Friday, April 8, 2011

Big Tent - Small Tent: An Essay


The discussion rages on. Should what we call “bluegrass” music fit into a small and narrowly restricted definition created in 1946 when Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs stepped on the stage of the Grand Ol' Opry as members of Bill Monroe's band? Or should we accept and embrace a much wider definition which reflects changes in the larger world of music and American life allowing the conception of bluegrass music to grow and change with the times. The argument looks very much like the constant pushmi-pullyu that defines the differences between Constitutional strict construction and the conception of a living document that changes slowly but inevitably with the times. I'd like to examine some of the factors involved in this passionately argued and ongoing debate as it affects bluegrass music.

There have been fissures in the bluegrass community almost since the beginning. Bill Monroe was a musical revolutionary. Perhaps the only individual ever to invent a musical genre. Through the late thirties and into the forties he struggled to define and refine his style, drawing from old time string band music, jazz, swing, country, and other stylings of the time. What emerged was named after his band “The Bluegrass Boys,” referring to his home state of Kentucky and developed as part of the southern diaspora to the ring of industrial cities around the Great Lakes. Monroe himself was slow to embrace the name “bluegrass,” seeing his music as part of the larger world of country music and prizing his membership in the Opry. It was only after some time that he learned to become fiercely protective of “his” music and the brand it represented. His beloved and derided comment, “That ain't no part o' nothin'” became a mantra for his increasing resistance to change as others tried to put their own stamp on what Monroe had wrought. One way he accomplished his goal was to wage a sharp political war against Flatt & Scruggs and others being granted membership in the Grand Ol' Opry. Monroe himself became the strongest advocate of the small tent approach to defining bluegrass.

With the development of bluegrass festivals, most notably represented by the late Carlton Haney's first bluegrass festival at Fincastle on Labor Day Weekend in 1965, a new audience began to find its way into bluegrass music. This audience mixed the rural, blue collar, working people who had become Monroe's main fans and target audience with the emerging folk music craze, rockabilly, and, eventually rock and roll. These festivals attracted and merged, perhaps uneasily, a college educated group of music fans with the culturally, economically, and educationally more rural and, perhaps, less sophisticated group who already knew bluegrass through performances, recordings, and small radio stations as well as the huge outreach of the Opry on WSM radio. In a sense, hippies and preppies met and interacted with rural America.

The new fan base now included people nurtured on other kinds of music and enriched by their broader view growing from folk music and the emerging rock scene. Many of these people were urban and Jewish, coming from New York City and other suspect places. With their interest in indigenous folk traditions, they embraced Monroe (and Doc Watson too, another story) who was discovered by the folk festivals as well as the emerging bluegrass festivals, salvaging a career that had been languishing with the emergence of rock. Many of those early festival goers formed the fan base for bluegrass which now stands as the guardians of traditional bluegrass. Nevertheless, slow, but inevitable change has continued in what's considered bluegrass. As new bands expressed themselves, the definition expanded. The Country Gentlemen, Seldom Scene, and, most notable in terms of change, The New Grass Revival, moved from the fringe to mainstream as taste and acceptance changed. However, as continued musical change in both rock and country music evolved, the people who earlier had embraced the musical revolution became wedded to their initial passion for Monroe and those he influenced and began resisting the emerging larger world of bluegrass influenced acoustic music.

While I was somewhat aware of Flatt & Scruggs, I first heard a tape of their Carnegie Hall concert in the sixties when a friend gave my mother a reel-to-reel tape of their music, and I'd seen Monroe on television, I wasn't a real fan of bluegrass music. My own musical experiences were informed by folk music, especially Pete Seeger's Almanack Singers and later The Weavers, and the now rehabilitated Paul Robeson as well as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald's wonderful Gershwin albums, and classical orchestral music. Irene grew up on classic country, folk, big band music and fifties' pop. We attended our first music festival in 2003 – Merlefest. And, as I looked around, I naively said, “So this is bluegrass!” Little did I realize I was stepping into a world as politically riven as our current larger politics unhappily is.

The world I've entered, and embraced, is one where people leave the audience if they see even a minimal drum kit on the stage at a bluegrass festival, even though they've heard drums in the background of their favorite recordings almost since the beginning. It's a world where a major festival instructs a band it cannot appear with the keyboard that's become a signature for a few of their songs. It's a world where an electric instrument, with the sometime exclusion of electric basses, represents apostasy. In other words, a world separated by true believers imposing their values on those who prefer a more inclusive and accepting approach. What's the effect of drawing this bright line between bluegrass music and a more general world of acoustic music and the emerging genre now called Americana?

The bright line eliminates a potential large audience for the intriguing and entertaining world of bluegrass music. It keeps them from discovering the excitement generated by the founders and understanding the birth, growth, and development of an important part of American music. More about my own story may be useful here. Hearing Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Del McCoury, and, more important, Doc Watson opened a new world to me. As we listened, bought CD's, attended increasing numbers of festivals, and began photographing and writing about them, I became increasingly aware and appreciative of the history and background of the world I'd entered. We bought bluegrass instruments, I took some banjo lessons, we attended Pete Wernick's Jam Camp, and our CD collection broadened to include a full range of early, middle, and contemporary bluegrass music. We consumed and learned and tried to support bluegrass. We came to know some performers on a personal basis and were embraced by members of this wonderful community. We began attending IBMA. We grew into the music, developing a broader and more comprehensive understanding and, consequently, a deeper appreciation for the entire length and breadth of its genesis. We probably would never have come to appreciate the genius of Bill Monroe were it not for the genius of Sam Bush. Along the way, my own journey included increasing amounts of rock as well as older forms. That's what the effect of the big tent has had on me.

