Harmonica in BlueGrass

[MOJOHAND40]

Spending a lot of time pointing out, pontificating and writing about people acting as perceived "gatekeepers" when all they did was say that a harmonica is not considered a traditional bluegrass instrument, seems to me to be a waste of time, as compared to playing the mandolin. Or even the harmonica.

Seriously.

This whole thread is borderline ridiculous. I bowed out once questions got asked about minorities in bluegrass...wow...really?

Of course there are minorities playing bluegrass. Who indicated there wasn't or should not be??

What did that have to do with anything?

I guess it was meant to provide another stool for those better among us to mount their moral high horses and began preaching again about musical tolerance while talking of "Police", "Nazi's", "Gatekeepers" and "idiots with manifestos".

Again all in the name of why aren't harmonicas prevalent in bluegrass.

The level of condescension has continued to climb.
I'm out for good on this one.
see 'ya.

[Mike Bunting]

........fundamentals kill freedoms, Duane.

What the heck does that mean?

[Spruce]

Spending a lot of time acting as a "gatekeeper" for what is or isn't bluegrass, blues, jazz, mariachi, polka, klezmer, choro, Irish/Celtic traditional, or any other healthy, vital type of music, seems to me to be a waste of time.....

Name me another genre of music that insists on being defined by the instruments that are allowed to participate.....

There are a few I can think of (Cajun, Classical Chamber, Mariachi, uhhh, any others?), but none that take the issue as seriously as bluegrass does.

That fact has always spoken volumes to me, and is kinda key to understanding the genre...

[Keith Erickson]

Show up at a garage jam with a trombone. Just try it. See how well your explanations about the band Chicago go over.

Funny that you should mentioin the trombone....

....About 10 years ago I saw Push Monkey perform at the El Paso County Collesium and that lead singer brought out a trombone. Interesting how they were the opening act for Iron Maiden. I don't remember anyone objecting.

And this is what music should be about. I don't let anyone put any restrictions on who or what I should jam to with my mandolin or mandocello

[foldedpath]

Name me another genre of music that insists on being defined by the instruments that are allowed to participate.....

Irish traditional music (pub session variety).

There is a strong prejudice among most session players in favor of instruments that can play a single note melody line, preferably with ornamentation. And also a prejudice against too much chordal accompaniment. It's practically the opposite of Bluegrass that way. We even have a "one guitar at a time" rule for the session I help run. How many Bluegrass jams would be that restrictive?

This is why tenor banjos are generally more welcome at an Irish session than the 5-string variety. It's why chromatic harmonica players generally fit in better than the average diatonic blues harp player, and so on. It's more of a functional requirement for the music, not so much the historical snapshot of a certain performer's band as in Bluegrass. But it's still a prejudice in favor of certain instruments, and against certain others.

Heck, if you want to talk about instruments that are "allowed" to participate, ask an Irish trad fiddler or flute player how they feel about the Bodhran. Or worse; spoons and bones. You think harmonica gets a bad rap? That's nothing compared to the topic of percussion in this music.

Every deep musical tradition has its own formal or informal rules, that help keep the tradition alive instead of diffusing into the general morass of "acoustic jams." It just takes some time and familiarity to know what those informal rules are. There are probably some unspoken rules about preferred instruments for playing Klezmer. I just don't know enough about that style to elaborate on it.

[JeffD]

Every deep musical tradition has its own formal or informal rules, that help keep the tradition alive instead of diffusing into the general morass of "acoustic jams." It just takes some time and familiarity to know what those informal rules are. .

I think this is more true than not. And I have no problem with it.

While I agree with the "play what ever you want on what ever you want" sentiment, I don't think that I or anyone need be required to put up with it.

And it would not be correct to imply that I or anyone that held this opinion is against innovation within or pushing the envelope of any genre of music.

[mandolirius]

Name me another genre of music that insists on being defined by the instruments that are allowed to participate.....

There are a few I can think of (Cajun, Classical Chamber, Mariachi, uhhh, any others?), but none that take the issue as seriously as bluegrass does.

That fact has always spoken volumes to me, and is kinda key to understanding the genre...

I think it's unrealistic to the nth degree to think that bluegrass is always going to remain the same as it when it began. That thought makes me happy because I know the music is alive and has a future. At some point, and that point may already be here, there will be a sub-genre known as traditional bluegrass or something like that. People will know what it is and it will be important. In jazz you have bebop, swing, dixieland, post-bob, vocalese etc.

I'm not suggesting bluegrass will become as diverse as jazz, but it will expand and develop various facets and yes, it will include instruments other than the original five.

[stratman62]

Heard The Osborne Brothers today doing Midnight Flyer, somebody forgot to tell Charlie McCoy he wasn't welcome.

[Pete Counter]

no

[allenhopkins]

OK, I said I was "done," but stupidly I come back to this rather long-winded discussion, which IMHO has generated more heat than light -- just to try to sum up my particular point of view on a topic that, oddly enough, has nothing whatever to do with mandolins!

