Thread: Hoedown or Hootenanny

I'm going to go with Hootenanny it just sounds better

Originally Posted by ghost6945

I'm going to go with Hootenanny it just sounds better

Like you I have no idea what he is talking about?

HOEDOWN:

The most popular sense of the term is associated with Americans in rural or southeastern parts of the country, particularly Appalachia. It is a dance in quick movement most likely related to the jig, reel or clog dance. According to the website "Streetswing", a hoedown was a virtuoso display of footwork, where a succession of dancers each tried to outdo the previous dancers. This meant that if the last dancer was the best one the audience would cheer wildly. The implied meaning of "improvised jam" has found its way into other contexts. For example a rollerblading hoedown is a similar competitive display.

In contest fiddling, a hoedown is a tune in fast 2/4 time. In many contests, fiddlers are required to play a waltz, a hoedown, and a "tune of choice," which must not be a waltz or a hoedown (typically it is a jig or a schottische).


In modern Western square dance, a hoedown is a piece of music used for a patter call (a call that is spoken or chanted, rather than sung to the tune of a popular song), or the recording that contains this piece of music. In the early days of the Western square dance revival (the 1940s and early 1950s), most hoedowns were traditional fiddle tunes; since the late 1950s, recordings of simple chord progressions, with no discernible melody, have also been sold to callers under the name "hoedown." In the 1940s and early 1950s, the term "hoedown" was sometimes used to mean a call made up of parts of other calls. "Hoedown" was, and occasionally still is, also used to mean a dance jointly sponsored by several dance clubs or by a federation of clubs.


The most famous hoedown in classical music is the section entitled Hoedown from the Rodeo ballet by Aaron Copland (1942). The most frequently heard version is from the Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, which Copland extracted from the ballet shortly after its premiere; the dance episodes were first performed in 1943 by the Boston Pops conducted by Arthur Fiedler. Copland's Hoedown became even more famous through television advertisements by America's Beef Producers with the slogan "Beef. It's What's For Dinner". Hoedown has been covered by Emerson, Lake & Palmer on their album Trilogy and by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones on their albums Outbound and Live at the Quick. Additionally, the jazz musician, Oliver Nelson, performed a jazz-infused variation written by himself entitled, "Hoe-Down," on his album, The Blues and the Abstract Truth.


HOOTENANNY:

Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in early twentieth century America as a placeholder name to refer to things whose names were forgotten or unknown. In this usage it was synonymous with thingamajig or whatchamacallit, as in "hand me that hootenanny." Hootenanny was also an old country word for "party". Nowadays the word most commonly refers to a folk-music party with an open mic, at which different performers are welcome to get up and play in front of an audience.


"Hootenanny" was also used by the leadership of early firefighting battalions to describe a "meeting of the minds" of higher ups or various department heads. The term has trickled down to working companies and is now used, with some frequency, at working incidents and other circumstances that require a focused discussion between key individuals. Most recently it was adopted for use during the annual Fire Department Instructors Conference. Logistics professionals for the conference employ the word to call together the required personnel needed to accomplish the prodigious assignments placed on them.

Hoedown...I just like saying "hoe".