While the small tent approach to bluegrass music may be deeply satisfying for some people wishing to attend pure, traditional bluegrass festivals, whatever that means, it's worth taking a moment to consider the needs of musicians hoping to make a living as full-time producers of music. Clearly, bluegrass does not supply the economic support for many bands to make a full-time living playing the traditional music. Furthermore, narrowly defining the genre inhibits the musical growth of many practitioners. To limit the acceptable performance world to the skills and abilities of jammers in the parking lot is exactly backwards. Jammers may prefer to play traditional bluegrass, although my observation is that many actually play classic country, probably because it lies more fully within their capability, and even to hear it, but it's clear that eclectic music festivals will draw a broader and more inclusive group of fans, generate more income for even traditional performers, and serve as a vibrant community for spreading traditional music and new music. Look at the way the Del McCoury Band has been embraced at Americana festivals, as well as attendance figures at Merlefest, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the weather challenged DelFest.

So I'm a big tent guy. Not only because I find a three or four day weekend of mostly or entirely traditional or traditional-sounding music to be stultifying, but because I believe the mixed era and mixed genre festivals to be more attractive to an increasingly younger and more diverse audience, some of which, given the chance, will also embrace the work and music of the founders. Such an outcome is to be applauded, not decried. Our solution, when a band hits the stage and proves itself to be beyond our bounds of taste, is to take a stroll, shop, grab something to eat, or even return to our trailer for a nap. Over three or four days, we don't have to like or admire every band. But, often to our surprise, we hear music we love, stay to listen, sometimes purchase their product, and broaden our taste and experience. Can that be a bad outcome?

32 comments:

  1. Great essay Ted. This is definitely a tough question (big tent or small tent). I think I'm sitting pretty square in the middle of the fence on this one.

    Drums and electric instruments are definitely not bluegrass and shouldn't be considered so (maybe Americana is a better place for that). But bringing in influences from other styles keeps the music interesting. So, my personal preference might be something like "contemporary melodies with traditional instrumentation".

    I hope the acoustic format - with banjo and all - stays pretty well fixed, but there's still a lot of new music that can be played with that combination of instruments, at least for another generation or two.

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  2. Excellent post, Ted. Very well said.

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  3. My oldest granddaughter, when she was 4 and just home from the hospital after an appendectomy, took issue with the feeble attempt I had made to clean her room. Frustrated, yet glad to be out of the hospital, she finally said, "I want it the way I want it!"

    I am kind of like that, too. We recently saw a performance of a well known entertainer, whose initials are DL. Most of the show was fine, but on a couple of songs, the continuous click of the drumstick (not brushes) drove me crazy. It was actually all I could hear, it stuck out, and seemed out of place to me.

    I come from a home where classical music was the norm. I have survived the 60's and a folk music period in the 70's and a lot of "old country" bar music complete with drum kits. I have come to appreciate more traditional bluegrass and string band music a lot. And, I dislike the 10-15 minute musical competitions found in the jam band scene. Like most of the world I will be spending my entertainment dollar on venues and line-ups that please my musical ear. I simple want it the way I want it. And it is my money.

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  4. Dare I say it in this context? Rock on! Well spoken, Ted.

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  5. Excellent post, Ted, and one I find myself agreeing with, at least for the most part.

    I would add that part of the resistance to change in bluegrass is probably informed by the direction of modern country music. The more traditional sound--which I believe makes country music "country"--has been marginalized and thus no longer present in the mainstream. So, my thought is that those most opposed to bluegrass' musical evolution gaining steam are afraid that in a few years, bluegrass will not be recognizable as a genre, which seems to have largely happened to country. Personally, I would hate to see that; therefore, I hesitate to define music that's too far out on the fringes as "bluegrass." I'm not saying it's invalid or not enjoyable, of course. It's just that I would join some of the traditionalists in being hesitant to apply the "bluegrass" label to such music.

    It can be argued that the changes in country music are listener- (market-) driven, and thus the consumer has spoken. That may just be the way it goes. That also may be the way bluegrass goes in time, but as I've said before, I believe measured change (when it comes to what we label and don't label "bluegrass") is the best change.

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  6. Thanks, Kyle. I tend to agree with you about the pace of change. I guess one point I may have not made strongly enough is that I think mixed genre or extended genre festivals have a greater chance of being financially successful and of drawing new fans to the music as they seek out the roots of what they're hearing. Just watching young bluegrass pickers who also have an abiding interest in rock, country, and are loyal viewers of American Idol leads me to believe the future of bluegrass is pretty well assured.

