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Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
It is often said that Old Time & Bluegrass Music has it's origins, at least in part, in Traditional Irish & Scottish Music, so have you ever wondered how come Old Time & Bluegrass Musicians were so smart, when they managed to adopt the melody instruments, along with the melodies, from the tradition & do without all those, percussion instruments we have become saddled with?
Could it be that Old Time & even Bluegrass Music simply took shape, long before our music became infested by all our latter day thumpers, clickers & bangers?
If so, how have they managed to keep their music free of all those, clearly unnecessary, percussion instruments, for so many years?
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There are some forms of music that touch the listener's soul, so that he can't help but tap a foot, dance in his seat or beat out the rhythm on whatever comes to hand.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Can you imagine some hippie-djembe player stumbling into a bluegrass session in South Alabam?
"Y'all aint from around here are ya boy? Soooo-EEEEEEH!"
Other than native american drums, there are no percussive instruments that developed along the same time frame in the states. Bluegrass was left to develop from it's roots unfettered by thumping. Bodhrans and bones were lying around for quite a while in Ireland. It was only a matter of time before somebody's drunk uncle would pick them up and try and join in the party.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
It is a good question though. In all fairness that music is tormented by a different set of percussion species: spoons, washboards, jugs, Jew's harps, etc.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
A certain banjo player sez:
"If so, how have they managed to keep their music free of all those, clearly unnecessary, percussion instruments, for so many years?"
I understand your point, it is not aimed at BG and OT, rather at some annoying percussion players. The same criticism can be said of all "Killer Bs" - bodhrans, boxes (guitar and accordions), bones, bouzoukis, bagpipes, and bombards - if more than one are playing at the same time in a session. But the statement is not true.
Flatt and Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe, and a host of other icons in bluegrass all had drummers at one time, usually in an attempt to sound more rock and roll. (It didn't work.)
Monroe has had accordions, tenor banjos, organs, new age bird sounds, and lush strings too, but the purists fail to mention any of that. There is a self induced myth in the BG world that only a select group of instruments can be used because the founder used them. The mandolin is supposed to take the place of drums as a rhythm instrument but it is not unusual to find bones and spoons at a BG jam. (And they are just as annoying.)
The same is true of OT music which historically has encompassed a variety of instruments. The purists don't want to admit to the use of tenor banjos and cellos, but there are historical documents and records of such. The way these "anomalies" are dealt with is by stating that any string band that had a forbidden instrument was not OT. Case Closed.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Jew/jaw harp is a melody instrument, as is the kazoo. Demijohn is usually a backup instrument, but like the gut-bucket bass, can manage melodies in the hands (and mouth) of a virtuoso.
When someone says "play the Unicorn Song" I say "It'll cost you $100." So far, no one has ponied up (as it were), but I'm prepared...
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Yes, and Bluegrass and Old-Time also jettisoned flutes, concertinas, and Uilleann pipes, further validating the clear superiority of American innovation.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Ive notice dthat many people from outside of the USA (and no disrespect intended) dont seem to get that bluegrass music developed in the 1940s and 50s... period. Look at any current bluegrass chart, the original recordings of Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers and Flatt and Scruggs. (The Big 3 of Bluegrass.) And you will find very little traditional music. The clsosest would beBill Monroe because his music is more fiddle based than any other bluegrass. Even then, his instrumentals were very different than trad. tunes other than AABB forvery Example- Bluegrass Breakdown, Bluegrass Stomp, he wrote some nice fiddle melodies indeed... As far as percussion, the music wasnt designed for it.
Traditional tunes like jigs and reels do naturally fit well with percussion instruments. Many came out of the martial music tradition... not only in Ireland, but the USA as well. Bluegrass has killed a lot of traditionall music in the USA.
Ive been to many bluegrass festivals and used to lay the stuff. I still play bluyegrass about twice a year. It amazes me how terrible it usually sounds as a live music form.... (and ive seen some of the best bands) Sometimes I think it could use some percussion... I am not knocking the genre, and anyone who has been around live blegrass knows that the live sound is a crap shot. Micing guitars and basses is hell and many times the listener has to struggle to hear the "lead" instruments. At the same time the practiocineers of bluegrass seem dumbfounded as to why it;s not more popular... "It's America's traditional music By God!" Well, no it's one small form of American music that came about much the same time as Western and Honky Tonky music did. So, to sum this up... I dont agree with the original posters point about percussion.
