backstep?

[RickPick]

Just learned Clinch Mountain Backstep after someone played it at a session last night. What does the "backstep" mean? Is that a reference to the odd half-measure in the B part? to a dance? something else?

[Ivan Kelsall]

The ''Backstep'' is a form of dance move. Here's an excerpt from the book ''Fiddlin' Way Out Yonder - The Life & Music of Melvin Wine'' by Drew Beisswenger.



Ivan

[Jess L.]

Thanks Ivan.

And here's an accessible text-only version of that image, for those with visual difficulties who use text-to-speech etc:

Backstepping, flatfoot dancing, or hoedowning involved more of a sliding step.

[Melvin Wine said], "Well, a backstep dancer slides his feet as he dances. It seemed as though he was going backwards all the time, but he's not. He's just sliding his feet as he danced."

Above quote is from page 53 of (as Ivan already mentioned) "Fiddling Way Out Yonder: The Life and Music of Melvin Wine", available as Google ebook and Amazon paperback and Kindle. NFI. Quotation usage "fair use".

[multidon]

Is it something like the Micheal Jackson “moonwalk”?

[Ivan Kelsall]

JL - Did you click on the text underneath the image ?. It's separate, & it expands to the same size as the one that you posted ?. Still, better told twice than never.

It's simply the way that the 2 images placed themselves on the page - Oh well !!,
Ivan

[Jess L.]

JL - Did you click on the text underneath the image ?

That's not text, it's a jpg *image* of some text, which is not the same as actual text. A screen-reader or text-to-speech app would not be able to 'read' the jpg image (unless they're now able to do OCR with any degree of reliability, which I doubt).

That's why I typed it out, to turn the image's words into actual text. Anyway...

[RickPick]

Thanks, Ivan. And when I read the description, multidon, moon walking was what immediately came to my mind too!

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi JL - Yes,it is a jpeg image & functions as such. If you click on it,it expands in the same way as any photo. does.

The actual 'text' on the web page on which it was displayed wasn't 'copyable',so i couldn't ''copy & paste'',i had to save it as a jpeg. But as long as the explanation was readable - does it really matter ?.

The actual 'action of a 'backstep' seems to me to be what John Hartford used to do at times when he was playing fiddle,
Ivan

[Jess L.]

Yes,it is a jpeg image ...
But as long as the explanation was readable - does it really matter ?.

It *wouldn't* be readable to a blind person using text-to-speech software to 'read' webpages. That was my whole reason I posted the actual text, to supplement your image. I don't know how many blind people are currently on the Cafe but there used to be at least one person that I was aware of, and I thought it might be polite to make that info accessible to anyone who needed it. Nothing wrong with accessibility. I'm somewhat dismayed that my earlier simple post seems to have necessitated a bunch of additional justification. (Apparently I didn't explain it adequately the first time.)

Anyway, Ivan, thanks again for finding that info in the first place! That's the important thing.

And now, enough nerdly tech stuff, let's get back to the topic here, backsteppin' dance moves!