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  7. I had a conversation about this just last night with Missy Raines (What a great band she has!) and we discussed all of the great music there is to be found in the "greater bluegrass" genre. Marketing bands that don't fit the traditional straight bluegrass sound to hardcore bluegrass fans is tough, but it's almost tougher to reach an audience that has never really heard bluegrass(ish) music and might be turned off to the thought of mandolins or banjos. The New Hip is a perfect example. Those who attended her show last night were not particularly knowledgeable about her before they came, were intrigued by the press release, and left very much fans. Many more did not come, probably because the references to "7-Time International Bluegrass Music Association Bass Player of the Year" did nothing but conjure up mental images of Bill Monroe. (No offense to Bill.) Getting the music in front of listeners is the key, and we have to have a concerted effort to take a chance on these very talented musicians.

    As a small-time promoter trying to bring quality bluegrass and other roots musicians to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, we need to have bands willing to take a chance on a travel-through stop to help open up this potential market. There are fans here, and there will be a lot more once they get to experience high quality performances. 1980's rock bar bands are a dime of dozen here, but one rarely gets a chance to hear music the quality and style of Missy Raines and the New Hip. Thanks, Missy, for taking the chance. I hope we get to do it again real soon.

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  8. Thanks for the comment, Tony. I met Tony and his wife, Tamara, at a Gibson Brothers concert in western, KY. He's a real good guy whose promotions deserve support if you're in the neighborhood of Cape Giraudoux.

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  9. Ted, I'm afraid for bluegrass music.

    Let me tell you why. I have been a country music fan since I was 12 years old. I grew up on George Jones, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, Buck Owens, and a bunch of others. Then, country music decided to have a bigger tent and, very gradually, my kind of music was pushed outside the tent. I fear that it is now gone for good. Today's mainstream country music is about as much country as I am a billionaire. So in the early 90s I turned to bluegrass music and slowly discovered the artists that still keep it real. Call it traditional if you want, but there is something very special about hearing authentic country music - and today's bluegrass artists are about the only ones still doing it at anything like the mainstream level.

    I love hearing old country songs remade as bluegrass songs. Del McCoury, among others, has been doing that for years. I love the acoustic sound that bluegrass requires and I'll never understand the need for drums in a bluegrass recording or live event. With a mandolin and a fiddle in the band, who needs a drummer to keep time? I'll never understand Jimmy Martin Jr.'s fascination with the instrument...maybe that's all he can play? (I know he's been doing it for decades, but it still hurts my ears.

    I suppose that I"m for a medium-sized tent for bluegrass. Let's push the boundaries a bit, but let's keep the traditional instruments at the forefront. Let's bring traditional country music in even more than we have to this point, if that's possible.

    But jazz? No thanks. I don't want to sit through an hour of jazz done with a few bluegrass instruments. I did that in Argyle, TX, last month and I thought I would scream. Not only is it out of place, it's boring to me (and to many others who were mumbling to themselves and looking at their watches). The guys who make that kind of music are fantastic musicians, but they are killing bluegrass, in my opinion. They are opening the door that might eventually see real bluegrass music shoved completely out of the tent. Don't scoff...as I mentioned earlier, I've already seen it happen.

    Country music is pretty much dead because that tent has taken in every doper who can no longer make it in rock or pop. It's been overrun by teenagers with nice butts and boobs who have producers who can keep them in tune with Pro-Tools. They don't have to have talent, or sing country music; they just have to be pretty boys and girls who look good in tight jeans and low-cut blouses.

    Maybe I'm gun-sht because of the horrible experience of watching country music go down the tubes in the 90s. I have no hope for its recovery, and I desperately want to keep that from happening to bluegrass music, the last bastion of real country music that still has a nice heartbeat.

    I hope this makes sense. I'm very passionate on the subject and I tend to ramble...

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  10. Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Sam. I think I agree that bluegrass is the last refuge of "classic" country. In fact, the founder saw it as country music. I liked what Danny said about "contemporary melodies with traditional instruments." I'd also add contemporary subject matter. I'm not a revolutionary, but I do foresee a continued slow evolution in bluegrass music. Hope to see you at MACC this year.

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  11. Another great essay on a topic close to my heart.
    I used to help produce a music festival in Texas; in fact, it was initially called ____ ____ Bluegrass Festival instead of ____ ____ Music Festival. The one thing we realized early on was that if we wanted to continue to produce a music festival we had to salt it with some variety because, quite simply, bluegrass did not draw the crowds.
    True, the traditionalists were happy with it (right up until we booked Nickel Creek) and demanded we book even more trad bluegrass. But the ticket sales were disappointing, to say the least.
    When we began mixing in Americana, alt-country and local favorites, the crowds grew and grew. Now it is rare to see a trad bluegrass band there.
    In the campgrounds you will find trad bluegrass, new bluegrass, Celtic, jazz, country and western swing. Now that I am no longer producing and can play in the campgrounds jams, it is easy to see that our demographics as well as our audience tastes are as eclectic as the music they play/enjoy.
    I say kick open the door and let's all play together.

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  12. Well thought out Ted. I agree that growth necessitates some change. If Ford had never wanted to grow, we'd all be driving Model "A"s or "T"s.

    However there is a certain amount of "Watering Down" of the genre that amounts to degradation. Listening to a Bill Monroe song back-to-back with a Jerry Douglas song and calling both "Bluegrass" is hard for a newcomer to understand. Then too, the newcomer's background helps to define their own tastes. I've talked with older (age 60-70) newcomers who came from classic country and found bluegrass because they feel the current Country genre has abandoned them. When a group like the Stringdusters take the stage, they do the stroll/shop/nap routine. I've also talked to younger (age14+) newcomers who would do the stroll/shop/nap stuff if The Nashville Bluegrass Band came on.

