The rules according to Bill Monroe

[Jeff Hildreth]

"Nobody had heard banjo played like that before"

With the exception of those who had heard Johnny Whisnant.

[Jeff Hildreth]

"Personally, while I greatly adore Monroe's music and much appreciate that he named it something memorable, I don't give a hoot about his "rules"."

There is a lot more to Bluegrass than Monroe. He was a contributor no doubt, but the definition of "bluegrass" is open to interpretation and IMNSHO Flatt and Scruggs did more for Bluegrass than the collective prior.

I have no recordings of Monroe.. none. Mandolin is a lot more than a small window of time and style. Bluegrass is a lot more than Monroe.

[Mandoplumb]

If there are NO rules to bluegrass how do we define the genre? Can I call the Beatles bluegrass? How about Johnny Cash or Mozart? Maybe we do allow ourselves to think that what we don't like ( any electric instrument in my case) to be against the rules and therefore no part of nuthin,but somewhere there has to be rules, it's just foolish to say there isn't. If there isn't then it would all just be music and maybe that wouldn't be so bad but that ain't the way it is. When I was a kid we called it hillbilly music or the more high brow "country" and that included Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Halkins, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, etc. As "country" became more pop and commercial there seem to be a need to distinguish it from was being called bluegrass, a simpler, cleaner( by that I mean less cluttered not more "moral") genre of music. To do that there has to be some understanding (rules) of what the characteristics of bluegrass is. I don't know who gets to set the rules but there has to be some.

[bigskygirl]

Here's a chart...

[sblock]

If there are NO rules to bluegrass how do we define the genre? Can I call the Beatles bluegrass? How about Johnny Cash or Mozart? Maybe we do allow ourselves to think that what we don't like ( any electric instrument in my case) to be against the rules and therefore no part of nuthin,but somewhere there has to be rules, it's just foolish to say there isn't. If there isn't then it would all just be music and maybe that wouldn't be so bad but that ain't the way it is. When I was a kid we called it hillbilly music or the more high brow "country" and that included Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Halkins, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, etc. As "country" became more pop and commercial there seem to be a need to distinguish it from was being called bluegrass, a simpler, cleaner( by that I mean less cluttered not more "moral") genre of music. To do that there has to be some understanding (rules) of what the characteristics of bluegrass is. I don't know who gets to set the rules but there has to be some.

Well, a genre of music can manifest certain musical characteristics. It can have some musical tendencies. It can have a certain "style." And more often than not, it has some great musicians (and composers) whose particular playing (or writing) helped to originate/develop the sound, and to propel it into the popular imagination. It may even have developed some of its own musical cliches. It will have musicologists or aficionados or players or fans who agreed upon a name for the genre. But hard-and-fast "rules"?! I think not! Perhaps you're just using the word "rules" a bit differently from the rest of us?

I am pretty sure that no one can write down a coherent set of rules that would define classical music. I am equally sure that no one could write down any particular rules for jazz, either. Or folk/roots (whatever that is). In fact, as soon as some "rule" is perceived to be emerging in a given genre, it becomes an instant challenge for the up-and-coming generation of musicians in that genre to break it! That's just the way it is. And that's how music evolves and grows.

Yes, it is possible to describe the music of a given (short) period reasonably well, like the bluegrass/country/mountain music of 1945-1950. That's like taking a snapshot in time. But fast forward a few years, and too many things will have changed.

Bill Monroe did not follow a set of "rules" during his long career, and early Monroe sounds different from late Monroe. And neither one of these can usefully define "bluegrass," anyway, because there were so many other groups and great players contributing all at the same time, and many more since.

Trying to straight-jacket bluegrass is a fool's errand. It cannot work. The truth is that no one gets to set the rules. The good news is that the music thrives anyway, without them! "Bluegrass music" is the sum of all its talented players and happy fans. It doesn't need rules to function, and it doesn't need a bluegrass police to enforce them, either.

[Timbofood]

"This ain't no part of nuthin'!"
Going to go listen to that non bluegrass player Bobby Osborne!

[Ivan Kelsall]

Re. 'forward / backward' rolls - most banjo players play whatever produces the sequence of notes & the sound that they're after.

As a self taught banjo player,i never learned a forward or backward roll in my life. It wasn't until i'd been playing for years that banjo tutor books began to come into the UK & i heard of 'rolls' of any sort. Earl Scruggs' banjo intros. to songs such as ''Take Me In a Lifeboat'' are almost all 'forward rolls',but he's not playing 'Stanley Style' - he's playing 'what fits' & what makes it 'sound right' to his ears.