Djembe? It sounds great with jigs and reels... I cant tell you how many of the popular Irish trad. bands use it on recordings.... In fact it doesnt come into the music to long after the sacred bodhran itself. Some would say an African drum might be more traditional from a celtic perspective since many believe the celts came through AFrica and Egypt way back when ;)
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Dick,,
A VERY GOOD - Bluegrass Banjo player said not long ago to me..
'' You can only play Good, Old Time and Bluegrass Music ..
On '' STRINGED '' Instrument's -- Any think else is a waste of space '' -- So there - lol..
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Fiddle4, that's bunk. Harmonica fits well in Old Time. Other than that, I may agree.
Honestly, since I put aside my whistles/flute and concertina for learning clawhammer banjo, I've discovered quite a bit of love for some of the Old Time playing. Funny enough, they are just about as opinionated as the good old mustard board.
Dick lurks too much on the Banjo Hangout forums though, he's the only damn name I recognize there and I never see him posting. BAH!
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I play bass regularly once a month with an old-time folk music group.
By "old-time", I mean the type of music which people used to play at home to amuse and bemuse themselves before we had all of these modern conveniences and inventions such as computers, television, telephones, radio, cars, railroads, electric lights, the telegraph, cameras, cell phones, etc.
With this group, the predominant instruments seem to be guitars, dulcimers (both plucked and hammered), banjos, mandolins, and fiddles. Until about two or three years ago, before he died, there was an old man who played the spoons but that was the only percussion this group of mixed nuts had. There haven't been any other percussion players since he died.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The Americans were clever enough to introduce a double-bass. Perhaps this rhythmic but not very noisy instrument could have prevented worse things here in Europe?
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
>>Ive notice dthat many people from outside of the USA (and no disrespect intended) dont seem to get that bluegrass music developed in the 1940s and 50s... period.<<
I've noticed that many people from inside of the USA have no idea about that either.
As for the bodhran, I blame Christy Moore.
Even though he used it sparingly himself, and usually as solo song accompaniment. That image of him on the first Planxty album ...
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Bluegrass was invented roughly at the same time as rock and roll. The two genres actually have a lot in common. They both spring from a common cultural background of blues, jazz, gospel, popular/folk songs, dance tunes, and other elements were fused together into a performance-oriented music that is intentionally ostentatious and provocative.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ Timmy "intentionally ostentatious and provocative" ... er . just like Bodhran players then, so isn't it surprising they don't fit in &/or are not accepted in Old Time/Bluegrass circles.
@ kuec aye maybe, an interesting idea alright, but how many wee Irish Session Pubs could cope with a Double Bass?
@ Random_humour I don't believe the best Old Time or Bluegrass Sessions are necessarily any better or any worse than the best Irish Sessions, but I'm wondering, have the Irish so much less in-built natural rhythm in their playing, that they could possibly need to have someone keeping the beat for them?
@ Ashkettle Fact is, I probably spend more time on my own Tenor Banjo & Old Time forums, but if I ever get around to learning Clawhammer on my SS Stewart, rest assured, you'll end up being be sick of the sight of me, on the Hangout!
@ The Merry Highlander You may be right about live Bluegrass Music, I've little knowledge of it live, but what I have seen sounded pretty darn good e.g. at the Ulster American Folk Park festival each year. However, you didn't mention Old Time & that sounds just fabulous ... & clearly has no need for drums, or spoons, or rattles or shakey eggs to keep it in time.
@ Mike Keyes Yes Mike, I'm sure there are exceptions, but as a general rule, drums aren't used in Old Time or Bluegrass, as seen on hundreds of YouTubes. Whereas, it's hard to find an Irish Session on YouTube that doesn't have someone battering the Goat.
@ skreech Yes, but I find that natural rhythm exists just as strongly in Old Time as it does in Irish Music & I can't keep my feet still listening to either, when it's played well. So, why can one be played in perfect time & rhythm without someone beating the crap out of a skin?
@ SWFL Fiddler Honest ... it is a serious question. I'm curious to know how, when the likes of Old Time evolved, those musicians avoided the drummer trap!
For example, in Irish Music circles, every Tom, Dick or Harry who visits a session, reckons straight away that they could join in no time flat, by buying a cheap Bodhran & diving straight in.
So, can anyone tell me what happens in Old Time music circles? Is there a similar entry level instrument, which tends to be latched onto by enthusiastic outsiders & ends up infesting many of their sessions?
