12 Original Breakdowns & Jigs For The Banjo by Arthur Tilley

[Joel Hooks]

Here is an early one with second banjo parts that dip down low for you 6/7 stringers.

https://archive.org/details/12-orignial-breakdowns-jigs-for-the-ban...

[Trapdoor2]

I doubt there was any agreed definition from the period. I do know that dance callers often use period dance instruction books. Different dances require different meter, beats and accents. In my mind, it is the associated dance that defines the style, not vice versa. Once a dance has been established, then the type evolves into a musical form.

My friend's wife was a pro caller, she had books of hundreds of dance sets...and lists of appropriate music for each dance. There were squares with reels or jigs or breakdowns...and longways and circles and contras the same...the system had evolved from specific to generic. Contras are so flexible that just about anything can work.

I have also danced to grumpy pedantic callers who only called reels for longway (Virginia reel) sets and breakdowns for squares.

[Jody Stecher]

Yes, that's the pattern, historically, as far as I can tell: the dance determines the structure of the music.  But where does that leave us?  As far as I can tell  breakdown dancing and jig dancing in early and mid 19th century America were solo free-form improvisational individualistic expressions of the dancer.  Much like solo flat-foot dancing is in parts of Appalachia. 

Could the difference between jigs and breakdowns in that era be social or racial?  When it's a jig it's Group A and when it's a breakdown it's group B?     

I suppose it's possible that  there was one thing and some people called it breakdown and others called it jig, so both names were used in order to sell copies of the book.  

Trapdoor2 said:

I doubt there was any agreed definition from the period. I do know that dance callers often use period dance instruction books. Different dances require different meter, beats and accents. In my mind, it is the associated dance that defines the style, not vice versa. Once a dance has been established, then the type evolves into a musical form.

My friend's wife was a pro caller, she had books of hundreds of dance sets...and lists of appropriate music for each dance. There were squares with reels or jigs or breakdowns...and longways and circles and contras the same...the system had evolved from specific to generic. Contras are so flexible that just about anything can work.

I have also danced to grumpy pedantic callers who only called reels for longway (Virginia reel) sets and breakdowns for squares.

[IAN SALTER]

There is a lot to read here, about dancing styles. I have found only one reference to 'breakdown' (and a banjo) in the song ' My Father Sold Charcoal'; see the Dick Sands' book below.

http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/index.htm

In this book, which is found under 'American Clog' on the above page, the term 'break' is described in the instructions for both Irish Jig Dancing and Clog Dancing 

http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/clogging/sands/sands.htm

[Joel Hooks]

Somewhat adjacent or related to this discussion is the "Barn Dance" and or "Schottische".  This I actually have an answer for... they are exactly the same. 

So why did schottisches become barn dances?  I don't know the year, I expect that it could be discovered, but sometime around 1900 (perhaps late 1890s) a piece that was first published in 1878 as a song as well as an instrumental schottische suddenly became very popular. 

"Dancing in the Barn, Schottische" became so popular as a dance number that the schottische was generally renamed "Barn Dance"-- fads and fashions are funny things.  I have no doubt that our old friend nostalgia had a big part in this.

The piece is quite good and while there are a number of arrangements for banjo (including one by Cammeyer), my favorite is Zarh Myron Bickford's.

Even well known favorites were rebranded with "Barn Dance"

So, was "breakdown" a nostalgic rebadging of "jigs"?