To a degree,this is splitting hairs VERY thinly. I play 'Scruggs style' banjo,but can reproduce any of Ralph Stanley's tunes 'as he plays them' - so where does that leave me ??,

Re. the 'origin' of the term ''Bluegrass music'' - according to Neil Rosenberg's book ''Bluegrass a History'' - the term came into being on the back of the popularity of Bill Monroe's new line up with Earl Scruggs on board. Folk wanted to hear more of it on the radio & so began writing into the radio stations asking for ''more of that Bluegrass style of music'',using the name of Bill Monroe's band to describe what they wanted. So,the music itself took on the name of Bill Monroe's band,
Ivan

[billkilpatrick]

On the "Peghead Nation" site, Mike Compton describes Monroe's style of play as being "virile." I've been trying to accept this as meaning something other than "heavy with attitude" but not with much success. Almost every other BG mandolin player I've heard has sounded like he/she was having fun - but not Bill Monroe. The interview that surfaced here recently showed a very guarded, taciturn, and tightly compressed old man, or so it seemed to me. IMHO - very humble, mind - I think any rules Monroe might have imposed on "his" music had more to do with his attitude and his persona than making music.

[Bertram Henze]

...any rules Monroe might have imposed on "his" music had more to do with his attitude and his persona than making music.

This kind of process is very common in any case, and it has worked as a role model for many followers: Choosing a global word as a home for personal preferences and fighting any other notions that might try to slip under the same cover.

[ralph johansson]

I wonder in what sense this is "the original recording". I've leafed through the discography without finding any recording, not even a live recording, like this one, of ISTL before the 1958 studio version without fiddle or banjo. The banjo doesn't really sound like Scruggs and the lead singer definitely is not Lester Flatt.

I've checked further in the discography. As I hear no bass in the vocal ensemble my guess is that this is the version recorded live in 1963 with Jack Cooke on guitar and lead vocals, Del McCoury on banjo and baritone vocals, Kenny Baker on fiddle, and Bessie Lee Mauldin on bass. If, so it's typical. In the beginning Monroe was mainly concerned with creating a complete show; a hot string band with solo and group vocals, comedy, and a gospel quartet. In the 60's when he was becoming increasingly identified with the bluegrass label it seems he wanted the bluegrass sound to permeate everything he did.

And yet there were a few exceptions. On the 1954 re-recording of Blue Moon of Kentucky there is no audibe banjo. And I'm pretty sure Monroe thought of My Last Days on Earth as a complete departure from Bluegrass - on stage it was performed without banjo and fiddle, and the recorded version has an overdubbed vocal group and string ensemble, as well as some sound effects.

[mando-tech]

So what were the rules of bluegrass according to Big Mon? I'm thinking strict instrumentation (mandolin, fiddle, guitar, banjo, bass, and sometimes Dobro), tight three- or four-part harmonies, traditional material, cowboy hats, and never a note outside the diatonic scale except a raised fourth now and then. Does that about cover it?

,,,what do you mean -"sometimes dobro" ?,...Bill knew that a 'dobro' didn't belong in bluegrass !

[JeffD]

Really amazed there are so many people here who believe that bluegrass is *only* what Bill says it is. Guess that means you don't like Sam Bush, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck, Alison Krauss, or Jerry Douglas. But what the heck would hacks like that know about bluegrass? Your loss.

Umm... you asked for the rules according to Big Mon. You did not ask for the rules according to Sam, or Dave, or Tony, or....

[Mando Mort]

Bill's group did it well, but it does sound somewhat limiting...

[Ranger Bob]

Bill Monroe may have been dubbed the "father of bluegrass," (by others) but the genre he inspired and helped to create transcended his, and his band's, music alone. Many others have played in this genre. Some were contemporaries of Bill. Some were rivals. Some were imitators. And some were followers. But music does not progress purely by having a series of cover bands playing the identical tunes! A large number of what were eventually called "bluegrass" bands played some of Bill's tunes, but they also introduced their own music, and added their own original twists. They HAD to do that, to survive economically, and they WANTED to do that, as original musicians with their own ideas. And musical genres, which tend to develop a life of their own, are never defined by a single musician -- not even WSM. They tend to get defined by the fans, the listeners, the critics, and by other musicians. Bill Monroe was not the first to even call it "bluegrass music"; he only acquiesced to using that name long after it had been established by others. And he most definitely did not get to "make the rules", because there were -- and are -- no rules! His music was terrific, it was exciting, and it was highly influential, but it was not definitive.