I could be wrong, but most of the Old Time session instruments appear to require at least a certain element of musical skill & knowledge of the music, before learners can feel confident enough to join in.
Unlike the Bodhran, which so often ends up being played at sessions by complete beginners & consequently giving the instrument a bad name.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The OP is far off track. Percussion is deep into the stuff.Even the stringed instruments are used as percussion instruments in most of the American traditional forms. Usually only one instrument plays melody while everyone else bangs out percussion on whatever they can get their hands on. . The earliest form of Bass consisted of a washtub turned upsidedown with a broomhandle and one string that was stretched and released to produce different bass notes.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFzPaK2rbIs&feature=related
The most traditional of the American percussion instruments is called the Limberjack and is certainly a deeply rooted Americn Old Time instrument.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyTNjo_YlSM
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ Boatpiper Oh Oh ....... I had hoped nobody would mention those little guys.
I have a couple of Limberjacks myself, but mention them here & before you know it, they are going to start turning up at Irish Sessions as Limberjills, dressed up in Irish Dance dresses e.g. gaudy Book of Kells vomit patterns!
I hear what you are saying about the other guys giving a bit of percussion, behind anyone taking a lead in Bluegrass, but let's face it, at least that is 'melodic percussion'!
Also, in Old Time nobody takes lead, so the guys just have to keep their own time & they seem to manage that just fine, with a drum to keep them in place.
@ scordion Yes fair enough, but then neither do most Irish folk care about this either. However, I'm not exactly directing this question at most folk ... just at musicians, who usually are interested.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Tell me there's no slap happy slam bangin goin on here. This is the most advanced and intricate form of commercialized American Old time music . Grand Ole Opry style.
Enjoy and remember it's comedy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn5qVaFW93k&feature=related
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ Boatpiper Yes, I can see why those guys all play together in a band ............ cause no other serious band of musicians could possibly want all that clattering & banging going on!
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I've played with and listened to alot of oldtimey players over here, although not in the last 10-15 years, and rarely did I find those crowds who play melody only. But when I do find those folks who play uncluttered, it's a joy to behold.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Mr. P. I think the mass participation in Irish music only really came about over the past 40+ years or so, yes? When the 60s folk music revival brought interest back to traditional music in Ireland the goat skin was there waiting for them.
The 60s folk music revival here didn't draw people to Old Time instrumental music, it made them pick up acoustic guitars and sing Bob Dylan songs. [shrug]
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
If and when an old timey fiddler has mastered his instrument (whatever that means) then, and only then, can they begin the steep climb up to mountain dulcimer and spoons.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
What mass participation in Irish music? I've missed the masses again?
OT is never a joy to behold. A racket to endure perhaps.
Bluegrass? I've heard some really good bluegrass played with an awesome double bass, but it's pretty rare, even around here.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The perception of what is traditional in Old Timey and Bluegrass music in America is simply what has remained by virtue of being purchased, but it isn't indicative of what was there all along.The causality for the exclusion of various types of percussion being discussed here is illegitimate but it's easy to confuse. If there isn't much percussion (meaning bones, sticks, or drums) present in the most popular modes of American traditional music today then I think we owe that miscalculation to ourselves (meaning society) when we interpret what "traditional" music is. When we look for the parameters of traditional music, we look to archetypes for an example and an inspiration. This natural tendency to "look no further than.." is where the problems arise because the beautiful thing about American traditional music is that the country is so wide, with so many different types of music happening everywhere, that there isn't or shouldn't be any single set of parameters for what is and is not traditional for the whole. The true parameters of any tradition, as they are, seem incidental to me and predetermined by historical happenstances. With the profusion of American musical styles stemming from so many different groups of immigrants and the endemic styles that evolved from those imported roots, we have to pick and choose when we define a tradition. Regarding Old Timey and Bluegrass, we have already done so. The result was that after some musicians "picked" the style they wanted to play because they enjoyed it (like in the 60s revival) and the public "chose" it (by going to the store and buying the records) we now look to these trends established by said artists to tell us what is and isn't traditional about what have become genres rather than traditions.
The folk revival played a huge role in giving us the music we listen to today. In the States during the 60s the trend went in two directions, which weren't mutually exclusive. On the one hand there were groups like New Lost City Ramblers whose influence on a younger generation led to the "Newgrass" sound 20 years down the line, and also increased the head of steam for Nashville-based musicians like Monroe, Stanley, and Scruggs.. And then there were the singing folkies like Dylan, Baez, et. al. whose influence turned into a rock-folk hybrid and the singer-songwriter profession of the 1970s and beyond. They met somewhere in the middle in other places, like rock music, country-rock, folk-rock, and so-called alt country and Americana genres.
