bluegrass music question/help needed

Man, oh man, you guys are fun!!!! Where are you when we are jamming??
And as for the cost of festivals, you've obviously never been to the midwest's LARGEST parking lot picking festival in Kendallville Indiana. It's $25 for the entire weekend, and that includes your camping!!! In addition to thousands and thousands of "parking lot pickers", they've got 31 hours of bluegrass music by national, international, and local talent. We've gone twice a year for decades now.

I thought I could answer 'most any bluegrass question, but some of these have me stumped. Don't know what key my hound dog howls in. I DO know that my refrigerator hums in Bflat, however!!!

Depends on where. Certainly not on the main stage, according to the "good old boys". Grandpa Jone's daughter, Alisa, plays a mean hammered dulcimer, though! And I saw Walt Michael at the International Bluegrass Music Association trade show a couple years ago. And I know that some people have their dulcimers there...but probably behind closed doors. I'm one of them!

On the other hand, I take mine to all the bluegrass festivals that we attend and usually attract a pretty good audience at our campsite. People like to jam with us when they find out that I can play chords along with them just like any other "BG" instrument..... I don't need to play melody all the time.

But, sadly, I don't think they will ever be accepted as a bluegrass instrument. I think only guitar, fiddle, banjo, bass, mandolin -- and sometimes dobro and harmonica -- will ever be considered true bluegrass.

Bflat...hmph. It must dabble in jazz.

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Anne
Give me a sweet home set among the trees,
With friends whose words are ever kind and true.
-Phoebe Carey-

LONE PINE FARM
Barnesville, PA
Boer goats, Angora goats, Eclectic mix of poultry

Check this out. It's a rather interesting blend of genres. You can play the songs through Windows Media Player if you have it. (parental advisory: I think there might be some cuss words.)

http://www.gangstagrass.com/

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Anne
Give me a sweet home set among the trees,
With friends whose words are ever kind and true.
-Phoebe Carey-

LONE PINE FARM
Barnesville, PA
Boer goats, Angora goats, Eclectic mix of poultry

we have 2, both have different keys! when the picker gets going the 2 of them flank her and go too sleep! now add the 3/4 bass and they get all exciterated! hate ta see what they would do with the bagpipes!

great grass there! from bella fleck, don remo, Earl Scruggs, string bean (kinda a toss up who i heard pickin first!) and now hip hop banjo! thanks bloogrssgrl, might never have heard that!

whats yer picken style? clawhammer vs. frailing

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àigeach carnaid
chaora dhubh
"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

cruachan

Is the "jug" considered a blue grass instrument?

Absolutely! Briscoe Darling was one of the best I've ever seen on the jug.

I agree, it really depends upon the players - and applies to almost any type of music jam. I haven't tried a Bluegrass jam, but have been welcomed at all of the old time music jams I have attended. I've run into situations where people just didn't want a HD, so I will either play from my bag of percussion instruments, or sit and listen. You can tell by the way people respond - most (that don't like it) will tell you to go ahead, but their demeanor says otherwise. In one case in this situation I set mine up, but only played HD on a few songs. Afterwards the person I thought didn't like HD told me that he was impressed, as the last person he met on HD tried to monopolize the jam, but said my playing fit in well. If I'm attending a jam for the first time and don't know anyone, I usually just go to listen and don't bring my instruments.

Dawn

A suggestion.

If you are going to introduce your children (who like modern music) to bluegrass, get CD's that mostly have instrumentals. Most modern music lovers are turned off by "whiny" voices...the music is easy to like. Once they get a appreciation for the music, their acceptances of the vocals will grow.

A good CD to start out rock lovers on is "Old And In The Way"

What is frailing?
Who are considered legends in BG? Why?
What's the story behind the Grand Ol Oprey?
Who are the up and coming artists in BG today?
What has been the top five most popular BG songs?
Explain how BG has its roots in Scottish folk songs.
Who are the best but still obscure BG artists?
How many dollars a year are spent by Americans on BG?
Is BG popular anywhere else, such as Australia, Germany, Japan?
How did the term Bluegrass come about?

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"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow the fields of those who don't."-Thomas Jefferson

camping = the festival after the festival

not sure about every festaval but at ours camping and the camp fire means hours more of music good thing we don't start till noon saturday cause so many play till dawn

Ours starts OFFICIALLY on the Thursday before Labor Day and Memorial Day and ends OFFICIALLY on Monday. Unofficially, people are there for nearly two weeks! That's the best part of the festival. There are years that I never see a single stage show because there's too many other things to do/see.

I ain't got but two questions:

What is the saddest bluegrass song ever done? (good luck with that one)

What song would you most like to hear Hayseed Dixie play?

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"Only the rocks [and really embarassing moments] live forever"

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands..." tick-tick-tick

WOuld you rather wash clothes or use THIS to make music in the bluegrass world ?!?!?!?

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Miz Mary

We love BG and hit several festivals a year.

FW2, The saddest BG song must be The Little Girl and The Dreadful Snake.
Not familiar with Hayseed Dixie.

FM, There was a Bela Fleck concert on Direct TV 101 a couple years ago. The one and only time I've heard him, or want to, we thought it was bloody awful. He was playing some sort of thing that neither looked or remotely sounded like a banjo.

All sorts of strange instruments there and even stranger noises coming from the stage, but nothing that sounded like BG to us. We forced ourselves to endure about 45 minutes of it hoping they were actually going to play some listenable music but we gave up and turned it off.

I have an old Bela Fleck LP (remember those?) called Crossing the Tracks. He does for the most part hard driving traditional solid bluegrass on it. Anything else he ever recorded, I can't listen to. I stick with the instruments Bill Monroe settled on, hint: there are five of them, plus I will take a dobro since Les and Earl said it was ok. I know the old recordings often had a snare or a slap guitar which was often a piece of paper slipped under the strings to make it percussion, but that was the work of the studio bosses who thought they knew best. When the guys got out on the road, that was all left far behind.

I watch the Cumberland Highlanders on RFD at times. They will often end up on stage with 4 guitars, three fiddles, two mandolins, and a few singers who don't even play anything. I say get some pickers and singers and get the job done with five people.

My bad, a few examples should have been included:







Try one, try them all. You'll get the idea.

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"Only the rocks [and really embarassing moments] live forever"

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands..." tick-tick-tick

What is the difference between Bluegrass and Newgrass? And how do real bluegrass folks feel about newgrass in general?

I'm not a newgrass fan. I consider it to be derivative music--based on bluegrass, jazz, blues, rock, folk, and other influences. It often uses instruments also used in bluegrass but frequently retunes or modifies them beyond "bluegrass recognition"!

We play a lot of old time and historical (F&I, RevWar, Civil War, etc.). Dh usually jokes with audiences that we play mostly music from the 60's and 70's--the 1860's and 1870's and occasionally the 1760's and 1770's. While we have done a little research into the instruments from those time periods, they are pretty much too expensive for us to buy and therefore too dear to play out around spark-popping campfires in the condensation, fog, humidity, or downright drizzle. So we stick with mostly instruments common to bluegrass, with the occasional Celtic instrument for good measure.

I'm not terribly fond of Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, or any of those guys. They are very talented musicians but the music they play is not for me. AND IT AIN'T BLUEGRASS!!!

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Try "Your Long Journey", most recently recorded by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Beautiful and a real tearjerker and I think I want it read at my funeral. But.... maybe not. Way too sad.