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Thread: Bluegrass instruments

  1. #1
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    Default Bluegrass instruments

    I guess we could say that when bluegrass first started it was just five instruments: guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin and base fiddle, later on it seems that a dobro has been accepted as a bluegrass instrument and in some circles a harmonica.....My question is can anyone think of other acoustic instruments that could be added and still "fit in"?..I also know that some people have different ideas of what bluegrass is and can it be altered to incorporate many different kinds of instruments....I know some have tried electric instruments with wa-wa pedals and fuzz boxes.....My self I love a hammered dulcimer sound but can it be accepted as a bluegrass instrument?

    Your opinions please....Hope this hasn`t been beat to death before,

    No Mike, I never posted this before....

    Willie

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    formerly Philphool Phil Goodson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie View Post
    ....My self I love a hammered dulcimer sound but can it be accepted as a bluegrass instrument?
    Your opinions please......
    Willie
    Of course not. You know better than that!

    Did you just buy one and now looking for a job?
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    You know the answer the BG police will give you on this one!! C'mon, man!!

    Skaggs likes to use an arch top acoustic guitar and will occasionally throw in accordion. I would not consider accordion BG at all, but the guy who plays with them can sure make it work!! And, I'll admit to liking good hammered dulcimer, too...
    Chuck

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Bluegrass roasting on an open fire
    opinions nipping at your nose
    Though it's been said
    many times, many ways:
    TANPON!!

    Merry Christmas to one and all!

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    An instrument that would work, not on a steady diet but on some tunes, would be a sopranino mandolin. Pitched a fourth up from the mandolin and fiddle, it could really accentuate the high lonesome.

    And, as has been discussed on other threads, two fiddle unison with an otherwise standard bluegrass ensemble is really really nice.
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    To me bluegrass is a music with a certain drive or beat, so any instrument could be used if they can drive with the bluegrass beat. Many " bluegrass bands" don't do this even with conventional instruments, although that is not saying I don't like a lot if it it's just not bluegrass. I known someone is thinking speed, people think bluegrass is fast and a lot of it is but it's the drive that makes it bluegrass. Listen to early Country Gentlement or Jimmy Martin, even on slower numbers they just drive thru you, so if you can do that on a hammer dulcimer then that is still bluegrass. I have known a couple that drove a piano I considered bluegrass.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandoplumb View Post
    To me bluegrass is a music with a certain drive or beat, so any instrument could be used if they can drive with the bluegrass beat. Many " bluegrass bands" don't do this even with conventional instruments, although that is not saying I don't like a lot if it it's just not bluegrass. I known someone is thinking speed, people think bluegrass is fast and a lot of it is but it's the drive that makes it bluegrass. Listen to early Country Gentlement or Jimmy Martin, even on slower numbers they just drive thru you, so if you can do that on a hammer dulcimer then that is still bluegrass. I have known a couple that drove a piano I considered bluegrass.
    While I agree in general, I have heard some bands incorporate a drum. The most iconic beat driving instrument one could name. And while YMMV, I really don't care for it.
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    JeffD that's because a mandolin is the "bluegrass drum" and that other drum is stepping on our toes

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Bluegrass is a combination of Appalachian, Irish Trad and Blues, right?



    So anything associated with Old-Time, Blues or Irish Trad should be fair game by default.

    As for other instruments, there are plenty of banjoists that don't play bluegrass, and plenty of saxophonists that do. A creative person and a tactful musician can play anything on anything with anyone.





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    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    The Country Gentlemen used Mike Seeger's Autoharp on New Freedom Bell, and it fit in well. There's some Autoharp on the Flatt & Scruggs Songs Of the Famous Carter Family, and Maybelle C played a bit of it on the first Will The Circle Be Unbroken 3-LP set.

    Buck White added piano to some of the Down Home Folks gospel numbers, when he wasn't playing mandolin. You'll hear plenty of piano on Lewis Family albums as well. Again, has to be tastefully used, not on every style of song/tune, but sometimes it fits.

    Jay Round put out a hammered dulcimer LP years ago with bluegrass-style backup. He's fast enough to do it:



    Walt Michael played hammered dulcimer with Bottle Hill back in the '70's, though mostly he was their guitarist.

