density of players in your area ?

[300win]

This is kind of a survey I guess, just wondering about the numbers of folk that each person actually knows by name or by recognition in your area that are acoustic instrument pickers ? I thought about this morning and here where I live the northwestern piedmont of North Carolina, I would estimate I know roughly 100-150 people that play, most of these being mostly Bluegrass musicians. Here where I live they are as thick as fleas on a dog's back lol. Now not all of them are good, but a few are very good, and some are great. Most of these folks I know live within a 25-30 mile radius of where I live. If any of you like Bluegrass and are thinking about moving, this ain't a bad place to live. I just thought this would be fun, and it would be interesting to see across the country where people are concentrated and what type of music is popular locally.

[Rroyd]

It's a good thing I read your post, instead of just the title, as I was going to say that some of them are pretty dense. They are pretty sparse here in the NW, maybe 50 in a 50 mile radius, with only a few being real proficient, but then this area is not densely populated, either.

[Big Joe]

18 gazillion to the square mile...of course, it is Nashville .

[Shelagh Moore]

Not so many up here in Scotland. The banjo players are denser in general.

[MandoNicity]

Not so many up here in Scotland. The banjo players are denser in general.

I think that goes without saying... sorry couldn't resist!

JR

[mandobuzz]

Umm...there are maybe a few (hundred thousand, that is...) where I live.

[Randi Gormley]

Tough to tell since I play mostly Irish and I'm limited by the places I visit, but there certainly are enough guitar, bouzouki, banjo and mandolin players in the New York Metropolitan area to pretty much guarantee that a few people in any given crowd of strangers is an amateur or professional musician. Come to think of it, that might be an interesting experiment.

[300win]

18 gazillion to the square mile...of course, it is Nashville .

Well yea, Big Joe, that was a given ! Very funny !

[300win]

Not so many up here in Scotland. The banjo players are denser in general.

Not trying to alienate any banjer pickers, {heck I even dabble in that black art myself sometimes}, but they are as a general rule fairly 'dense". Example of a banjer pickers mentality; ' hey listen to me I got a very loud instrument, and not only is it LOUD, but I'm going to play it as LOUD as I can all the time, even when someone else is taking a ride on guitar, mandolin, whatever, I want to make sure that you realize that my banjo is LOUD ! '. I believe that might have been what you were thinkng there Richard.

[allenhopkins]

Surprisingly active acoustic scene around Rochester, for a small Northeastern city. Active folk music club, with weekly acoustic sing-arounds; country dance group with weekly live-band-and-caller dances. Fiddle club with weekly jams. Busy Irish scene, with several seisuns every month. "Bluegrass" jams tend toward more old-time country, but quite a few acoustic open mikes with BG content. A good number of working part-time acoustic/Celtic/bluegrass groups. If I started counting I could easily come up with 100+ active acoustic musicians, at least two dozen of whom I work with on and off in various organized and informal partnerships. This month we have visits from Tony Trischka, Bruce Molsky, Natalie McMaster & Donnell Leahy; upcoming, Red Molly, April Verch, and others. Not a great place to make a living playing acoustically, but a decent scene in its own way.

[David Rambo]

Here in Southern Minnesota the number of pickers is lower, but I know of 50-60 that are active now. Most aren't into bluegrass, however.

[cyeiser]

Here on the Mendocino Coast of California, there are many many many pickers. This is the home of Lark In The Morning, and Lark Camp, etc. You're just as likely to run across a bluegrasser as you are a hurdy-gurdy player specializing in 17th century french dance tunes. You almost can't spit without hitting someone carrying a guitar, usually along with an overstuffed backpack and a dog in tow.

[Bob Buckingham]

They are pretty thick in SC. Can always see at least one at a jam, sometimes more. There is this high school girl from around Duncan who can smoke most of the guys. There is another woman from over Wahalla way who has an old KM1000 that sounds dark and woody. Then there are all of the guys with their special licks and fills.

[Douglas McMullin]

Negative 3 per square mile. It's a mandolin and general picking vacuum.

[B. T. Walker]

I once posted I thought San Antonio was a mando wasteland, but now I think it is only a back pasture. Ninty miles north to Austin with Collings and Ellis, and it is the cutting edge.

Now, talk guitars and San Antonio, and every other person plays. Many play mariachi with its various iterations of guitars, but I've only seen one mandolin (a bowlback) in a mariachi band.

[woodwizard]

Hey! This is Arkansas. We're spread out over the whole State ... just not too many in any one area generally. For that matter there's not many people really in the whole state.

