Is a mandolin required for Bluegrass?

[Eddie Blevins]

What would be the point? Ok, I'm a little biased, but when I see groups without a mando, I'm a little disappointed. Afterall, Bill started the music and the mando was center to all of it. I'll agree that Earl's banjo picking did complete the sound, but without the mandolin it just sounds wrong. I've tried to watch old episodes of Flatt and Scruggs TV show on Netflix. They put the dobro in place of the mandolin because of the bad blood they had with Mr. Monroe. The episode that do have a mondo player don't have him doing any picking. I just can't seem to enjoy it.

[mfeuerst]

While I prefer bluegrass with mandolin, the Flatt & Scruggs example demonstrates that what most people consider bluegrass can be done without a mando. AK and Union Station played here last fall and Dan T's mandolin was incidental at most. Its voice was replaced for the most part by Jerry D's dobro.

[mando-tech]

Didn't Flatt & Scruggs go for quite a while without a mando? Fiddle & Dobro filled the bill. Were they Bluegrass?

Flatt and Scruggs liked to refer to themselves as "folk" musicians, however, they would fit the bill for what we now refer to as BG .,...don 't forget how
long Ralph Stanley went without a mandolin !

[Eric C.]

Might want to update your browser or something. All you do is bump posts long dead.

[danmills]

I see this thread started in with a reference to the Infamous Stringdusters losing their mandolin player and opting not to replace him, so all I'm gonna say is that in my opinion the Infamous Stringdusters did not become "less bluegrass" without their mandolin player. Interpret that however you like.

[Mark Wilson]

Mandolin seems somewhat unecessary with banjo when listening. I do like to play in jams with a banjo picker

[Bill Cameron]

I am rather surprised at the controversy and diversity of answers. I believe a bluegrass band per se is a very specific array of instruments and techniques including mando chopping, flatpicked guitar, Scruggs pickin banjo, fiddle including comping, and alternating bass. You dont have to hear all of those all the time, but I kinda think they are the sound that Mr Monroe put together and called bluegrass, and there are very few music forms with a specific recently alive inventor, so I’m prepared to defer to him.

I’m no purist in my personal tastes, and I’m not a fan of BG festivals that insist (I’ve seen this on a poster) “No electric basses. Every band has a fiddle”. And of course any solo player of these instruments can be playing bluegrass, but for a BG band, I would say the most integral components are the mando, banjo, guitar, and harmonies.

Nothing wrong with a usually textbook bluegrass band, or a festival, stepping out of those boundaries though. Variety, spice, life, eh.

[Roger Moss]

I want to say you could play bluegrass with a ukulele, but I expect you would be shunned with extreme prejudice.

[Hudmister]

I want to say you could play bluegrass with a ukulele, but I expect you would be shunned with extreme prejudice.

Definitely not ukulele but a string trio consisting of dulcimer, autoharp and claw hammer banjo could certainly play bluegrass.