One thing that has intrigued me as I began to learn fiddle and bluegrass music, was where it came from. It seems inevitable that while learning traditional styles of music, people tell the stories of the history of the tunes, who wrote them, and how they learned them. From there, I have pieced together some knowledge of the history of bluegrass music and how it came to be. Before bluegrass music existed, there were traditional styles of music in parts of Europe and Africa. These styles of music, and the instruments used in them, informed what American music would become. In Italy, the mandolin, violin, and upright bass were invented, and from there were brought to England and Ireland and used in their traditional music.
When North America was being colonized, the English people brought over their instruments, and settled in the Appalachian Mountains. The English also took slaves from parts of West Africa, which is where the banjo comes from. When the slaves were taken to North America, they obviously didn't have any musical instruments with them, but they did build their own instruments using what they could find on the farms where they were working. Because of this, the banjos in this time period were all unique in terms of how many strings there, and how they were tuned, and how they were built. When all the musical influences melded together in the Appalachian Mountains, a new style of music was formed, which we now call "old time". Old time music was meant to be played in informal jam sessions, with an instrumentation that included an upright bass, a few banjos, any number of fiddles, and maybe a mandolin. In the 1930s, bluegrass was invented by a man named Bill Monroe. He was from Rosine, Kentucky, and he had influences in many different genres of music, including old time and blues. He was an innovator who took all his musical influences and turned them into something new. Bill Monroe's band was called "Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys" and they toured all over the United States, spreading the genre and creating a lot of popularity. Rumor has it, that he didn't like seeing other people playing bluegrass music, because he didn't want them stealing his idea. He didn't realize that he had created a whole new genre of music, and people were imitating him because they liked the music! There were also some others who were developing bluegrass around the same time, including Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, who started their own band, Flatt and Scruggs, after their time playing in Monroe's band. Since then, many people have followed in the footsteps of Bill Monroe and his contemporaries, using the music they know and love to innovate and create new things. Many people still try to imitate exactly how the original Bluegrass Boys played, while at the same time new sub-genres are being created all the time.
2 Comments
Bryan Fridley
8/25/2021 07:14:16 am
Bluegrass is fast-tempo Mountain Music
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Alani Sugar
8/25/2021 07:31:51 am
Thanks for the info!
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Alani SugarAlani Sugar is a young fiddle and mandolin player from Maryland. She has been involved in the region's music scene since she was 15 years old, and has the attention of musicians and music lovers alike in the area. She currently works as a professional musician and teaches fiddle and mandolin lessons online via Skype Archives
January 2024
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