    Seems like every band has to have a different label to try and define what kind of bluegrass they play.

    Is the tent getting so big now that we need to develop a High-Rise to be all-inclusive? May not be a bad idea then every sub-genre could have their own floor.
    -Brian

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  13. Brian - I'm not a great fan of the many mansions metaphor. I really would prefer to see people of different musical persuasions open themselves to experiencing each other's realities, but I suppose that's a little to utopian.

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  14. In agreement with Sam. Change if you must to attract a younger audience. Just in hopes that some of these will be drawn to the small tent stages, to get an insight on 'the roots' of where this all started. No matter how big the tree, it will die without the roots.

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  15. One of the things that really gives me hope is seeing Del McCoury on the main stage at Bonnaroo and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. A lot of kids see him as super cool. I also agree about the roots and think there will always be a place for them to spread and grow. As I've said before, one of my real concerns is that musicians be able to make a living.

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  16. Maybe it's an American thing to equate artistic success with monetary success. Many people seem to think that traditional country music is dead because it has been marginalized economically. 'If it ain't on the radio and TV it don't exist.' Since country music became a type of pop music with the advent of recordings and electronic media it has, for better or worse, become subject to the 'rules' and definitions of pop music. Any form of pop music must be easily disposable, by definition - the next big thing syndrome. Country music has not been immune to this syndrome. In the 70s fans of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb decried the new popularity of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. During the early 80s the Urban Cowboy style incurred the wrath of many country fans and was replaced by 'new traditionalists' like Randy Travis and George Strait, who led directly to new country.
    Bluegrass, being a sub-genre of country pop music, is more narrowly defined, obviously. But it is subject to the same changes as any pop music - the fickle public's demands.
    There are plenty of traditional bluegrass bands and artists out there. If their artistic merit is based entirely on their monetary success they will be hurtin' for certain. If a festival's sole raison d'etre is to turn a profit rather than to provide an artistic presentation then the acts booked must bring in the paying customers.
    As a working musician I couldn't imagine trying to make a living playing such narrowly defined styles such as bluegrass or tradtional jazz. But I could envision playing such styles for the artistic satisfaction with the realization that I'm not gonna make much dough - and play other, more lucrative styles for the money, as most day-to-day working musicians do.
    Traditional bluegrass festivals and concerts can be successful so long as the 'success' is viewed artistically rather than economically.

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  17. George - Art, as differentiated from imitation, presupposes movement, change, innovation, and development. One of my criteria for assessing a band or CD is to seek ways in which the music observes the conventions while adding a unique, identifiable stamp to the music. If musicians are only performing bluegrass to preserve a museum piece, they aren't growing themselves. Now, if public taste and commercial marketing develop a form of music that isn't worth listening to, don't listen. It's probably not ART anyway. I will continue to believe that professional musicians who can make sufficient money to continue to devote a significant effort to the music and promoters who can do better than break even are necessary for the continuation and appreciation of the roots of bluegrass music.

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  18. I have to agree with Sam Sattler, I loved rock and roll but R&R lost me when it left folk rock and embraced the psychedelic and acid sound of R&R in the late 60'S. I grew up on country music so I moved back to country western and enjoyed it as it expanded into something that no longer resembles the country music I truly enjoyed through the advent of Randy Travis, George Strait, and Garth Books. Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Twist and Shout” introduced me to Cajun music but son of a gun the purest of that genre is sung in French, and as much as I still like the Cajun genre I haven’t a clue what they are singing about. Then, along came a sound that had been in the background of my mind from the days the Kingston Trio and the movie “Bonnie and Clyde.” I rediscovered the sound of Bluegrass music – a breathe of fresh air. I love the innovation of a group like the Gibson Brothers and their modern topical song content but in all honesty that’s as big as my tent gets. What I fear is that Bluegrass will morph into something I no longer want to listen to. Yet, at the same time I love Dailey and Vincent’s success in energizing BG music! To those who must examine to feel satisfied I haven’t a clue what you all think of D&V but if they can remain as successful as they have been and still entertain me as well as they do then I am on that side. There is a lot going on in Bluegrass that is exciting and it doesn’t have to be changed for the sake of change which is what I fear the big tent brings into the mix. I say let’s move out of the tent and remain comfortable in that cabin in the holler. Bluegrass is soul music for country folk and those who fondly remember, or who are still growing up in, the small towns and farms of rural America. To citify it for the sake of a larger audience doesn’t make much sense to me.

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  19. I don’t run a festival but I do attend a few every year, they range from “small tent” to “big tent” and I’ll start by stating the obvious that the biggest tent brings in the biggest crowd. From my observation, “small tent” festivals seem to be doing well, continuing despite hard economic times, outgrowing sites, and increasing attendance without bending the parameters of the music beyond what each promoter has defined as bluegrass. But as a non-promoter I can’t even guess what their financial goals are for their festival, but I know that the biggest festival I attend has huge costs and a huge team, both paid and unpaid, behind the scenes, while the smaller ones obviously don’t. Promoters can be individuals just hoping for enough money to support their family for the year, to organizations with as few as one or many employees, to non-profits.

