In bluegrass, a breakdown is a fast instrumental. It has no words. The band plays at high speed and the lead passes from one instrument to the next. The best known example is Foggy Mountain Breakdown, which Earl Scruggs wrote and first recorded with Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys on December 11, 1949.
What makes a tune a breakdown
There is no strict rule. Players use the word for a tune with these features.
It is an instrumental.
It is fast.
It is built for trading solos. Each player takes a turn while the others play backup.
It shows off drive and clean picking. Many breakdowns feature the banjo.
The word is often part of the title. Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Blue Grass Breakdown, and Earl’s Breakdown are three well known ones.
A breakdown is not a break
The two words sound alike and mean different things.
A break is one solo inside a song or tune. Read how to take a break in a bluegrass jam.
A breakdown is a whole piece of music: a fast instrumental.
A breakdown is made of many breaks, one after the other.
Where the word comes from
The word is older than bluegrass. Fiddlers and dance callers used “breakdown” for a fast, lively dance tune long before the 1940s. Old-time fiddle contests still use the word for the fast tune in each round. Read contest breakdowns: the required fast tune.
Bluegrass bands kept the word and attached it to their fastest instrumentals.
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
Earl Scruggs wrote Foggy Mountain Breakdown as a showpiece for the banjo. It is a standard, and many people who know no other bluegrass tune know this one.
The tune is related to Blue Grass Breakdown, which Bill Monroe’s band recorded while Scruggs was a member. The two start in a similar way. Blue Grass Breakdown moves to an F chord. Foggy Mountain Breakdown moves to an E minor chord in the same spot.
In numbers, Foggy Mountain Breakdown in G uses the 1, the 6 minor, and the 5: G, E minor, and D. Read the Nashville number system for bluegrass jams.
How a breakdown differs from a fiddle tune
Both are instrumentals, and jams treat them in a similar way. They are built from different parts.
A fiddle tune has a set melody in two parts, each repeated. Every player plays that melody or a version of it. Read how fiddle tunes are built.
Many bluegrass breakdowns are looser. Foggy Mountain Breakdown is known by its opening banjo licks and its chords more than by a tune a person could hum. Other instruments play their own ideas over the same chords.
Fiddle tunes are older and come from dance music. The banjo breakdowns of bluegrass were written by bluegrass players as stage pieces.
How a breakdown runs in a jam
One player calls it and names the key. For Foggy Mountain Breakdown, that is G.
The banjo kicks it off.
Breaks pass around the circle. Each break is one time through the chords.
The player who started takes the last break and ends it.
The speed is the hard part. A breakdown at full speed is too fast for many newer players to solo on. That is fine. Play backup and pass on the break. Keeping steady rhythm at that speed is a skill of its own.
Playing backup on a breakdown
Guitar. Keep the boom-chuck strum steady and light. Do not fall behind. Read how to play guitar rhythm in a bluegrass jam.
Bass. Root and fifth, short notes, no walks. Read how to play bass in a bluegrass jam.
Mandolin. Chop on the offbeat and stay with the bass. Read how to play the mandolin chop.
Fiddle. Chop or play a soft shuffle. Read how to chop on the fiddle.
Banjo. Vamp when another banjo or a quiet instrument has the lead. Read how to play banjo backup.
Tension slows a player down. Relax your hands and use small motions.
Learning a breakdown
Learn it slow. A clean breakdown at a medium speed sounds better than a messy one at full speed.
Banjo players start with the rolls. The roll that opens Foggy Mountain Breakdown is one of the first four to learn. Read banjo rolls to learn first.
Raise the metronome a few clicks each week. Speed comes from many slow, even repeats.
Other fast instrumentals
Not every fast instrumental has the word in its title. Jams call many fast fiddle tunes that work the same way in the circle. Blackberry Blossom, Salt Creek, and Black Mountain Rag are three of them.