Bluegrass without guitar?

**Timmando** · Jul-26-2012, 9:58am

We were practicing the other night and one of the members couldn't make it so we were without a guitar player. We had the upright bass, banjo and mandolin and it sounded pretty darn good...very tight sound without the guitar surprisingly. The bass provided the downbeat, the mando the upbeat and the banjo rolls. The banjo would do a vamp backup to the mando leads. It seemed that the missing guitar wasn't missed after all! And all the singers were there...anyone need an unemployed guitar player? I know someone who may be looking!

**AlanN** · Jul-26-2012, 10:44am

I think Country Gazzette tried that one time, forget where or when.

**onassis** · Jul-26-2012, 11:39am

I've always found it to be a bit thin sounding without the guitar, a sort of rhythmic continuity and density that the other instruments are hard pressed to mimic.

**Justus True Waldron** · Jul-26-2012, 12:02pm

The only bluegrass(ish) band without a guitar I could really get into was Crooked Still... but they had cello (and once in a while rhythm guitar). I've jammed sans guitar enough times if ours couldn't make it... it's alright... for instrumentals you can maybe get by alright. As far as for an actual performance I wouldn't play without one - especially a good one - to get that driving feel and low mids you can't get with just a banjo.

**OldSausage** · Jul-26-2012, 12:20pm

It really depends how good your guitar player is. If it sounds better without him, erm...

**Willie** · Jul-26-2012, 12:25pm

As far as I am concerned for bluegrass you have to have a guitar and a (ugh) banjo, you can play what you like but to call it bluegrass just ain`t correct....

Willie

**farmerjones** · Jul-26-2012, 2:35pm

What? No G run?

T, A, N, P, N!

**Marty Henrickson** · Jul-26-2012, 3:56pm

You beat me to it by 1:20, farmerjones!

**Mandobart** · Jul-26-2012, 4:09pm

Just for full disclosure, I'm a former and sometimes current guitar player, and bear no ill will to any particular instrument. But...most of our jams have one or maybe two mandolins, one banjo, one bass, one or two fiddles, if we're lucky a dobro and about six guitars....Hard to miss 'em.

**Timmando** · Jul-27-2012, 8:28am

Regarding that G run, our banjo player has a good simulation of one, and on mando I can get something close to it. But I still prefer having the four of us. The guitar boom chicka boom rhythm falls right on top of the bass boom and can't match the volume of the mandolin upbeat, and alot of times can't be heard in the mix.

**Brad Little** · Jul-27-2012, 8:29am

Originally Posted by Willie

As far as I am concerned for bluegrass you have to have a guitar and a (ugh) banjo, you can play what you like but to call it bluegrass just ain`t correct....
Willie

I'm a guitar player who has yet to learn more than two or three chords on the mandolin I've had for almost three years, but to my ears you can do away with a banjo, but bluegrass is not bluegrass without the mando.
Brad

**Timmando** · Jul-27-2012, 8:39am

But if you get rid of banjo, then you have country, not bluegrass. I always thought that the banjo made it bluegrass...I agree though, there have been many a bango player that was way too loud, playing rolls behind everyones break, vamping was an unknown concept. Once in a blue moon I come across a banjo player in a jam that has some sense and some dynamics in his playing, usually already in a band and living many miles away. Thats the problem with traveling to festivals far away, available musicians usually live far away also. We once had a great banjo player, until he was heard at a festival jam by a professional band leader who needed a banjo player...offered him a job traveling the usa and canada and we haven't seen him since...heres our boy...we are happy he is happy...
http://floridastatebluegrassband.com/
http://www.floridastatebluegrassband...ruise_2013.pdf

**allenhopkins** · Jul-27-2012, 10:13am

Buck White had a "banjoless" bluegrass band for a while, with his daughters and Jerry Douglas on resonator guitar. Sounded fine to me.

This discussion is going to get -- has already gotten -- into the debate between the "strict constructionists" who think it ain't bluegrass if it doesn't have the standard instrumentation, and those "bluegrass activists" or whatever who think it's OK to try some different instrumental mixes, just to see what happens.

Since I lean a bit toward the latter camp (don't mind someone playing harmonica now and then, e.g.), let me say that if one could come up with a way to fill in the chordal mid-range, even with individual instrument lines such as cello -- or could even consider something like an octave mandolin! -- one could make a "bluegrass-like" sound sans guitar.

Not that I'd prefer that. A well-played bluegrass guitar is a great instrument, and a band lacking one would have to be pretty inventive and virtuosic to make up for its absence. But I'd say, "do-able."

**Willie** · Jul-27-2012, 10:56am

I would say that Flat and Scruggs was a pretty darn good bluegrass band and on MOST of their recordings didn`t have a mandolin, a fiddle can take its place but a good complete band should have both, too many ways to split the money so I don`t have both in my band....