    I will add the question: Are there any festivals that have ended simply because their ticket sales were not enough to cover costs, and from my albeit just a notch over casual observance, I would answer no. If the answer to that were yes, would varying the lineup have helped? Because unless I am reading this wrong, the message behind this and some of your previous entries is aimed at the organizers of festivals to “expand your menu of music or perish.”

    There is much more to having a financially successful festival that has little to do with the line-up.
    If I were a festival promoter, I would ask myself the following questions:
    1.Do I want attendance (ticket sales) to grow? If yes, has it grown over the last few years?
    1a. How much can attendance grow before adding additional costs?
    2.Am I meeting my financial goals for the festival?
    2a. If no: ask Are my goals realistic? Is money management an issue?
    2b. If yes: what do I need to maintain the festival at its current size.

    These questions are much more about business than music, so to come back to your message:
    3.Would changing the lineup help? How could anyone know the answer to that question?

    Again, if the message is to promoters and the hope is for the success of their bottom-line (revenue after expenses) than I feel an obligation to promoters to throw this out there. A financially successful festival may have little to do with changing your lineup to expand your audience.

    How can this be?

    I worked in a business that literally was so busy there was no room for an increased audience. The line of customers went around the block, any more audience, and the business would have been causing public safety and traffic problems. The owner focused on increased sales with the customers they already had, hence the phrase from yet another successful business venue, “Would you like fries with that?” If ticket sales are a promoters only form of revenue and the festival is stumbling financially I suggest that the promoter try to increase sales with the customers they already have. For example if you are $10,000 dollars off your goal and you consistently sell 2000 tickets to your festival how can you make an additional 5.00 from the audience you already have? Even if profits are off by $100,000, can you make the difference by, over the course of your festival, by taking in $50.00 more per audience member?

    Again, this is far more about business than bluegrass, so I will leave it there and hope the debate continues.

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  20. I don't think this is an either/or proposition or a zero sum game. That's the point, as I see it. Artists who want to innovate aren't "taking away" an audience from traditional acts but are "adding to" the whole audience. There is ample room for all of the above.

    I will admit, however, that those who worry about bluegrass losing its roots as country music has bring up a valid concern. However, country music never went anywhere; there were always artists carrying the torch of traditional music. They just weren't being played on the radio or selling big records. Truth be told, bluegrass doesn't have a big, commercial entity like radio pushing it to begin with, so those concerns are less valid, as I see it. This is especially true in the digital age, where big, monolithic "tastemakers" (or "tastebreakers" in the case of commercial country radio) are becoming less relevant every day.

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  21. Hi Ted,

    I guess I think this is the wrong question. And in some sense it is sort of a dumb question to which I think you already know the answer if you think about it.

    In its most basic sense bluegrass is two separate things -- with two separate set of fans and participants. First, of course, it is a popular genre which sells recorded music and entertains audiences large and small. In this role, it is basically no different than any popular genre that exploits the human innate drives to pick up shiny object or eat sweets, and it turns us all into passive consumers of music and sources of revenue. But bluegrass is something else too -- it is participatory string band music in which people who don't know each other at all and who have never met before can come together -- without preamble, musical scores, or practice -- and instantly make music together: often extraordinary music where its creators are both its performers and its audience. To the many people who do this, this is far more appealing than any recorded or carefully performed music.

    The ability to make and create music on the fly has been has been around in North America as long as there have been people here: Indians (both kinds) do it, African American slaves did it etc., etc. The form of traditional music from which bluegrass developed arrived with the Scots Irish starting in about 1790 and continuing up until about 1830. For historical reasons, these immigrants often ended up in the Southern highlands (although many went elsewhere as well) and they became the dominant culture there. That area became, and remains, a wellspring for this type of music.

    Every now and then, some outsider will discover some piece of it and for philosophy or greed, try to exploit the music -- Ralph Peer with the Carter Family, Pete Seegar with the banjo players of Kentucky, Ralph Rinzler with Bill Monroe and Doc Watson. With neo-traditionalists (there is an oxymoron for you) like Seegar and Rinzler, it is like looking through a semi-silvered mirror -- they can see a little but mostly they see themselves. One result was the flash-in-the-pan "folk revival," which anointed itself to be "folk music," which is was not -- and pronounced "folk music" as dead when it died, which is truly ridiculous. Now I am not putting down folk revival music – we love that music and still play it some. But it is important not to pretend that it is what it is not.

    Far away pundits often pronounce traditional mountain music static and dying, but it is neither. As my friend who moved to Boone NC ten years ago wrote back "everybody in the county plays guitar better than Tony Rice." If you listen Monroe from the 1939, before Scruggs, it sounds rockabilly. There was no melodic banjo in 1960 and no flatpickers in 1970. What you call traditional is not really traditional at all -- it is just innovating in ways that allow for the broad participation of sophisticated acoustic musicians in dynamically created improvisational string bands.

    The large population of people who play bluegrass music as a community have paid heavy dues to get there. The bar is quite high on average, and to attain the required skills, the participants inevitably acquire a deeper and more nuanced knowledge of the music that simple consumers.