1. Neither I nor anyone else said harmonica was "prevalent" in bluegrass. It isn't, and never has been. What I said, and stick to, is that there have been instances of harmonicas being played in bluegrass concerts and on bluegrass recordings. Some of the bands associated with these instances, have been ones with impeccable "traditional bluegrass" credentials: Flatt & Scruggs, Jim & Jesse, e.g. Doesn't mean that the harmonica-including songs were their "most traditional," however you define that, but they can't be dismissed as a bunch of BG-ignorant imposters who don't know what the music's about.

2. Everyone is free to like, dislike, or pure lowdown hate the idea of harmonica in bluegrass. You can run screaming from the room when someone pulls out a harp; you can ban harmonica players from your band, your jam, your back porch. Free country, right? What you can't do, IMHO, is say that your likes and dislikes constitute some generally accepted definition of "what bluegrass is." Even if you could determine some sort of "consensus definition," there'd be enough exceptions and dissension to underline that your "definition" is, in fact, an opinion.

3. Some of the arguments against harmonicas in a bluegrass setting, have a lot more to do with the expected lack of skill of harmonica players, rather than with the qualities of the instrument itself. But we don't exclude banjos, fiddles etc. from our "definition" of bluegrass, even though they're just as irritating as harmonicas when played badly.

4. Finally -- and I do mean finally -- I don't think "bluegrass purists" (or whatever you want to call 'em) are doing the music any favors, by defining it narrowly and excluding people who try different instruments, styles, repertoire, etc. I may not care for Bruce Hornsby's piano, or Andy Statman's clarinet, as a part of Ricky Skaggs' recordings or performances. But I wouldn't have the chutzpah to say, "Ricky, you just broke the bluegrass rules, and whatever you're doing onstage, it ain't bluegrass." It's not a question of rules, it's a question of preference -- by definition, subjective.

There: done. Folks, it's been fun (most of it).

[catmandu2]

I thought you only needed a fiddle imn cajun music. God I love cajun music

[jaycat]

God I love cajun music

Yeah, me too. Me and my GF were at Tipitina's two weeks ago tomorrow, dancing to Bruce Daigrepoint . . . those were the days.

Anyway, back to reality up here in the frozen Northeast . . .

I am starting to re-think my anti-purist rants, 'cause I got to listening to Hank Williams and thinking about what things might've been like had country music been restricted to guitar, bass, pedal steel, fiddle, etc. i.e. no strings, no synths, what ever else have you that "country music" has degenerated into nowadays . . .

Anyway, perhaps there is something to be said for hewing to tradition.

[catmandu2]

I am starting to re-think my anti-purist rants...

Ha!

[Cheryl Watson]

Even though harmonica is not normally used in the dyed in the wool, traditional bluegrass jams/bands, it is sometimes used in the many branches of contemporary bluegrass and Americana. I would think that any bluegrass or old time music that runs bluesy would be conducive to a really skilled harmonica player.

[ralph johansson]

Whoa!!!! Jim and Jesse had a harmonica player that was a regular member of their band for quite some time.....

My band was booked on a bluegrass festival and we had twin fiddles and a good friend of mine that plays a harmonica wanted to do the show with us and the two fiddle players said they wanted no part of it because the harp clashed with the fiddles and I would rather have the twin fiddles than one harp.....Many years ago before electronic tuners most bluegrass bands just tuned to wherever the guitar was tuned and it never was to a standard tuning so the harmonica never fit in....My dad was as good of a harmonica player as I have ever heard including, Charlie McCoy, and when he wanted to jam we used his harmonica to tune by so after that I carried a harmonica just to use to tune the instruments to a standard tuning, I can`t play one tho...Been thinking about trying to learn tho.....Willie

I question your statement about "most bluegrass bands". In the days before electronic tuners there were tuning forks, and they still exist. People were using them. I've been using one for 52 years, and I keep about six of them so as to always have one near me when needed.

[ralph johansson]

There is at least one Ralph Stanley (w/ Kieth Whitley) gospel song ("Old Time Religion" I think) with harmonica. And of couse, there are recordings of Bill Monroe with an accordian in the band...

Wonder what Monroe's accordion band has to do with this topic. ALthough it preceded all of bluegrass historically it might explain why there are no accordions in bluegrass music ... Monroe's band had six players (possibly 7 on the Columbia session), a somewhat cumbersome and heavyfooted unit.

Oddly, no one has remarked upon the fact that Monroe travelled with a harmonica player in 1941-44, Curly Bradshaw. There are no recordings, only set lists composed by a fan. Bradshaw played some of the expected imitation pieces, but also Missouri Waltz, Careless Love, and Maple on the Hill. Unfortunately it is not clear whether Bradshaw played these pieces with the full band.

[allenhopkins]

...Oddly, no one has remarked upon the fact that Monroe travelled with a harmonica player in 1941-44, Curly Bradshaw. There are no recordings, only set lists composed by a fan. Bradshaw played some of the expected imitation pieces, but also Missouri Waltz, Careless Love, and Maple on the Hill. Unfortunately it is not clear whether Bradshaw played these pieces with the full band.

Well, I did mention (see post #9) that Monroe also toured with DeFord Bailey, who was not only a harmonica player, but African-American, thus confronting two of the bluegrass taboos head-on.

