Classical vs Bluegrass

[mobi]

What are the differences among major mandolin styles?

For example, how exactly bluegrass style is different from classical style?

Are there rules that what is bluegrass, what is classical etc?

[Stevo75]

Are you asking the difference between bluegrass mandolins and classical mandolins (like how are the mandolins different)? Or are you asking about the difference between bluegrass music and classical music?

[mobi]

difference between playing style - not the construction of mandolin

[allenhopkins]

Think he's asking about styles of mandolin playing.

Best advice I could give is to listen to a fair amount of each, on YouTube or elsewhere. I'll put in my 2¢, but I'll make some misstatements and over-generalizations, fair game for subsequent snipers.

Bluegrass is a form of folk-based country music; the role of the mandolin in bluegrass was stated by the style's founder, Bill Monroe, although his playing methods don't exhaust the bluegrass mandolin's possibilities. In bluegrass, the mandolin has a very important rhythmic, chordal role, usually playing multi-string chords on the off-beats -- the so-called "chop," where the fretting fingers are relaxed just after the chord sounds, producing a percussive sound with little sustain. The normal instrumental structure of bluegrass is for the different instruments to take turns playing a lead role -- a "break" -- and when it's the mandolin's turn, the break will often include improvisations around the melody and chords. Bluegrass emphasizes quick tempos, though not exclusively, and bluegrass mandolinists usually are capable of playing their breaks quite rapidly. As a folk-based and somewhat improvisational music, bluegrass seldom relies on strict arrangements; bluegrass bands seldom work from written music, and much of the mandolin's role is learned "by ear" and by emulating established players.

I needn't define classical music, since the development of European-based orchestral and vocal music is well-defined and accepted. In classical music, the mandolin generally works within a somewhat defined repertoire of works composed for the instrument, although classical mandolinists also adapt works designed for violin and other instruments. Tempos are more variable, as determined by the composers, although skill at playing rapidly is still desirable. The mandolin is basically a melody instrument, with a limited chordal role. There is a strong emphasis on tremolo, and the mandolin has little rhythmic role, since it is generally accompanied by other instruments that establish the rhythmic and chordal structure of each piece. There is also an emphasis on working from established, written arrangements, with less improvisation and greater adherence to composers' definitions of the repertoire.

With regard to instruments, the template for a bluegrass mandolin is a carved-top, f-hole instrument that produces a strong and percussive "chop," and sufficient solo volume to be heard in an ensemble with banjo, fiddle, guitar and bass. For classical music, the "standard" is a bowl-back, oval-hole instrument with a clear trebly "voice" and long sustain. There are exceptions, and no mandolin type is exclusively designed for only one style, but that's what you'll find in most cases.

Hope this helps, and isn't too oversimplified.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Classical - sheet music reading is a must - sight-reading is encouraged. Tab is frowned upon but I have seen both methods used at the Mandolin Symposium.
Bluegrass - sheet music reading is 'frowned upon' during sessions but is extremely useful for learning tunes, as is Tab and Ear. Tab is more the norm than Notation.

[Jess L.]

Edited to add: Oops I just noticed the OP asked about mandolin styles, not general styles, so the rest of my post below might be irrelevant. Except for that there are probably differences between instrumental mandolin, vs vocal-accompaniment mandolin.
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Isn't it more common for bluegrass to have singing? Where the lyrics are important and tell a story of some sort, that the normal everyday listener can (sometimes) identify with. Yeah I know there are also purely instrumental bluegrass tunes, including entire instrumental-only Scruggs etc albums (great stuff, by the way) but - for what it's worth - the majority of the bluegrass I've ever heard (old albums, local musicians, etc), it seems to be really common to feature the voice prominently as an integral part of the music.

I don't get that impression from classical music, seems like there are lots more instrumental tunes.

That's my folk-musician perspective anyway.

Even when classical music does feature singing, it's... different somehow... not as approachable... well for one thing it's often in a foreign language and I have no idea what they're saying, so I guess I can't comment on what classical musicians are singing *about*, as to whether it's common everyday topics that everyone can relate to. Not sure where opera fits in there, is it classical? I've never been able to make out the words in opera, so whatever story they're telling is over my head unless I read it in a written script or something.