    So for a really large number of people, there is no appeal to cotton candy and rhinestone music. So there is no appeal in a large tent. And if there is a large tent, and another commercial music "revival" of some kind -- well, that is fine. But be aware, that too will pass.

    But the wellspring will still be there. Wet and cool -- just like it always has been.

    Let's pick (this week in Dahlonega),

    -Tom

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  22. Tom - Your response stands as one of the most thought provoking ones I've received on this issue. It also raises several questions for me. Part of the jamming ideology is that jamming is open to everyone; people are welcome in the jam circle once they understand and practice jam etiquette. By saying "the bar is high," you exclude novices or those who have not achieved high performance levels sufficient to rate inclusion in certain jams. Second, some of the finest high level jams I've seen (can't say been a part of because I am, at best, a very low level banjo player)exist in homes, the back rooms of music shops, or hotel rooms and suites at indoor festivals and meetings. While I'm sure they are to be found at festivals, I suspect that highly expert jammers prefer more private settings for exactly the reason I set forth above. Therefore, the question of attracting new (and younger) ears to bluegrass still remains open in my mind.

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  23. Part A

    “Tom - Your response stands as one of the most thought provoking ones I've received on this issue. It also raises several questions for me. Part of the jamming ideology is that jamming is open to everyone; people are welcome in the jam circle once they understand and practice jam etiquette.”

    Your question is a good one, particularly given where you come from. The first thing to note is the whole “jam circle” idea did not originate in bluegrass, and is almost never practiced in the home country of bluegrass at all. That idea, and its explicit etiquette, (according to Robert Cantwell in his extraordinary history of the folk revival, “When We Were Good”) was a derivative of the summer camp culture of upstate NY. It was incorporated by the NY based designers of the “folk revival” as a cornerstone of their genre, and it certainly survives today as the “folk circles” of the singer/songwriter genre. The explicit structure of such sessions is very natural and acceptable in a culture descended from the Puritans where group restraints on the individuals in the group by the group is a natural way to do things. But that is not at all a Scots Irish idea – in fact, essentially the opposite is true – a polite person never presumes to tell anyone what to do and explicit group pressure is the very definition of obnoxious. These differences obviously lead to a lot of misunderstandings.

    I wrote an article on mountain style jamming about ten years ago, which was published in Bluegrass Unlimited. Here is a link. http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~barnwell/rolesx.htm

    I have now attended jam sessions in 38 States and four foreign countries (Japan, Germany, the Czech Republic and Canada) and since I am retired, I now spend three months on the South Shore of Nova Scotia – where we play lots of music. My observation (in North America) is that the farther you get from the TN/NC/VA/GA corner, the more likely a folk circle jam will appear.

    It seems to the proponents of the circle jam that they are intrinsically more fair, but that is not true at all. It is just harder to see what is happening if you are not from the culture. In fact, in an area known for its hospitality, bluegrass communities are widely known as the most open and the most welcoming. And the environment is essentially perfect for the care and feeding of the young and the novice, and it does it (and has done it) very well pretty much forever.

    So why the confusion? Well, the first thing to know is the (many, many) small southern bluegrass festivals are really big picking parties. As you move north and west, more people watch the shows and it is even considered impolite to jam during the show. This is exactly the opposite in the highland south. At any given time, there will be many jam sessions in the parking lot and campground without regard to the show. So are large part of the music is not on stage – it is in the campground and parting lot. Also, large jam sessions are rare. This is because when the get to large, they naturally break up and multiply. The effect is that more of the players are doing more music more of the time.


    Let's Pick

    -Tom

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  24. Part B

    I have a story – it is not my story, but since you know the principal, you can talk to him about it when you next see him. We became great friends with Tony Watt while he was a student at Georgia Tech – we hauled him all over North Georgia to play music. Well Tony is two things. First, he is one of the best people I know – kind, considerate, and caring. Second, he is an inner city kid (a man now) from Cambridge where his father, Steve Watt, was a Cambridge guy who learned bluegrass from the Lilly brothers – a New England bluegrass pioneer.

    Well, Tony went to the bluegrass program at East Tennessee State. Tony is a fine student, with degrees from Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt – where he did very well. But the same aggressive, questioning approach that worked so well in leading edge science education failed badly at ETS – there the teachers were hard core Scots Irish. It was a major cultural mismatch. Ask Tony about it when you see him.

    When I bring southern players to Nova Scotia, where they sometimes see a circle jam for the first time, their immediate response is confusion. They cannot understand why the group doesn’t split up and thus make way more music. Well the reason, of course, is because the group thinks it is impolite. A price one group is willing to pay and the other is not.

    Remember, bluegrass is band music. Properly done in an appropriate sized group, (most) everyone has a role in essentially every song – lead singing, harmony singing, lead instrument and rhythm. The trick is to get a good mix of skills and interests in every group. It is not unusual for us to jam 14 hours a day in a rolling session that may involve several dozen people at different times and in different role. We only stop to warm up for the stage and to play the show. In the jams on any given day, we will play with lots of people like us, lots of people who would like to be like us, and lots of people we would like to be. We teach, learn, and are amazed – it is totally wonderful.

    “By saying "the bar is high," you exclude novices or those who have not achieved high performance levels sufficient to rate inclusion in certain jams.”