The chief difference that I can see between these two classes are their respective focuses. The former class specialized in old-time string band music ("pre-bluegrass" banjo and fiddle traditions) while the other embraced a wider spectrum of the American musical canon -- everything from vaudeville and delta blues to rural folk ballads and the songster tradition championed by Woody and Cisco during the Depression. That much being said, both classes ultimately created distinctly new directions in American music because their practitioners fused together many preexisting musical modes in a way that was impossible in the past, given the lack of widespread recording media and playback devices, and geographic isolation preventing one style from merging with another.
All in, there were a lot of percussion instruments played in American music before the 1960s redefined what we see as "traditional." I still see a lot fo old-timey groups playing with percussion either on bones or sticks or small snare drums. In the South there were string bands that played for dances and often featured bones or snare drums. Early recordings of Blind Blake and a host of other songster and blues artists feature bones and percussion. Mandolin orchestras often had percussion featured. Piedmont music featured drums as witnessed in period photographs. The Museum of Florida history featured an exhibit about turpentine production with several photos of musical groups, each one having a drum if not two, or a man holding a set of bones. This was functional music -- it wasn't traditional yet because no one had stopped playing it. When we "revived" folk music in the 50s and 60s, we killed the part of it that we could extract most easily or that we enjoyed the most, preserved it in amber, and now have the tendency to refer to that drumless example as the one and only archetypal definition which it is not.
I was at work the other day listening to Wanda Jackson when a fella came in and atarted asking about the album on the stereo. When I concisely explained who she was, about her rockabilly and country past, her gospel rebirth and such, he said, "Oh! Yes! Traditional rock and roll... well I don't usually listen to too much of that..." Without getting into the vagaries of the the topic, I just nodded. But it illustrates that our perceptions of musical styles grow and change as we play the music and love it -- folkways become traditions overnight, while we sleep... it's like a geologic process happening very slowly starting with the birth of music and ending with the death of the last human. I wonder is we'll ever have "traditional heavy metal" or "traditional acid house" music... I wonder how my kids are going to scare me?
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ gravelwalks That's all very interesting, but I think it's just a long-winded way of what we have already said really, that, in it's evolution to where it is today, much of the Bluegrass & Old Time Music scene has managed to get rid of much of those largely superfluous percussion instruments.
While on the Irish Music scene, the Bodhran has become ubiquitous, to the point where it is almost impossible to find a session without at least one.
In fact, to find an Irish session without more than one melody-less percussion instrument, is becoming increasingly difficult.
You seem to imply that the process, during the revival, was a combination of musicians, to a large extent, turning their backs on percussion instruments, while the buying public preferred to hear their music without percussion.
So what I'm asking is, how come our American friends largely succeeded, where we largely failed?
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Great post, gw. I enjoyed it.
In short, you say there were lots of percussive elements in rural, old time etc. music. They were just left out when commercial output started to define peoples' view of the genre. I hope I'm correct so far.
Percussion would have got into the way of the superfast runs on the stringed instruments I suppose.Bluegrass was no longer dance music but "l'art pour l'art". Could it be ITM is still closer to the dancing and thus percussive playing is called for?
I read various books on the development of Irish/celtic music in America, e.g.Nuala O'Connor's book 'Bringing it all back home'(TV series). As yet I found no answer as to why wind instruments, flute and whistle, which feature so prominently in ITM don't play any part in bluegrass/country/old time. But that's a different topic really.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
clawhammer banjo, guitar, and bass are all pretty dang percussive. I think the lack of wind instruments might be due to the large tobacco presence in the South
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Old time music? Not anywhere close to my favorite and I can't for the life of me imagine how a flute or whistle would be comfortable with all those drones and cross tunings the fiddles use.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There is a raw and primitive quality to old timey that is very dear to me. The lack of wind instruments from my limited knowledge stems from the lack of any of them being built. The players way back when built the instruments themselves out of things like cigar boxes, old gas cans, washtubs and chunks of wood with whatever they could come up with for strings. We're talking about folks who were very poor, had little to no formal education and had very little contact with anyone outside the Appalachians. The few instruments from any where else that did make it up there were highly cherished items, and primitively reproduced out of whatever it took.