[Steve Ostrander]

Just for fun I'd love to show up at a BG jam sometime with a set of bagpipes. Wish I had the guts...

[foldedpath]

Just for fun I'd love to show up at a BG jam sometime with a set of bagpipes. Wish I had the guts...

Do it with the full GHB set, so you can call tunes in B flat!

[Duane Graves]

Just for fun I'd love to show up at a BG jam sometime with a set of bagpipes. Wish I had the guts...

Steve.....not relevant just curious ....can you play the bagpipes? --dgg

[Laird]

I bowed out once questions got asked about minorities in bluegrass...wow...really?

Of course there are minorities playing bluegrass. Who indicated there wasn't or should not be??

What did that have to do with anything?

Yeah, that one gave me chills. Happy Martin Luther King Day, y'all.

[mandolirius]

Yeah, that one gave me chills. Happy Martin Luther King Day, y'all.

That's his only contribution to this thread, he hasn't been back since and has contributed a grand total of three posts in over a year of membership. I wouldn't like to see too big a deal made about it. That one seems eminently ignorable, imho.

[ralph johansson]

Well, I did mention (see post #9) that Monroe also toured with DeFord Bailey, who was not only a harmonica player, but African-American, thus confronting two of the bluegrass taboos head-on.

Bailey left the Opry in 1941 and then stopped performing. In 1941 there was no bluegrass music, hence there were no BG taboos. Segregation was of course ubiquitous; there were few integrated groups even in jazz (Goodman 6tet) and outside of jazz there were virtually none. I doubt very strongly that Bailey perfomed on stage with the BG Boys.

Bradshaw, however, was a BG Boy. He sang and played guitar with the group; according to Wolfe-Rosenberg he was heard mainly as a harmonica player and pictured as such in publicity shots of the band.

But that's from Monroe's pre-BG period; there really wasn't that much to distinguish the BG boys from other string bands of the epoch.

And, of course, there's no BG taboo against harmonicas. It's just that

1) the standard five-piece band has very little room for further instruments - the question then would be which to drop (obvious answer: the mandolin).

2) no one has really developed a style of harmonica that can be identified as Bluegrass and nothing else. Look at the examples given. The best is PT Gazell; but several of the tunes on that album are not BG at all, but jazz, country, and Western Swing.
His treatment of Roanoke is very convincing and engaging (do you, by the way, hear a banjo or a fiddle?), yet pretty general, as it were.

By contrast, take the dobro. The reason the dobro established itself as a valid BG instrument is that Buck Graves had a novel approach to it, consciously adapted to the BG groove and sound. He didn't sound like anyone else, certainly not like Oswald or Cliff Carlisle. The same goes for Clarence White's approach to flatpicked lead guitar.

[allenhopkins]

Excellent points, Ralph. I would see harmonica in bluegrass, if not prohibited by the BP, as being an instrument on which one musician might "double" for certain numbers, to add a particular coloration. Sorta the way Skaggs uses instruments like pennywhistle or accordion (or Statman's clarinet) in certain contexts, not for the more straight-ahead bluegrass numbers.

When I listen to the '60's Flatt & Scruggs records where Charlie McCoy's harmonica is added, I hear a very appropriate use of the instrument -- somewhat similar to the fiddle in terms of phrasing and sustained notes, but with some "bluesy" use of note bending and vibrato. As I mentioned 'way back in this thread, I was asked by a young bluegrass banjo picker to teach him McCoy's harmonica break to John Hardy, which has to be played "cross harp" on a diatonic instrument because of the flatted 7th note in the melody. I was pleased with how well it fitted into the sound with banjo, fiddle and guitar (no mandolin yet in the kid's family).

Graves' ability to adapt the finger-style "rolls" of Scruggs' banjo to the resonator steel guitar, while still retaining the sliding attack and longer sustain of the instrument, made his playing a perfect fit in the Foggy Mountain Boys -- especially since they seemingly wanted to de-emphasize mandolin, to avoid being typed a "Monroe cover band," I guess. Perhaps the equivalent harmonica player is out there, awaiting his/her chance to revolutionize the BG sound. However, given the active hostility to harmonica and harmonicists that seems to have cropped up from time to time, even in this thread, and the strictures of the IBGMA definition of what constitutes an acceptable bluegrass band, harmonica players may not find the atmosphere too welcoming.

[Willie Poole]

As most of you know I am a traditional bluegrass man but from the definitions of what is being called "bluegrass" today any instrument could be played in a "Bluegrass" band...

Ralph, I guess I should said a "lot of bands" before electronic tuners tuned to where ever the guitar was tuned....I take it that you do listen to some of the older bluegrass records and maybe try and play along with them and can`t find what key they are in, thats because they just TUNED TO WHAT EVER THE GUITAR WAS IN AND WHATEVER FIT THEIR VOICES....Flatt and Scruggs did a lot of recordings in what I found as a G sharp when I try to play along an am tuned to standard tuning....

Some of you folks like to grasp at straws and comment about anything, If I hear a band on the radio that is labled as bluegrass and I hear an instrument that I don`t care for I turn it off....At a festival I leave the stage area....You can do the same....Willie