    I just said that to say that if you are a true student of the music, and you develop several skills, you also implicitly develop a much expanded understanding of the nuances of the music. The important point to remember is even a one-trick pony has a role – that is basically all you need. If you practice and develop multiple skills, of course, you can participate in, and enhance, more music.

    “Second, some of the finest high level jams I've seen (can't say been a part of because I am, at best, a very low level banjo player)exist in homes, the back rooms of music shops, or hotel rooms and suites at indoor festivals and meetings. While I'm sure they are to be found at festivals, I suspect that highly expert jammers prefer more private settings for exactly the reason I set forth above. Therefore, the question of attracting new (and younger) ears to bluegrass still remains open in my mind.”

    Well that I think is a regional effect. In the south, they totally happen at festivals – albeit mostly smaller festivals. Outside the south, people pay more to get in, see lower average quality groups, and don’t get nearly as much chance to jam. That is just the way it is. Because of the high level of play readily available in the highland south, the musicians don’t really get paid a lot – supply and demand. This makes the small festivals amazing places.

    Let’s pick,

    -Tom

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  25. It's a little off of Ted's original topic, but Tom may have nailed the key point of bluegrass from a southern perspective -

    <<<< "At any given time, there will be many jam sessions in the parking lot and campground without regard to the show. So a large part of the music is not on stage – it is in the campground and parking lot. " >>>>

    The real draw of bluegrass to me, speaking from a southern musician's perspective, is to create something that speaks to your soul and sounds really good, with a small group of like-minded people who feed off of each other's creativity and rhythm.

    Differentiating from old-time or folk music, bluegrass jams (at least down South) almost always have one, and only one, of each instrument - a specialist if you will - for each piece of the song. For example, if you play lead guitar and there's already a lead guitar player (especially if he's better), you either play whatever instrument is lacking, just listen and wait for your opportunity, or go find another jam. But you almost never have more than one of each skill. Multiple instruments of the same kind creates "chaos" and a "heck of a wracket" -generally not very pleasing to the Southern ear.

    From what I've seen, people who are into folk, old-time, classic country and folks from up north (for the most part) don't mind and seem to enjoy participating in a big crowd. 10 guitars, 14 banjos and maybe a bass is a lot of fun to some people. But you don't see that in most of the bluegrass jams I've played in and I can't personally spend more than a few minutes in that kind of jam. It gives me a splitting headache.

    But I can jam for days on end in a tight jam with one of each instrument playing great songs.

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  26. Please don't turn this into a regional issue. We attend large and small festivals from Vermont to Florida, from Connecticut to Ohio and Tennessee where we see a variety of kinds of jams. Most contain around five or six active players, sometimes with several more around the edges. We see, and I've photographed, high level jams in every area. People like Bruce & Kelly Stockwell in Vermont, or Frank and Barbara Shore from Connecticut provide home places for jammers who will interest and attract those from anywhere who wish to engage in traditional jams. Ask Dr. Tom Bibey for his impression after attending Strawberry Park last June. He came back to our trailer with a surprise and bemused look on his face and said, "Ya'll do it just like we do at home." Regional differences are not the issue here.

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  27. “Regional differences are not the issue here.”

    Well, the point I was trying to make is that I believe regional variations relate directly to the answer to your original question. I certainly don’t think regional variations are bad in any way – in fact quite the opposite. They are wonderful. By wandering the world trying to jam in many places, I have become friends with lots of people I would normally not have ever had any real chance to meet. Quite possibly I have major philosophical differences with many (most?) of them (as a retired college professor, research scientist, and geek, I am a pretty weird guy socially) – but it just doesn’t matter. Music is such a strong bond it trumps most other differences.

    Of course you find all kinds of jams everywhere. This is not a existence thing – it is a question of proportionality. And if you really do wander the world jamming, it is not a subtle effect. What people call “bluegrass,” which is not the same thing from region to region, seems to have a some kind of appeal to traditional musicians everywhere. Traditional music forms are pretty ubiquitous in rural areas – but of course, by their very nature, they are different from one another. And this is totally wonderful of course – not bad in any way. The spreading popularity of the bluegrass format (festivals, jams, etc.) has formed a new outlet for people who do other kinds of (usually acoustic) music. So what you find is a blending of IBMA type bluegrass with lots of other stuff – people taking advantage of what they see as a good platform for the particular music they love to make.

    I claim that that is the primary answer to your “big tent” question – the desire for people to do their own music and the opportunity offered by the traditional bluegrass format.

    Let's pick,

    -Tom

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  28. Ted, I apologize for digressing into discussing regional differences.

    I just thought Tom was on to an interesting idea. I've seen that people enjoy different things when listening to and jamming in acoustic music. Some people like informal open jams with lots of instruments playing at the same time, while others like a more structured environment with defined roles for each person. I don't know if region, culture, age, education level, ethnicity, religion or any other demographic is a primary factor or even a factor at all. But my personal experience has been that there is at least some reason to believe that regional influences may be part of it.

    You (Ted) mentioned as much in your main article by discussing how Jewish people and others from the North kept this music alive by spending money and bringing Southern rural musicians like Doc Watson and Bill Monroe to a larger audience. Why is it important that these people were Jewish or from New York City or that southerners migrated to the Great Lakes region? And why didn't people in the South promote their own music? I don't know, but it's all an interesting part of the history of this music and will surely affect it's growth or lack of it.