Many of those folks were runaway slaves and the persecuted who managed to get far enough out there to be forgotten by those who hunted them and they got there with nothing more than they could carry by hand if anything at all.
The sheer tenacity of those peoples will to survive is what I hear in the raw energy of Old Timey Music.
I like it.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Dick, that's exactly my point, regarding one music which is open to a drum and another that is not -- it's simply a coincidence of history that events happened in a specific way so that one music could keep a drum on, while the the other decided it didn't need to be there. That's the critical moment, if you could go back in time to change things, I'd start at 1947 and start handing out or destroying drums.
I think the really interesting part is that when drums are present, in either music, a lot of people tend to get irritated (myself included -- to an extent). The commercial viability of American Old Timey and Bluegrass were and are certainly threatened by drums, which are offensive for some reason and tend to destroy instrumental charm where it is present. As kuec suggests, I think it has a lot to do with the purpose of the music. Country and western bands always have drummers, and bluegrass is often accompanied by clogging -- which sound quite a bit like drums to me. In Irish music, how much of a precedent is there for hand drums to be played as instrumental accompaniment for dance music before 1950? Not much was my understanding.
Jimmy Shand had a few drummers in his bands, didn't he....
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There was a thread a while back that pointed out the use of the Bodhran in some old recordings from the 1920's & 30's. The Chieftains were definately not the first.
Here's Packie Dolan with Bodhran a thumping.http://www.juneberry78s.com/sounds/j33008-10.mp3 Not sure what year it is but it's way before the Chieftains.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The originators of Irish music were just as materially poor, poorer really. They invented a far better product, though. However, I second the remark about the music the American slaves invented, and the ingenuity of their instrument construction. I love the stories of how they 'obtained' bits of cyprus clapboard and whatnot for their stringed instruments.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There was also a cultural taboo against drumming by the slaves in the States. All attempts were made by the slave owners to extinguish any form of African identity. Even the banjo was originally used by whites in black faced comic routines.
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It seems to me that there are two elephants in the room:
one ,
that clacking on bones and spoons goes way back in the tradition of african/anglo/irish/scottish/central/western/ european music in the US.
two,
that the traditiion of flatfoot/buck/clog/step/sean-nós/tap dancing was developed as a percussive accompaniment to music inasmuch as it was an expression of terpsichorean artistry...
ever seen those lederhosen guys slappin their feet and stompin around? ever seen those ham-bone guys slappin their feet and stompin around? i'd say there's a good chance that somewhere, sometime in the past, those guys were coppin steps from one another. so, to address the OP- i think there is a long (and yes,rich) history of percussion in the old-timey tradition
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Boatpiper: I didn't say the Chieftains were the first to use the bodhran in a trad setting, I said they are the reason for its current prominence.
Unlike in Irish trad, bluegrass music just didn't happen to have any such historical accident associated with it that managed to install a percussion instrument in a central musical role.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I think comparing Bluegrass to Irish dance music is comparing Apples to Oranges.
Bluegrass has no where the depth, history, or national pride associated with it that traditional playing has in Ireland. Traditional Irish dance music has thousands of tunes incorporated from a few hundred years, and can be played with a wide variety of differences in style and instrumentation.
Bluegrass, is quite specific in era and style of playing. Not as many people play it, there aren't as many "tunes". Not to mention, once someone makes any significant change to bluegrass like adding a drum kit or winds, it easily gets dumped into the broad and ambiguous genre of Americana.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Sheesh y'all talk a lot! The question is 'So what I'm asking is, how come our American friends largely succeeded, where we largely failed? Easy--
You Irish made the mistake of making your music and your goatskin drum 'sexy'.
Nothing sexy 'bout old fat rednecks pickin' and grinnin' but young guys playing 'the ancient war drum of the Celts' and young ladies dancing ala River dance not to mention the party scene in the Titanic movie and now it's cool to play bodhran!!!
I guarantee if everyone playing Irish music looked like the crew from 'Deliverance' nobody'd be playing bodhran.
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this is in no way an endorsement by me of any opinions of 'sexy', 'the ancient war drum theory(it wasn't-not loud enough) Riverdance(hated it) Titanic etc etc--just going by the almighty pop culture. Personally I like this--
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Got ya Timmy, sorry I misunderstood your Chieftains post.
But I do wonder how much of an accident the bodhran really is even if some don't like it.
