OLD-TIME MUSIC --
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What is "Old-time" music? People have somewhat different ideas about that -- even different ideas about how it ought to be spelled ("Old-time" vs. "Old-timey").
There is probably a pretty general agreement that "old-time" music is played on the traditional acoustic string band "arsenal" of guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica, string (or washtub) bass, etc.
There is also probably a pretty general agreement that there is no such thing as "contemporary" "old-time" song-writing. People add to the"old-time" repertoire by discovery, not creation.
However, "old-time" music is not necessarily restricted to music that has come down through generation upon generation from an indefinable origin. Plenty of music that would now be considered authentic "old-time" music is known to have been written by particular folks at a particular time. The latter part of the 19th Century saw a great development of popular song as the sheet music publication business grew. It is also not necessarily restricted to music that was propagated solely through the oral tradition, musician-to-musician; plenty of music that would now be considered authentic "old-time" music was spread primarily through published sheet music or phonograph records or the radio. The distribution of songs by way of sheet music was significant from at least the mid-19th Century on, and the phonograph and radio had an immediate impact on the propagation of popular music from the very beginning of those technologies.