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  29. Tom (tpbiii), I enjoyed reading your take on jamming etiquette in different regions. Here in W. PA, there is no clearly defined code of jam etiquette I'm aware of. My rule at a festival, if they're strangers to me, is that I won't start jamming unless I'm invited. In most cases, if you're walking by with an instrument case and you stop to listen to a jam, it won't take long before someone invites you to join the jam. The smaller groups of super-hot pickers are less likely to, and I totally understand why. And in those cases, I'm usually only stopping to listen in awe, not to jam.

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  30. Great essay Ted, music is going to evolve whether we want it to or not, regardless of monetary or artistic issues. Novice young players finding their own path is what forces the changes we are now witnessing. An electric band that plays only covers of classic rock, and golden country can be booked every weekend on the bar circuit. It is much, much harder to reach that level with an acoustic band. If an acoustic band can reach the level of sustaining themselves financially by only playing traditional bluegrass, then they are the exception and not the rule.
    As for jamming during the festivals, I (and I believe most players) will always choose playing over listening.

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  31. Traditional Bluegrass will survive. On the front porches and living rooms of the players who play it because they love it. It won't survive where it's played strictly for money. As we say in Old Time music,"There's tens of dollars to be made in Old Time music." Bluegrass, to me, is the newcomer. Old Time music, like Uncle Dave Macon, The Skillet Likkers, Charley Poole, etc I prefer is only available in small market self-produced CD's and house concerts and very small venues. It's hard to find, and the players are more often found in jam sessions than concert venues. We still play clawhammer and 2 finger style banjo. Bluegrass pushed our music out of the tent in the 1950's. I listen to bluegrass, but when they plug in and add drums, I look for a different tent. I like other styles of music, I even own a couple of electric guitars. I don't eat beef every day. But when I want beef, don't color chicken red and call it beef.
    I have seen one of my favorite styles be pushed aside and mostly go underground. It survives, and so will Bluegrass, but don't expect Bluegrass to fit into a mass market appeal. As stated above, "When we began mixing in Americana, alt-country and local favorites, the crowds grew and grew. Now it is rare to see a trad bluegrass band there." Read that again. It says rare. In a few years,"rare" will be replaced by "never". It will all be Taylor Swift clones. The next step will be "Country Lady Gaga." 20 years ago, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival featured The Flecktones and James Taylor, among others. I pretty near wrote Bluegrass off as lost back then. But it survives, in the hands and homes of those who play for love of the music. If you love it, play it, and teach those who want to learn.

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  32. A read whose screen name is Ben Venutti posted the following on Mando Hangout. I'm reposting it with his permission.

    "I love this battle between "traditional" bluegrass supporters and contemporary bluegrass or New Grass supporters. " Bluegrass" dates itself to the mid 40's with Bill and soon to follow Flatt and Scruggs,Stanley Bros.etc. Within a very short time you had Jim and Jesse,Osbornes, Country Gentlemen etc. which were already a form of "new" grass. Within about 20 years there were bands such as the Greenbriar Boys,Kentucky Colonels,Dillards pushing the envelope. By the early 70's there were quite a few bands that had begun using yet more modern techniques and arrangements while adhering to the format of a "Bluegrass" band as defined by Bill Monroe. Most of these styles (this would include the work of Sam Bush and Co from that period.)are today considered "traditional". The fight over traditional vs non traditional goes back at least to the early 70's. You had a form of music that was maybe 25 years old and claiming that there was a tradition -I have a son who is 25-- he was a baby like what? --it seems like months ago! In as much as Bluegrass was a non traditional version of Old Time Appalachian string music I guess there are elements of tradition there. There is a group of instruments that is associated with it, it is acoustic in nature but was always "electrified" in that it played to a microphone as radio was it's original platform. Old Times original platform was the Barn Dance. It did borrow a great deal from more contemporary(at the time) styles of music that everyone,everywhere was hearing via radio. Stanley Bros to me, though they followed Monroe, always seemed a bit of a throw back in that they were more like the missing link harking back more to Old Time than BM did. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there doesn't seem to me that there really ever was a "tradition" to bluegrass anymore than there is a "tradition" to rock and roll. Monroe did what he did just like the Beatles did what they did. Bluegrass was constantly changing from it's very beginning. Many of the new bands such as Yonder Mountain String Band obviously never had much of a background in bluegrass or traditional folk styles of music before they formed a "bluegrass" band. My guess is they grew up listening to Kurt Cobain, Greenday and Phish. What they are playing is hardly new. If you had ever been to the festivals in the 60's and 70's what took place in the parking lot all night long was certainly "Jam" grass then and no different than what is called "Jam" grass now. There didn't seem to be much adherence to tradition then as far as the players went. One of the great musical nights of my life (1972/73) was hearing Kenny Baker and Tommy Jarrell(sp) trade licks and a jug of corn liquor all night until the sun came up getting better and better the drunker they got. Kenny Baker the greatest of the great bluegrass fiddlers and Tommy the greatest of the great old time fiddlers didn't seem to have to have a problem with definitions. I guess for marketing reasons they need a term so they can sell it but to me it's all just "string music"."

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