    In the mandolin family, Del McCoury's band uses mandola now and then; Cloud Valley did so in the past. Allan Shelton combined banjo and Dobro, playing a "five-string Dobro" working with Jim & Jesse.

    Crooked Still, sorta quasi-bluegrass, performs with cello. Ray Edenton played tiple on a couple of Osborne Brothers & Red Allen songs. And, of course, many bands have used electric bass guitar, in the same role as bass fiddle.

    Won't go into the number of bluegrass bands that have "gone electric" in order to play on the same shows as electric country-western bands. Jim & Jesse and the Osborne Brothers are just the best-known of those who've mixed in some electric instruments from time to time. Flatt & Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, and many others, have recorded with drums (mostly brushed snare).

    Doesn't necessarily answer the basic question, though. Using an "odd" instrument on a few songs or tunes is not the same as accepting it as a part of a "standard" bluegrass band. Bluegrass band competitions often limit the type of instrument allowed onstage, and usually it's banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, Dobro and bass -- nothing else.

    Early pre-bluegrass string bands were not so restrictive, and you can find bands that used tenor banjo, ukulele, reed instruments (both blown and with bellows), hand percussion as well as drums, etc. Henry Ford's Old-Time Dance Orchestra featured a tuba as well as hammered dulcimer.

    What I think it would take to get another instrument generally accepted, would be for an established bluegrass band to add one on a consistent basis. Ricky Skaggs has brought in lead electric guitar, accordion, Andy Statman's clarinet, Bruce Hornsby's piano, et. al., but hasn't stuck with one on an every-performance basis.

    And, of course, even that wouldn't win everyone over. A core of bluegrass fans -- whatever their political persuasions -- are very musically conservative, and treat innovation with suspicion if not hostility. So I'd say change here is not imminent. Were I to vote for a "next bluegrass instrument," I think Autoharp, harmonica, and hammered dulcimer are all decent candidates. Just my 2¢.
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Any instrument can play in any style as long at the musician behind it knows how to fit. Accordion is not my favorite, but I love the early Bluegrass Boys records with Sally Ann Forrester!
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    I think there's a strong case for the mandola and octave mandolin, but those aren't much of a stretch. Tenor banjo and tenor guitar too, but again, they are very similar to what's already there.

    I've heard harmonicas and accordions used with bluegrass ensembles, and they sound nice even with bluegrass tunes. But they drive the feel away from bluegrass.

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    I tend to think things have mutated away from bluegrass and become Old Time or Stringband if you move away from the standard instrumentation you list.
    Bluegrass is a narrow genre assrmbled to perform in a particular wauy. Whereas OldTime & Stringband are broader and less regimented in that respect.
    The confusion arises as the term bluegrass often gets used as a catch-all term.
    It doesn't mean a bluegrass combo couldn't incorporate other set-ups into their act, just that they'll be playing outside their main field when they do.Given how many players are multi-instrumentalists and cross-genre players, it makes a lot of sense that many bluegrass outfits play other styles and non-bluegrass line-upsto spice up their shows. But when they do they are playing an alternative presentation, something closely associated with but outside bluegrass.
    Eoin



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    Registered User Jim Taylor's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Lil'Roy plays some autoharp in his show. Actually, I like the hammered dulcimer. Fits good in some songs, and could be part of a set. its a mess to keep in tune tho. I saw Bill Monroe play a electric guitar! Is it Bluegrass, or just good music. Hummmmm.

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Used in the correct way, as a 'harmonising instrument' to the Fiddle,i reckon a Viola could sound pretty good. Ronnie McCoury uses his Mandola in some songs that he & his father's band perform,so why not swing a Viola in there to keep Jason Carter company ?.
    I love the sound of the Hammered Dulcimer & also the Autoharp,but both would be out of place in a Bluegrass band 'proper' (IMHO),
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Spoons

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Ole Joe Clark View Post
    Spoons
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    A pink Telecaster should be accepted after watching this!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEb3-RC2DBI