You are correct Allen as to making music using different instruments than the traditional ones in a "Bluegrass" band, BUT it isn`t bluegrass as we have come to know and love (IMHO)...I have seen and enjoyed hearing bluegrass songs played with a lot of different instruments so it is do-able as you say....Jimmy Martin would turn over in his grave if he could read this thread, also Charlie Waller, without their guitars those bands would have really suffered....

Willie

**Marty Henrickson** · Jul-27-2012, 12:44pm

Originally Posted by Brad Little

I'm a guitar player who has yet to learn more than two or three chords on the mandolin I've had for almost three years, but to my ears you can do away with a banjo, but bluegrass is not bluegrass without the mando.
Brad

I'm with you on this, Brad. Tony's "Manzanita" album proves to me that bluegrass can thrive without a banjo.

**ralph johansson** · Jul-31-2012, 3:32am

Originally Posted by Timmando

Regarding that G run, our banjo player has a good simulation of one, and on mando I can get something close to it. But I still prefer having the four of us. The guitar boom chicka boom rhythm falls right on top of the bass boom and can't match the volume of the mandolin upbeat, and alot of times can't be heard in the mix.

Not that we need it, but the highest note of the G run is the lowest note on the mandolin.

Good players know how to project and balance the sound of their instruments.

**ralph johansson** · Jul-31-2012, 3:35am

Originally Posted by Timmando

We were practicing the other night and one of the members couldn't make it so we were without a guitar player. We had the upright bass, banjo and mandolin and it sounded pretty darn good...very tight sound without the guitar surprisingly. The bass provided the downbeat, the mando the upbeat and the banjo rolls. The banjo would do a vamp backup to the mando leads. It seemed that the missing guitar wasn't missed after all! And all the singers were there...anyone need an unemployed guitar player? I know someone who may be looking!

Even with a guitar preent I would find your use of the bass and mandolin very limiting. There is much more to rhythm mandolin than just chopping on the afterbeat. How do you handle a slow tune?

**ralph johansson** · Jul-31-2012, 3:36am

Originally Posted by AlanN

I think Country Gazzette tried that one time, forget where or when.

Check out the Johansson-Lassiter-Tims trio.

**Dan Johnson** · Jul-31-2012, 5:44am

Can you have bluegrass without music?

The guitar is rhythmically pretty important to bluegrass music. I think you might get tired of playing without one after a while, unless your guitar player is kind of a drag.

**UsuallyPickin** · Jul-31-2012, 7:38am

Any instrument in a string band if poorly played will take away rather than add to the music. When well played it of course adds . Without guitar the mid range pitches would be missed tonally. And the single note runs from the bass player would have nothing to "hang " with. I guess any instrument can be done without but to my ear it is always better done with. It of course depends on what "sound" you are looking for. Crooked Still and Sarah Jaroz and Company have non traditional groupings of string instruments and make excellent music. Is it Blue Grass ......... ? .. .. .. Are the more traditionally aligned instrument arrangements of Punch Brothers Blue Grass .. .. .? .. .. .. R/

**Givson** · Jul-31-2012, 7:43am

A great rhythm player makes for a strong bluegrass band. Listen to Tony Rice, Jimmy Martin, Del McCoury, Lester Flatt. Can't think of many great bands that don't have really good rhythm guitarists. On the other hand, some have suggested that a banjo is not always necessary...

**Timmando** · Jul-31-2012, 7:52am

We don't normally play without guitar, and it wouldn't sound right on a slow waltz as mentioned above. I learned tho that in a fix we could do without it. I was kind of surprised how tight the sound was, as opposed to a jam with multiples of each instrument.

**Fretbear** · Jul-31-2012, 8:29am

I am on a serious Jimmy Martin kick right now, learning Paul Williams and Vernon Derrick mandolin solos. The clothes alone could put most people off the Sunny Mountain Boys videos on YouTube, etc., but it must be said that Jimmy Martin's contributions on guitar and vocals to bluegrass music cannot be overstated.
Tony Rice's favorite rhythm guitar player had an intensity and mastery in his vocals that was unsurpassed.
If you listen really close, it is almost impossible to hear his guitar unless it is playing a run, and therein lies the sad fate of the best of the bluegrass guitar players; if they do it right, they almost disappear. It is ironic and telling that "the" master rhythm guitar player chose to (uniquely) have that snare drum included in his (very much) bluegrass band.

**mikeyes** · Jul-31-2012, 8:58am

As for those who think that no guitar equals no bluegrass, Paul Warren and Earl Scruggs probably disagree

**AlanN** · Jul-31-2012, 8:59am

I'd add Russell Moore to the good rhythm list.

And this from above: Any instrument in a string band if poorly played will take away rather than add to the music.

is very true. Have always said that a band is only as good as the weakest link. I find that I play so much better if all of the parts are on fire and ready. Even if one is sub-par, the whole thing suffers. And all don't have to be 'hot' pickers to be in the pocket.