I don't really see it as a failure. I like a well played bodhran
My wife plays bodhran. I love when she plays with my pipes. Her drumming is really good too.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Spike who? And his what band? Just kidding Oldstrings. Spike Jones and his City Slickers (or his Music Depreciation Revue) have been one of my favorites since I was a boy and discovered an old 45 RPM record with too many "knock-knock" jokes on it. I wore this record out from playing it too often.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Now that Oldstrings has mentioned Spike Jones, I am trying to imagine what might have happened if Jones and his partners-in-crime (either the City Slickers or the Music Depreciation Revue) sat in and participated at a stereotypical Irish session.
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airport, I've actually noticed there are plenty of smokers who play wind instruments. Following your reasoning though, you might expect a dearth of singers from the same region.
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The old time music group has a new spoons player. We jokingly told him that he couldn't play with us at our next monthly meeting unless he brings a knife and a fork with him to play them also.
This man also plays the ukulele and has a good singing voice.
Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
It is often said that Old Time & Bluegrass Music has it's origins, at least in part, in Traditional Irish & Scottish Music, so have you ever wondered how come Old Time & Bluegrass Musicians were so smart, when they managed to adopt the melody instruments, along with the melodies, from the tradition & do without all those, percussion instruments we have become saddled with?
Could it be that Old Time & even Bluegrass Music simply took shape, long before our music became infested by all our latter day thumpers, clickers & bangers?
If so, how have they managed to keep their music free of all those, clearly unnecessary, percussion instruments, for so many years?
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
They've managed to ruin the rhythms of the tunes without them.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Steve L
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There are some forms of music that touch the listener's soul, so that he can't help but tap a foot, dance in his seat or beat out the rhythm on whatever comes to hand.
There are other forms of music that don't.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by skreech
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Can you imagine some hippie-djembe player stumbling into a bluegrass session in South Alabam?
"Y'all aint from around here are ya boy? Soooo-EEEEEEH!"
Other than native american drums, there are no percussive instruments that developed along the same time frame in the states. Bluegrass was left to develop from it's roots unfettered by thumping. Bodhrans and bones were lying around for quite a while in Ireland. It was only a matter of time before somebody's drunk uncle would pick them up and try and join in the party.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
It's 'cuz we spell failte "1 2 g a u g e".
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
"Boy, yer banjo is missing some strings..."
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
It is a good question though. In all fairness that music is tormented by a different set of percussion species: spoons, washboards, jugs, Jew's harps, etc.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I think the prevailence of firearms out here in the hills of these United States has played a part in it
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Nate Ryan
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
yeah we could do without everything except for the bodhran. they do add to the music in the right hands
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by banjitar
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
A certain banjo player sez:
"If so, how have they managed to keep their music free of all those, clearly unnecessary, percussion instruments, for so many years?"
I understand your point, it is not aimed at BG and OT, rather at some annoying percussion players. The same criticism can be said of all "Killer Bs" - bodhrans, boxes (guitar and accordions), bones, bouzoukis, bagpipes, and bombards - if more than one are playing at the same time in a session. But the statement is not true.
Flatt and Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe, and a host of other icons in bluegrass all had drummers at one time, usually in an attempt to sound more rock and roll. (It didn't work.)
Monroe has had accordions, tenor banjos, organs, new age bird sounds, and lush strings too, but the purists fail to mention any of that. There is a self induced myth in the BG world that only a select group of instruments can be used because the founder used them. The mandolin is supposed to take the place of drums as a rhythm instrument but it is not unusual to find bones and spoons at a BG jam. (And they are just as annoying.)
The same is true of OT music which historically has encompassed a variety of instruments. The purists don't want to admit to the use of tenor banjos and cellos, but there are historical documents and records of such. The way these "anomalies" are dealt with is by stating that any string band that had a forbidden instrument was not OT. Case Closed.
But I still get your point :grin:
Mike Keyes
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by mikeyes
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Oh, I should mention that in no way does a banjo fit the rubric of "Killer B." That should be obvious to any banjo player, right Dick?
Mike Keyes
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by mikeyes
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I thought the Jaws (jews) harp was a percussion instrument?
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by iwerzon
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
..and the demijohn or jar-blowing
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by iwerzon
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Yeah, but on the bright side, I'll take cries of "Play dueling banjos" over "Play the Unicorn Song" any day.