[JeffD]

I am guessing that in my area, (Binghamton, NY), there would be something around 100 accoustic musicians, or at least folks that play, that I am aware of. And of that number, I am going to guess maybe less than a third play any kind of bluegrass with regularity. The rest divided into old timey, contra dance, celtic, folk, acoustic rock, blues, classical, jazz etc. Not enough to support a music store with a decent collection of acoustic non-band instruments. Have to drive an hour away for that.

[...and Master of None]

Wow, Jeff, having spent almost a year in Binghampton back in the mid eighties I'd have estimated far more than 100 acoustic musicians just in the celtic scene. The way I remember it there was an Irish bar on every other street corner - what did y'all do to run 'em off?

John

[Mike Snyder]

I've fallen into an acoustic black hole. Although it's only 91 miles to Winfield, I'm an hour and twenty minutes from a decent jam.
One old buddy is 25 minutes north, but his jam is a little lame and the hardcore grassers have quit coming.Half-a-dozen pickers there usually. So, it's over an hour to Missouri where the Joplin crowd plays good 'grass and a Carthage crowd has a good hammered dulcimer player for fiddle tunes.Four to ten pickers there, all levels. Drive time's the same to Oklahoma to hang with Green Country B'grass Assn. folks.They've probably got over a hundred pickers, all told. These are all weekend jams, and making a living has me busy every other, so I burn plenty of fuel on free weekends. You three or four jambs a week folks are SO lucky. Kansas Bluegrass Assn. starts once-a-month weekend pickin' picniks next month, gotta get me a camper. The Winfield festival caused a bunch of folks to start pickin' since it's start in the '70s, so there are a lot of pickers in Kansas. Lawrence and Wichita are the hotspots. Kansas Prarie Pickers,Topeka and north. A small, but hardcore group out west, around Hays.

[allenhopkins]

I am guessing that in my area, (Binghamton, NY), there would be something around 100 accoustic musicians, or at least folks that play, that I am aware of. And of that number, I am going to guess maybe less than a third play any kind of bluegrass with regularity. The rest divided into old timey, contra dance, celtic, folk, acoustic rock, blues, classical, jazz etc. Not enough to support a music store with a decent collection of acoustic non-band instruments. Have to drive an hour away for that.

Hey, Jeff, didn't know you were in Binghamton; I just played Cranberry Coffeehouse Feb. 20. You oughta check out 5-string banjoist Rob Seigers at the Cranberry this Saturday; he did a couple "middle set" tunes with my friend Curt Osgood on hammered dulcimer, and he's very creative --- ragtime and old-time fingerstyle as well as bluegrass. If Curt joins him, should be a good evening. Here's a link.

[Mandolin Mick]

Musically here in Wisconsin there are relatively few acoustic players, mostly metal heads.

Those who play the mandolin are VERY RARE and those who play Bluegrass are even rarer. I've been hanging out in music shops for about 35 years and I can count on 2 hands how many mandolins I've seen and have never seen a Gibson yet!

But there are a few of us and we go to Bluegrass Jams. There are some Bluegrass Festivals in northern Wisconsin every year. Some of these focus on Bluegrass Gospel which is my interest.

I'll be going to Bean Blossom for my vacation this year to get my fix!

I've love to hear from Badgers who play Bluegrass Mandolin!

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Hmmmm. Well I guess we're blessed in central (not coastal) California with a generous handful. Let's see there's me and Gary Vessel, Ken, John, Bill, Gary W., Shawn, Jason, Fred...

Funny, I took up mandolin to do something when guitars got too thick at jams, but now I'm playing guitar when mandolins get too thick. I need to find different jams I guess!

Daniel

[Bertram Henze]

There's many players in my area, but they are not dense

[Michael Gowell]

The next town up the coast from me is York, Maine, and Mark Twain used to summer there with one of his daughters almost a hundred years ago, after he retired from travelling to give humorous lectures {aside; for personal pleasure he played a Martin parlor guitar.} York consists of a number of village sections - York Beach, York Harbor, York Village, Mount Agamenticus, etc., and Twain said he found it impossible to heave a brick in any direction without striking a postmaster. It's become that way with acoustic musicians too. No complaints here...within a half-hour's drive of my house I can find the homes of a dozen nationally well-known recording professionals (well, some of them are too hidden to see from the road), dozens of working pros, and several hundred serious amateurs. We've got small music shops, all kinds of performance venues, and a lively church-basement and grange-hall old-time/gospel/bluegrass scene. Fun.

[Jim]

About 3 acoustic musicians, no mandolinists, and no venues or jams for 140 miles.