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    So many opinions on what is really bluegrass....Some of those bands you named are not true bluegrass bands although they do perform on bluegrass shows, I do not own a dulcimer and my dad was one of best harmonica players I ever heard but I tried a harmonica on a show once and it clashed with the fiddle, they just didn`t sound right together, Skaggs also played a viola on some recordings with The Bluegrass Band on the tune "Summer Wages" I believe, he doubled with him self on it.... I also saw a band that had a fellow sitting on a wooden box and beating on it like a drum...Now tell me that fits...I have had people from the audience get up and play spoons along with my band and it`s OK as long as they have good timing, they sometimes sit at the bar and bang away and as I say I don`t mind it they are in time....A lot of the instruments you named do fit in with old timey and country music, I have tried an electric guitar (bass) and depending on how it played whether it will fit, most of them want to walk it all of the time...

    Thanks for your opinions.....Willie

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Spoons just annoy me unless, I'm eating chili!
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie View Post
    So many opinions on what is really bluegrass....Some of those bands you named are not true bluegrass bands


    You were saying?

    --Tom

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    there's this wooden box called a cajon. I played my mandolin with two boys (ages 8 and 11) - one on cajon, one on fiddle and me on the mandolin. We played dozens of fiddle tunes and the cajon acted like the clogging beat. Crazy fun with these school boys from Pennsylvania.

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Beanzy View Post
    ...Bluegrass is a narrow genre assembled to perform in a particular way….bluegrass often gets used as a catch-all term. It doesn't mean a bluegrass combo couldn't incorporate other set-ups into their act, just that they'll be playing outside their main field when they do...they are playing an alternative presentation, something closely associated with but outside bluegrass.
    Quote Originally Posted by Willie View Post
    ...Some of those bands you named are not true bluegrass bands...A lot of the instruments you named do fit in with old timey and country music [but not bluegrass]...
    This is what I mean about bluegrass fans being musically conservative, and treating innovation with suspicion if not hostility. The question was, "Can anyone think of other instruments that could be added and still fit in?" If the immediate reaction is "That's not bluegrass!", then, NO.

    Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys weren't the Crook Brothers or Arthur Smith's Dixieliners, either. Maybe someone (Uncle Dave?) said, "That's not real string band music!" when they heard Monroe with Flatt, Scruggs, Wise et. al. If you stick with a narrow definition of bluegrass, then, by definition, you can't broaden it to include, say, a harmonica.
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    How about a cello?! Skip to about 2:00 to hear the cello play forked deer, and skip that terrible hammered dulcimer thing .hammered dulcimer is not an instrument I would include in this thread, in fact i would not include it as an instrument


  33. #25

    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie View Post
    I guess we could say that when bluegrass first started it was just five instruments: guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin and base fiddle, later on it seems that a dobro has been accepted as a bluegrass instrument and in some circles a harmonica.....
    Willie
    We ought to keep in mind that there was a period of experimentation before the big five instruments crystallized when Monroe's BlueGrass Boys included an accordion. Quite likely, this was to compete with Roy Acuff and Pee Wee King. So historically, the accordion "fits in" bluegrass.

    And, it could be speculated that if the Grand Ol' Opry had not been so reactionary, maybe drums would have become on the basic bluegrass instruments.

    With the rise of new grass and progressive bluegrass, perhaps there will be another period of experimentation or openness.

    Maybe, the question should be reversed. Which of the big five are most likely to be dropped or become optional? Banjo, I think.


    Double bass, there seem to be fewer people playing it in general and that must have some affect on bluegrass. There seems to be lot of interest in acoustic bass guitar, uke bass, and the like. But how about bajo sexto or bajo quinto from Mexican string bands?

    And, how about, the array of string instruments in the tamburitza (or tambrucia) bands of Central and Southern Europe, especially Croatia and Serbia, and those communities in the United States. There are ensembles ranging from mandolin sized double coursed, through guitar like but less than 6 strings, to bass sized instruments (bisernica, brac, bugarija, celo and berde). Some tamburitza groups have been invited to perform at more eclectic bluegrass/folk music gatherings. And, tamburitza groups in the US and Europe have reportedly been influenced by bluegrass.


    Here's a clip that sounds bluegrass-ish to me.


    I don't think that's a dominant style but it shows the potential of the instruments for bluegrass.

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