American Music: Bluegrass
I was having trouble deciding what to write about. I wanted to write about the history of musical notation but was also encouraged to write about bluegrass. It occurred to me how both these subject lie on wildly opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s exceedingly rare that I’ve ever needed a chart for a bluegrass song. It’s quite possible that if you need a chart for a bluegrass song, then you probably shouldn’t be playing bluegrass songs.
While the history of notation comes from its proto synthesis of neumes, (these are mnemonic devices written to assist with prayer in religious recitations during the 9th century AD), roots of bluegrass tie back into its instrumentation and region. Specifically, the banjo and the Appalachian regions of America, usually including areas in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and North Carolina, as well as sometimes extending as far south as northern Alabama, Georgia and western South Carolina, and as far north as Pennsylvania, southern and east central Ohio, and parts of southern upstate New York.
The southern portions of this region is generally accepted as the birthplace of bluegrass, and Kentucky holds the Poa genus of popular fauna which the genre of music is thought to have derived its namesake from. The typical party line is that musicians Bill Monroe, Lester Flatts, and Earl Scruggs, among a handful of others were the originators of bluegrass during music festivals in the area during the 1950s. The less popular (and certainly less documented) history of bluegrass comes from the post-civil war African American population, impoverished and living in makeshift communities on the outskirts of Jim-Crow laws and segregation, using instruments like the banjo, jug-bass, and fiddle in their social gatherings, creating an amalgamation of dance rhythms and fast paced music in concert with their white counterparts. Without access to the same forum of publicity, these black traditions have long been left out of the conversation, and bluegrass has evolved in the popular sphere (much as country music has) as a largely white culture. The terms hillbilly, hick, and hoedown are typically associated with poor white communities of the eastern mountain regions of the United States.
This is another example of rich American music culture that could not have existed without the contributions of all the diverse people that encompass its shores. While bluegrass certainly would not exist in the public sphere without Bill Monroe, neither would it be here without the contributions of the black communities that helped develop its style, transmission, and melodies. African music, by its tradition, is steeped in its ability to pass along genealogies without the aid of notation. This shared quality of bluegrass is embroidered in its style with its keen ability to connect to populations with simple stories, memorable melodies, and fast-paced dance rhythms. The aforementioned banjo has its roots in the Caribbean, as an adaptation of earlier African stringed instruments.
Music making has a complicated history in the story of slavery in America. Beyond the songs that were brought over from their homelands, auditory signals and styles were typically demanded by slave owners. Slaves were often made to sing, make sound, or perform for a variety of reasons. Some were made to display their music abilities to raise their price on the auction block. Slave owners would force African slaves to sing for productivity, entertainment, and sometimes just to keep track of their whereabouts. Over time, this forced musicality, infused with their natural roots for cultural transmission through song, would become a key part of the fabric for future American music culture. Bluegrass is an important component of that story.
Folk music, pop music, dance music, and many other categories are frequently marginalized and fringe, simple, or unimportant by comparison to their headier, more aristocratic counterparts like classical. Jazz originated as one of these under-classmen, until it gained its status among the hierarchy in the latter part of the19th century. Notation, and its necessity in more complicated forms for evolutions of genre plays an important role in how we view the social status of a musical style. As I mentioned in the beginning of this piece, I rarely need a chart for a bluegrass song, but those few that do require some sort of written form, are definitely in the realm of high-brow hill music. Who knows, maybe one day bluegrass will find its way out of the Kentucky mountains and into the halls of the educational institutions. Only time will tell if this will be of actual benefit to the style. As for me, give me three chords and a single microphone for us all to sing into any day of the week.
Here is one of my all-time favorite songs, by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Cornbread and Butter Beans. It captures much of the essence in this article, and is a apt representation of the diverse cultural significance in the background of bluegrass music.