BG vs Old-time

[WindinBoy]

Don't you think compared to banjo, old time vs BG delineation is a very gray area for instruments like fiddle and mandolin? It might be more of a rhythmic interpretation and fewer notes in an old-time presentation.

I gravitate towards old-time because it seems you can throw in lots of chords, but I could do that anyway. Also since I can't always play too fast, old-time doesn't enforce the fast tempos in the repertoir.. I guess..

Sorry if this seems to be a dumb posting:confused: Seems it would be easier to identify Irish vs other styles, especially the jigs and hornpipes which are unmistakable in their rhythms

[Steve L]

Aren't there improvized solos over the from of the tune in bluegrass that do not occur in old time? That's a pretty substantial difference requiring a very different skill set if you ask me.

[John Flynn]

I think at the beginning level, it is a grey area. In fact, a lot of the beginner books on "bluegrass mandolin" teach tunes that you would be more likely to hear an old-time group do than a bluegrass group. But Steve is right, the soloing thing is is a big difference. Another big difference is the chop chords. You can play old-time for years and never know how to do a chop chord. You pretty much need to know chops to play bluegrass, even though they are not the only chords you would ever do. I disagree that tempo is necessarily a differentiator. Here in the Midwest, we tend to play old time blazing fast, easily comparable to the tempos you will find in bluegrass jams.

[WindinBoy]

I'll just throw this out there.

The banjo style is the biggest determiningg factor as to whether a band will be classified old-time vs bluegrass. Not claiming this to be 100% true, just fodder for discussion. :)

[allenhopkins]

Plus the guitar style, the fiddle style, and, yes, the mandolin style. And the tunes that are played, the proportion of vocals vs. instrumentals, the tempos, the inclusion or exclusion of instrumental "breaks," the number of times each tune is played through, the fiddle and banjo tunings, the vocal harmonies, and the basic orientation (performance vs. dance accompaniment -- not universal or strict, but the preponderance of bluegrass is "performance," and the preponderance of old-time is "the way you'd play for a dance").

There are bands that dance along the border between bluegrass and old-time, and it's true that finger-picked banjo is much more common in bluegrass than in old-time (though there are a surprisingly large number of old-time bands that utilize two- or three-finger banjo instead of clawhammer, frailing, what you want to call it). But "the biggest determining factor," IMHO, is the band's overall approach to the music.

[WindinBoy]

Hmm not convinced. If all the other musicians play in a BG style byt the banjo player frails, are you telling me they will be accepted as a BG band?

[allenhopkins]

Well, when Ralph Stanley does it, yes.

Later: quick, smart-### answer, sorry.

I didn't say that a band with a frailing banjo player would be "accepted" as a bluegrass band. But I don't agree that the main difference between bluegrass and old-time is how the banjo player plays. There are a myriad of differences, some of which I tried to mention above.

Example -- Buck White's band, Down Home Folks, with his daughters and Jerry Douglas on Dobro, had no banjo player at all some of the time. But they played a bluegrass repertoire, took instrumental breaks, sang bluegrass harmonies, and with virtuosi like White and Douglas, you didn't miss the banjo. They played bluegrass festivals and concerts, and no one threw fruit and yelled, "That's not bluegrass!"

I think dropping a Scruggs-style banjo player into an old-time band wouldn't make it bluegrass, either, if they kept playing the same repertoire in the same manner with only the addition of finger-style banjo. Remember, there's a very vital tradition of non-bluegrass finger-picked banjo, especially in the Carolinas. This tradition is what produced Earl Scruggs, but banjo pickers like Snuffy Jenkins and Wade Mainer played finger-style banjo in old-time pre-bluegrass bands well before Scruggs joined the Blue Grass Boys and established the current bluegrass idiom.

Guess what I'm saying is, "There's more to the difference than just the banjo style.

[John Flynn]

Jeez, there are lots of things you could do or not do that would result in the bluegrass police saying you're "not a bluegrass band." Frailing a banjo is just one of them. I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out the rules of the BGPD. You could also say the biggest difference is that bluegrass is played standing up, while old-time is played sitting down. You could also say that if you have a dobro and/or a bass, you're bluegrass. If you have a dulcimer, you're old-time. If you sing most tunes, you're bluegrass, if most are instrumental, you're old-time. We've gone round and round about these distinctions on previous threads going back several years. They all come to nothing, IMHO.

If the style of banjo is the main difference for you, then that's what it is for you. For me, it is the solo break thing. I have heard bluegrass played without banjos at all, even by Bill Monroe himself, but almost never without solo breaks. But that's just what it is for me. BTW, I have seen banjo players playing both styles at jams.

[WindinBoy]

Maybe "acoustic roots music" is a broader umbrella for these styles of music, which would include blues as well.

That said, labels are a convenience, some things really don't fit conveniently into any label or category, at least not to where everyone totally agrees. For years Kurt Vonnegut was placed with Sci Fi books. He never considered himself a Sci-Fi writer, but that's where many of his books sat in a bookstore.

[Samjessin]

Which came first the chicken or the egg?

[Jonas]

Foghorn String Band is an kind of old-time band with a banjo playing three-finger style. They're great!