Whereas bluegrass lyrics are more immediately understandable as far as being able to relate to the words. Even if the storyline is sort of dated, it's usually still possible to at least figure out what the story *is*. That's my impression anyway.

(An aside, I think that's different from oldtime banjo/fiddle tunes (the ones that have lyrics; many don't), where lyrics do *not* necessarily form a complete storyline, but are sometimes just bits and pieces of different stanzas gathered over many decades from different sources, and just kind of jumbled together into the same song.)

Although: as someone else pointed out in a different thread recently (mandocrucian's post about voice as instrument), one great advantage to listening to songs in a foreign language, is that one can appreciate the voice purely as an instrument without getting derailed/distracted by poetry (lyrics). That can be really nice sometimes. Some of the foreign-language songs that to me are the most beautiful, once I find out what the lyrics *mean*, the song kind of loses its appeal or at least seems to acquire a different vibe.

Of course there are always going to be exceptions to everything, but I'm thinking of just the mainstream trad bluegrass vs mainstream trad classical stuff we hear on the radio etc. Corrections welcome as needed.

[August Watters]

I guess I can't comment on what classical musicians are singing *about*, as to whether it's common everyday topics that everyone can relate to.

Well, opera is usually about love, lust, betrayal, murder, redemption. . . .no wait, that was bluegrass. . . .

[Eddie Sheehy]

If no-one dies, it ain't Bluegrass...

[AlpineDave]

Well, opera is usually about love, lust, betrayal, murder, redemption. . . .no wait, that was bluegrass. . . .

Beautiful!

[Eddie Sheehy]

In Classical music one plays the Violin, in Bluegrass y'all play the fiddle. A fiddle is a violin with beer-stains...

[Marc Berman]

There are also picking differences between Bluegrass and Classical.
Bluegrass - The most basic rule is down pick on the down beat and up pick on the up beat. It's not set in stone - Bill Monroe did play tunes where everything was a down pick.
Classical is very defined. Things like a rest stroke where you do a down pick through the strings and rest against the next string. Also an up pick might only hit one of the pair. Here a video by Caterina Lichtenberg describing some of the basics

[Bill Clements]

Bravo, Allen.
August,

[JeffD]

Well, opera is usually about love, lust, betrayal, murder, redemption. . . .no wait, that was bluegrass. . . .

[DavidKOS]

Well, I know my bowlback mandolins and pointy picks are welcome in the classical world. (lol)

[Ausdoerrt]

Any reason why pointed picks are preferred for classical? Is it the sound they produce, or just for the extra precision?

[Ivan Kelsall]

Are we talking about playing 'style' or playing 'technique' ?. 'Style' could be termed 'genre' ie. Bluegrass is one style (genre),ClassicaL is another style (genre).
If mobi is refering to 'playing technique',which i think he is,then Marc Berman has given a decent explanation,& there are many YouTube examples of both 'styles' of music & playing techniques to view, which will illustrate the differences.
For me,Bluegrass picking technique,whilst having it's own rules,is far more freewheeling than Classical style. In Bluegrass,which is very 'improvisatory' in nature,you can pick the strings up or down,depending on the right hand 'picking pattern' that you're using.
In Classical music,which is mostly written & is 'set' regarding how it should be played technique wise,then a far more rigid picking pattern will be used. In other words,in 2 (or more) performances,the same picking pattern will be used,unlike Bluegrass where it's fairly doubtful that the same picking pattern would be used - unless it's a 'set' instrumental,which requires the same pattern to be used each time. By ''pattern'',i mean whether you pick up or down & also the sequence of notes to be played,
Ivan

[mobi]

Here are the reasons I asked this question:


#1 When looking for mandolin teachers, the few (there are not many to start with) I spoke with asked me whether I prefer classical or folk/bluegrass style. This is not something which I even thought before. I was under impression one who plays mandolin can play any style.

#2 I bought a book "Ultimate Mandolin" [ https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Mand.../dp/1423422414 ] where same song has been provided in multiple style notations. However, what I found lacking in that book is the explanation showing details how the author arrived at different styles of same song.

To me, #1 and #2 seem somewhat contradicting.

That's why I'm looking for a definition (if that exists) explaining the differences between different styles and how you can play a song in a different style.

Hope I managed to explain myself.