Bluegrass music -- like any other genre -- is not something stagnant and written in stone. It does not follow ANY fixed "rules" so much as it displays a series of musical tendencies, influences, and themes. Furthermore, it continuously evolves. It evolved a whole lot during Bill's long career, in fact, and he contributed a great deal to that evolution himself! But so did a bunch of other musicians. As others have noted, we don't tend to think of accordion or two-finger banjo picking as being bluegrass, but Bill certainly had these in his early bands. He also experimented with twin fiddles for a while, but not all bluegrass bands went with these.There was the fairly early influence of the Stanley Brothers, Don Reno, Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Clifton, Jim & Jesse, and many more. There were later influences by the Country Gentlemen, Seldom Scene, Jimmy Martin, JD Crowe, and others. Groups like Newgrass Revival and Muleskinner made their own unique contributions. And so did Nickel Creek. Is it all bluegrass? Maybe not, because each group in turn has challenged, and innovated upon, the then-current norm, and helped to create a musical continuum involving constant change, movement, and experimentation. But trying to pigeonhole bluegrass, or to define a set of "Monroe's Rules" is a fruitless and unrewarding undertaking. Any rules, such as they were, didn't even stay the same during Monroe's tenure with his own band! And had he lived longer, the norms of bluegrass would likely have evolved still further, because he continued to innovate well into his last years. And to top it all off, Monroe by all accounts was very proud and self-conscious, and he seemed to hate it whenever bands copied his style too closely (he didn't like the competition) or took it in a slightly different direction (he didn't appreciate the departure), so you could not win, seemingly, either way!

Those who seek to act as a bluegrass police are barking up the wrong tree. I suspect they mean well, and they are coming from a place of deep love for the music, but these efforts to promote strict rules are driven by a kind of naive nostalgia, and they will never work. And those who seek to define bluegrass instrumentation (Dobros allowed/disallowed; electric vs. acoustic basses, harmonicas banned, and more) are only wasting their time. Music is as music does. We should celebrate the old and welcome the new, but not seek to put on blinders -- or straight jackets. Because remaining stuck in a rut ain't no part of nuthin'.

I was going to write a profound entry but, sblock nailed it.

[Ranger Bob]

What the heck. I'm gonna post something anyway. I think we limit ourselves as people when we narrow ourselves as musicians. I think back to an album titled, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." Musicians who had been playing in a very small circle for years were showcased to mainstream America. My brain cells are a bit old and forgetful but, I seem to recall something caught hold in the late 60's and America "discovered" "Bluegrass." The likes of Doc Watson, Norman Blake, Vassar Clements, Earl Scruggs, Mother Maybelle, Tut Taylor, Jimmy Martin, and Roy Acuff sent people flying to record (yes, record!) stores to find more "Bluegrass" music. Not to mention a sharp upturn for Martin and Gibson sales. Whether it was truly Bluegrass as defined many ways here is immaterial. People loved it. And, most of them probably hadn't even heard of Bill Monroe until they really starting getting into it. The bottom line is that the aforementioned "non-Bluegrassers" set the stage for what everyone on this site and hosts of others are enjoying today.

[David Lewis]

,,,what do you mean -"sometimes dobro" ?,...Bill knew that a 'dobro' didn't belong in bluegrass !

Uncle Josh Graves had his hand shaken by MOnroe with the greeting 'Welcome to Bluegrass, Son' after a particularly fine jam session.

[David Lewis]

What the heck. I'm gonna post something anyway. I think we limit ourselves as people when we narrow ourselves as musicians. I think back to an album titled, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." Musicians who had been playing in a very small circle for years were showcased to mainstream America. My brain cells are a bit old and forgetful but, I seem to recall something caught hold in the late 60's and America "discovered" "Bluegrass." The likes of Doc Watson, Norman Blake, Vassar Clements, Earl Scruggs, Mother Maybelle, Tut Taylor, Jimmy Martin, and Roy Acuff sent people flying to record (yes, record!) stores to find more "Bluegrass" music. Not to mention a sharp upturn for Martin and Gibson sales. Whether it was truly Bluegrass as defined many ways here is immaterial. People loved it. And, most of them probably hadn't even heard of Bill Monroe until they really starting getting into it. The bottom line is that the aforementioned "non-Bluegrassers" set the stage for what everyone on this site and hosts of others are enjoying today.

Apparently Roy Acuff (who was around 70 at the time) did not want to record with these longhairs (the Nitty Gritty dirt band). His agent convinced to take his fiddle to the studio, and if he didn't like it, they'd go (and he'd still get paid.) The Nitty Gritty's started up, and about halfway through the song (so the legend goes as I heard it), Acuff stands up and says 'G**D*** it, that's country music', pulls out his fiddle and starts recording.

[Ranger Bob]

That's the story I heard too.

[GTison]

-Many, if not MOST of the quotes about "no part of nuthin" are showing BM's attitude and ego. He WAS a man full of contradictions and imperfections, as am I. But it is funny, and part of a good ribbing, and part of stage shows now. (Remember what is said at a Show is entertainment and not always truth.)