[danb]

Bluegrass is a fusion music, incorporating old fiddle tunes, blues, jazz improv, and several other new inventions. A lot of the "kick" in bluegrass comes from the excitement of these colliding traditions and styles, often held in a delicate balance where all are present but none overpowering.

Old-Time to me sounds closer to one of those taproots, the fiddle/dance music that came over from Europe and evolved in America. When I hear "bonaparte's retreat", I hear the low drone of a set of Uillean pipes or Northumbrian smallpipes in my head, or a drop-tuned Donegal fiddle doing pipe ornaments and imitation. A lot of the Virginia fiddle tunes sound to me like a dialect or descendant of Skinner style Scottish fiddling. Cape Breton music is another descendant of this, but with a Canadian accent

[MikeEdgerton]

Bluegrass is a fusion music, incorporating old fiddle tunes, blues, jazz improv, and several other new inventions...

Right on Dan, Monroe brought much of the big band sound to the masses without the big band. I think that jazz/blues part is often overlooked.

[8ch(pl)]

We need to remember who was the first banjo player in the Bluegrass Boys. Dave Ackeman, Dear Old "Stringbean". I am of the opinion (humble I hope) that Monroe's sound switched somewhat from a modified Old Time to what he made into Bluegrass. This occured when Stringbean left and Scruggs came along with his Carolina Picking. Stringbean was more Old Time.

Coming up to 35 years since Stringbean and Estelle were killed, their bodies found by their friend and neighbour Grandpa Jones.

[John Flynn]

I loved Stringbean! One sight gag he used to do was to play some incredibly hot run on his banjo and then he would take off his "signature" hat and use it to fan the neck of the instrument, like it needed to be cooled off. A silly gag, but it worked!

[mingusb1]

Many good points here, but has anyone brought up their different "applications"? To me old time is dance (square, contra) music while bluegrass is often intended as a performance for a listening audience.

Z

[Samjessin]

the old-time i enjoy was most certainly both dance music as well as sit and listen music. I think that this is a common pigeonholing of the genre(s) that encompass old-time.

[Samjessin]

Bill Monroe gets a whole lot of credit, but in my opinion he didn't do anything all that special. He was a great entertainer, a wonderful arranger, and was lucky enough to have hordes of musicians imitate what he did. I just think he was very popular at a point when music changed directions from end of the 1920's recording boom until the post-world-war II recording boom. He was also readily available before during and after the folk craze of the early 60's.

Bill is the figurehead of a homogenization of acoustic country music. When I go to old-time festivals I see a diversity of banjo styles that doesn't exist in bluegrass to the degree in does in old-time.

Anyway, we all choose to disagree about genres and will continue to do so. I split my time between bluegrass and old-time and frankly see bluegrass as one of the many genres of acoustic music I enjoy from any time period and do not agree with the polarization induced within the community. Sort of reminds me of the polarization of political issues in this campaign, but that just may be our culture. It is nice to see a revival of the term socialist!

[WindinBoy]

Many good points here, but has anyone brought up their different "applications"? To me old time is dance (square, contra) music while bluegrass is often intended as a performance for a listening audience.

Z

That's a good point. Musicians get so caught up in instruments and playing, they forget the music was a means to an end, to get the other folks up on their feet and dancing. The audience is supposed to have fun too!

[mingusb1]

Regarding oldtime as dance music, I am not trying to narrow it's definition, but rather put it in to a context for reference. I'm also not trying to be divisive as I really enjoy playing both oldtime and bluegrass. In fact, in a lot of the settings that I play in around here many people use the term "bluegrass" to include some oldtime songs and tunes. These are often older folks that grew up with the music, and around them the labels don't really matter.

However, I absolutely believe Monroe was special. There is no way to listen to the original recording of his Bluegrass Breakdown (as one example) and think otherwise. And before being a great performer and arranger he was a great writer, singer, instrumentalist, and band leader.

Z

[JeffD]

Biggest difference, from the mandolin players point of view, is that the mandolin's role in BG is well established, and clearly defined. Not so in OT.

Loud chunky chop chords, and wild improvization, characterize BG mandolin. Playing some rhythem with emphasis on the upbeat, or playing the melody 874329582383498705 times, thats OT.

[bgjunkie]

I am not sure how you would want to catagorize Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet, but Abigail plays mainly a frailing style banjo, whereas Bela Fleck plays three finger. Whatever you want to call it, it works for me.

I often think of buying a banjo to play old-time, it just speaks to me more than the Skruggs style. Ofcourse, as I told a banjo player at the NOTSBA jam the other night, "I figure if I don't know how to tune it, I probably shouldn't play it". Maybe later in life, for now I have a lot of work to do on the mandolin.

[Bernie Daniel]

Windinboy: The banjo style is the biggest determiningg factor as to whether a band will be classified old-time vs bluegrass. Not claiming this to be 100% true, just fodder for discussion.

I would say that is often true but many exceptions exist -- as already mentioned Stanley and Sting in bluegrass and it goes the other way too.

If you go back to some of the J.E. Mainer and his Mountaineers records (some are now on CD by Arhoole) from the early 1960's you will hear Glenn Mainer doing three finger banjo with the band on many old mountain tunes.

[Mike Bunting]

It's all just country music.

[JeffD]

Its all that "yeedle on the feedle" music.