[derbex]

Looking at the book, there's nothing classical there and without going beyond the 'see inside' it would seem that the songs come from different styles -'The Entertainer' is a ragtime song 'Autumn Leaves' is jazz, etc?

The best advice has been given above, listen to the different styles, there are bluegrass music links all over the site and classical ones on the 'Classical board in fact explore those genre boards and you'll see what classical players are concerned about and what bluegrass or folk players are concerned with.

As a trainee classical and folk player (not bluegrass) I would say that main emphasis for folk is picking up enough technique to play the tunes and then learning lots of tunes and then thinking about embellishing them or not -which is where your book might come in. With classical it seems to be about technique first second and third with performances being a part of that progression, maybe that will back off if I get good enough, but I'm not sure I'll live that long

BTW classical music isn't always playing the dots exactly as written, there is often room for interpretation.

[August Watters]

There is a lot of classical music composed for mandolin that depends for its sound on an established picking pattern -- kind of like the bluegrass instrumentals Ivan mentions above, that are set and thus usually approached the same way each time. OTOH, there's also a lot of music composed for classical mandolin that doesn't depend on a specific pattern, and so the picking choices are not so straightforward.

Lots of people never get to the native mandolin music, but focus instead on adapting classical music (like Bach) from other instruments to mandolin -- in which case it's a very subjective decision what kind of picking pattern you choose. That's part of what's fun about doing mandolin arrangements of other works, figuring out which techniques will serve your interpretation of the music.

[August Watters]

BTW classical music isn't always playing the dots exactly as written, there is often room for interpretation.

um, yes. Usually there's not enough information on the page, so we have to interpret. And there's plenty of room for improvisation too.

[foldedpath]

#1 When looking for mandolin teachers, the few (there are not many to start with) I spoke with asked me whether I prefer classical or folk/bluegrass style. This is not something which I even thought before. I was under impression one who plays mandolin can play any style.

You can play any style, but there will be an emphasis on learning different things, depending on the styles you want to dive into.

For example, if you're shopping for a teacher and they ask if you want to focus on Classical or Folk music, this could mean the difference between immediately starting to learn how to read and interpret sheet music (Classical), vs. learning by ear in various "Folk" idioms.

The degree of improvisation varies too. Some genres like Classical, American OldTime and Irish/Scottish traditional music play the music "straight" with no improvisation until you get into advanced study, where it's more like small variations. Other genres like Bluegrass, Jazz, or Brazilian Choro will have you studying how to improvise much earlier, and as a stronger focus for your learning.

So, yes you can play any style on mandolin. But the order and intensity of things you'll want to focus on will vary, depending on the style.

There is also the question of whether you want to dive deep into one style and try to master it, or dabble in many different styles where you might not achieve as much because you're spread thin. There are a few incredibly talented and skilled mandolin players out there like Mike Marshall and Chris Thile who seem to be able to play anything at a master level. But for most of us mortals, after we get through the early stages of learning the basic mechanics on the mandolin, we get further by focusing on one or a few genres at a time.

[DavidKOS]

Any reason why pointed picks are preferred for classical? Is it the sound they produce, or just for the extra precision?

A pointed pick is needed for proper tone color and for accuracy and precision in picking. I have studied many classical mandolin methods and NONE of them advocate a rounded thick "poker chip" pick.

BTW, August Watters has written one of the best modern classical mandolin methods.

I suggest getting this book:



http://www.augustwatters.net/products.html

It is an excellent introduction to classical mandolin. Of course I also advocate the Munier, Calace, and other historical methods too!

[Relio]

If no-one dies, it ain't Bluegrass...

If everyone dies, it's Irish... :-)

[Gypsy]

For me it's both !

[Mark Gunter]

As Ivan wrote, the difference in technique is probably what the teacher is considering, as well as skill in reading music. There are techniques of the right and left hands that differ between playing folk music vs. classical music on the mandolin. Classical techniques can be employed to great effect in some folk music, but are essential for interpreting classical music. There will always be overlapping of certain techniques employed in different styles of music, but a good teacher will know the difference between where the focus must lie in practicing technique and in the chosen materials for teaching. An accomplished mandolinist in a folk style could play solely or primarily with an alternate picking technique for example; the same is not true for an accomplished interpretation of classical music, as just one example.