What qualifies as mechanical music?  We are held to the standard
of mechanically produced music for our posts here.  So I am testing
that standard with hybrid music that is only partially mechanical.

As many people know, country music finds its home primarily in the
central states and points south.  Included in that genre we find
fiddlers.  Old time fiddler contests were part of my childhood.
Often, those fiddlers never put the violin under their chin, but
rather, held the instrument lower, pressed against their chest.
That wasn't required, but it's part of the culture.

The music played was often rags, square dance, jigs, and blue grass.
In the area I grew up in, one fiddler was the most recognized because
his music was just as good as all the rest, but he had only one arm.
Last night, when meeting with my high school chums, one mentioned that
Luther Caldwell, the one-armed fiddler of my youth, was on YouTube.

Luther is long gone, but someone had enough footage to put him on
YouTube.  He uses a mechanical device to operate the bow.  Does that
qualify?  If this gets past Robbie, I'll let you decide if it is
mechanical music.  Watch Luther Caldwell at

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6_kJFOh4J4 

Bob Taylor
Missouri

 [ We discuss the songs and the machines that make music using real
 [ musical instruments controlled by stored binary data.  Music that
 [ is performed by a live musician is beyond the scope of our forum.
 [ What country tunes do you have to play your instruments, Bob?
 [ -- Robbie