasionally for accompanying ballads and other songs. As other instruments became available,
the Old Time string band evolved, with the fiddle taking the lead melody, banjo
playing a simpler form of the melody, guitar playing chord backup and sometimes bass runs. Mandolin, if available, could play either the fiddle melody, or a chord backup, while harmonica would usually play melody.

Bill Monroe of Kentucky is considered the founder of Bluegrass music.
and it takes it's name from his band The Bluegrass Boys, Kentucky being known as the Bluegrass State. However, he didn't so much create the music out of nothing,
as cobble or weave together separate elements or strands of Old Time and other pre-existing American music into one entertaining package. The instrumentation is essentially the same as in Old Time as mentioned above, but the emphasis is on entertainment and instrumental virtuosity. As such, the banjos, mandolins, guitars and often the fiddles used
are fancier versions, and details of construction may be changed to increase volume. To display the virtuosity of the instrumentalists, they are expected
to take instrumental breaks which may be slightly embellished versions of the melody, but more often are elaborate improvisations bearing little or no resemblance to the melody.
But the real center of Bluegrass is the singing. Bill Monroe took the concept
of harmony singing from mid-19th century rural Southern church music, and
set it in the context of the string band instrumentation previously described.
The song context is sometimes religious (Bluegrass gospel) but is more often secular, but all-in-all a more civilized secular than found in commercial country music, very similar to the content of the Carter Family's songs- emphasizing
tradition, family, the good old days, and old fashioned morality.

In terms of musical content, Bluegrass tends to de-emphasize the Anglo-Celtic elements that Old Time centers around. The songs are much more likely to resemble the popular music of the mid and late 1800's, including the minstrel songs. When taking a break, the fiddler is free to introduce elements that sound Old Time (shuffles, drones, and unisons) but is just as likely or more likely depending on the fiddler's taste, to use blues or ragtime ideas.

Who plays Old Time, and who plays Bluegrass?
Well, both are forms of Country music, as is the commercial Country Music
mostly associated with Nashville. As you probably are aware, commercial Country
is very popular among "country", that is, rural people.
Bluegrass is also very popular among rural people, but usually those who are
more conservative and more connected with tradition, and more likely to have a church affiliation, since at least some gospel numbers are a given at most Bluegrass events. It is also popular among urban people who appreciate the virtuosity of the singing and the instrumentalists.
Old Time Music is something of an anomaly. Very few rural people play or listen to it anymore. While the heroes of the genre are, or were, country people,
most of the younger musician's have urban roots, although many have moved
to rural places in the South, especially in the mountains, to be close to the remaining old-timers that grew up playing the music in a family tradition...
and there are not many of those left- many were rediscovered and recorded in the '60's and '70s, but since then, many have passed on.
Off the top of my head, Dwight Diller and Riley Baugus are the two best known Old Time musicians who grew up in the rural tradition.
The whole situation is analogous with modern blues, where the giants and heroes of the tradition are mostly black, but the majority of the modern players and fans are urban whites.

Me? I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and Los Angeles,
and discovered Old Time Music at jam sessions while in college in L.A.
I took two summer trips back east for festivals in the mid 70's,
and even visited one real old-timer of a fiddler. But I never moved back there.
I do the best I can, considering that! ;^)
Since so much has been recorded, I don't know if it's that much of a handicap.

As a fiddler, I'm basically an Old-Time fiddler, although I do some tunes
that Bluegrass musicians also do, and I even attend Bluegrass jams sometimes.
Usually I just play the melody for my "break" although sometimes on songs I attempt to improvise, with varying degrees of success- or failure!

Before I could consider myself a full-fledged Bluegrass fiddler, I would need to:
1. Get better at improvising on fiddle
2. Be able to improvise comfortably in more keys.
Bluegrass uses keys that are comfortable for the singers, not for the fiddler!
Old Time uses the keys of C, G, D, A most frequently. Rare fiddle tunes are in F or Bb. Bluegrass uses all of those keys frequently, and adds E and B as other frequent keys... and might even use other flat keys occasionally to accomodate the singers' ranges.

I finally did something I've been wanting to do for a while-
put together some "stations" with my favorite ezfolk Irish and Celtic artists!