-Of the interviews I've seen, when asked about "Blue Grass" music he would invariably tell them something that applied to HIS BAND. He more than anything considered Bluegrass to be Blue Grass, i.e. his music, and not the general definition of bluegrass.

-So when he said Dobro doesn't belong in bluegrass, I believe he meant in his band and his music. Which was Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Also it was likely a shot at Flatt & Scruggs.

-Late in life he welcomed the adulation of his style as bluegrass.

-He also seemed to view other so-called bluegrass bands as "other peoples music" meaning every different bluegrass artist had their own "music."

-While he didn't like some styles such as NGR, money often seemed to soften his views on things.

-To minimize what he did for the mandolin and for bluegrass is absurd.

[farmerjones]

Bill Monroe invented Bluegrass, just as sure as Edison invented the light bulb. That being said, Edison had a stable of inventors, the same way Mun had a stable of musicians. There was a certain combination of musicians at a particular time. This also needs to be acknowledged. Prior to this there was similar music. Then after, there became a sort of well-spring. Even the Bluegrass Boys evolved thereafter.

It's funny, today we're arguing who's under the BG umbrella. But back in the day, bands were competing. The struggle was to set themselves apart from "that other band." I.e., Dr. Ralph proclaimed they played Mountain Music. Flatt & Scruggs claimed to play Country Music on television. Even Jimmy Martin proclaimed himself "King of Bluegrass" at the same time Mun was proclaiming to be "The Father of Bluegrass" to set their respective bands apart. Folks won't miss the fact Martin worked for Mun for awhile. There's the segue to the top of this reply.

[Willie Poole]

One thing for sure is that Monroe didn`t like others to play the music the same as he did, go and get you own style he said but in my mind because so many others did copy his music is why bluegrass progressed like it did...Like a lot of banjo players they listened to Scruggs and then tried to improve on it or should I say they improvised it? Around 1054-55 Earl Scruggs had an accident and had to stop playing for a short period of time so that is when Lester got Josh Graves to come in a fill in of the dobro, at least that is the way I recall it, the first song that I heard them do with the dobro was Big Black Train, I think that is the correct title...

I cannot stand a twangy dobro but do like one that is played tastefully, like Mike Auldridge played it...

I know bluegrass when I hear it and I haven`t heard it for a long time...Quote me on that if you like...

Willie

[Mark Wilson]

I know bluegrass when I hear it and I haven't heard it for a long time...Quote me on that if you like...Willie

Done!

[V70416]

When Bill uttered the infamous "that ain't no part of nothin'" to Peter(Pedro/Panama Red) Rowan,Rowan said that was
his very first lesson in the Zen philosophy. I heard him say it;or something similar(just before he went into his introduction to
"Free Mexican Air Force" complete with the vegetarian hippies in their L.L. Bean tent,yoga pants etc.)
Spiritual Sport at Camp Howdy;sermon delivered by Beauregard Hooligan.

Anyway,it's pretty easy to see that Pedro and Big Mon(Rowan referred to him sometimes as "Bill Mambo") were not destined to work together very long. Sorta like a lot of other musicians in Bill's band.

Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules.

[NursingDaBlues]

A number of years ago I interviewed a gentleman who had applied for a job in my business. One of his claims was that he had ten-years’ experience in the field. During the interview it became pretty clear that his ten-years’ experience was in reality one day of experience repeated 3650 times. He hadn’t grown. Yes, he had the fundamentals; he had a record of doing capable work; he was skilled in following directions and not making waves; he was “safe.” But he wasn’t able to be creative; to do things that involved crowding the edge; to truly think outside the box; to produce new goals, new visions, new directions for the company.

I think of that interview when I encounter folks who snub innovation and growth in music. In past years I was both saddened and angered with people walking out of performances by New Grass Revival and Nickle Creek because “that wasn’t bluegrass." Personally, I really appreciated artists like Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Chris Thile, and Sarah Watkins when they broke new ground. And I appreciate today’s artists like Sara Jarosz, Sierra Hull, Ethan Jodziewicz, and all of the hundreds of individuals and groups who continually push the edge to make “traditional” music their own while bringing new audiences into the fold.

We can’t possess music. When we play a note, we release it. And someone with a different ear, a different background, a different instrument, and a different perspective, will hear that note and say: “Wow, I like that. But maybe people will like it better if I do it this way.” And that’s as it should be.

[DavidKOS]

A number of years ago I interviewed a gentleman who had applied for a job in my business. One of his claims was that he had ten-years’ experience in the field. During the interview it became pretty clear that his ten-years’ experience was in reality one day of experience repeated 3650 times. He hadn’t grown.

My dad was a jeweler. He warned me that a guy that was in business for 40 years may only have one year's experience repeated 40 times over.