Whiskey in the Jar anybody? snicker
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ashkettle
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Jew/jaw harp is a melody instrument, as is the kazoo. Demijohn is usually a backup instrument, but like the gut-bucket bass, can manage melodies in the hands (and mouth) of a virtuoso.
When someone says "play the Unicorn Song" I say "It'll cost you $100." So far, no one has ponied up (as it were), but I'm prepared...
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Tracie
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Yes, and Bluegrass and Old-Time also jettisoned flutes, concertinas, and Uilleann pipes, further validating the clear superiority of American innovation.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Michael Eskin
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Ive notice dthat many people from outside of the USA (and no disrespect intended) dont seem to get that bluegrass music developed in the 1940s and 50s... period. Look at any current bluegrass chart, the original recordings of Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers and Flatt and Scruggs. (The Big 3 of Bluegrass.) And you will find very little traditional music. The clsosest would beBill Monroe because his music is more fiddle based than any other bluegrass. Even then, his instrumentals were very different than trad. tunes other than AABB forvery Example- Bluegrass Breakdown, Bluegrass Stomp, he wrote some nice fiddle melodies indeed... As far as percussion, the music wasnt designed for it.
Traditional tunes like jigs and reels do naturally fit well with percussion instruments. Many came out of the martial music tradition... not only in Ireland, but the USA as well. Bluegrass has killed a lot of traditionall music in the USA.
Ive been to many bluegrass festivals and used to lay the stuff. I still play bluyegrass about twice a year. It amazes me how terrible it usually sounds as a live music form.... (and ive seen some of the best bands) Sometimes I think it could use some percussion... I am not knocking the genre, and anyone who has been around live blegrass knows that the live sound is a crap shot. Micing guitars and basses is hell and many times the listener has to struggle to hear the "lead" instruments. At the same time the practiocineers of bluegrass seem dumbfounded as to why it;s not more popular... "It's America's traditional music By God!" Well, no it's one small form of American music that came about much the same time as Western and Honky Tonky music did. So, to sum this up... I dont agree with the original posters point about percussion.
Djembe? It sounds great with jigs and reels... I cant tell you how many of the popular Irish trad. bands use it on recordings.... In fact it doesnt come into the music to long after the sacred bodhran itself. Some would say an African drum might be more traditional from a celtic perspective since many believe the celts came through AFrica and Egypt way back when ;)
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by The Merry Highlander
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Dick,,
A VERY GOOD - Bluegrass Banjo player said not long ago to me..
'' You can only play Good, Old Time and Bluegrass Music ..
On '' STRINGED '' Instrument's -- Any think else is a waste of space '' -- So there - lol..
jim,,,
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Fiddle4, that's bunk. Harmonica fits well in Old Time. Other than that, I may agree.
Honestly, since I put aside my whistles/flute and concertina for learning clawhammer banjo, I've discovered quite a bit of love for some of the Old Time playing. Funny enough, they are just about as opinionated as the good old mustard board.
Dick lurks too much on the Banjo Hangout forums though, he's the only damn name I recognize there and I never see him posting. BAH!
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ashkettle
I cannot tell if this is a thread about the burden of playing Irish sessions, or about how bluegrass & old time sessions are superior.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I play bass regularly once a month with an old-time folk music group.
By "old-time", I mean the type of music which people used to play at home to amuse and bemuse themselves before we had all of these modern conveniences and inventions such as computers, television, telephones, radio, cars, railroads, electric lights, the telegraph, cameras, cell phones, etc.
With this group, the predominant instruments seem to be guitars, dulcimers (both plucked and hammered), banjos, mandolins, and fiddles. Until about two or three years ago, before he died, there was an old man who played the spoons but that was the only percussion this group of mixed nuts had. There haven't been any other percussion players since he died.
Laurence
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Random, I'm pretty sure this is just one long bodhran joke.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The Americans were clever enough to introduce a double-bass. Perhaps this rhythmic but not very noisy instrument could have prevented worse things here in Europe?
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by kuec
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
bela fleck and the flecktones have drums ?not sure if they are totally bluegrass though
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by banjitar
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Tell yew whut. Yew may has seen this Murrican brangin’ ol’ timey back acrost th’Lantic. Beats is on the 2 an’ 4 but yew kin survive kleen thru it--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Hv2li_OL0
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
>>Ive notice dthat many people from outside of the USA (and no disrespect intended) dont seem to get that bluegrass music developed in the 1940s and 50s... period.<<
I've noticed that many people from inside of the USA have no idea about that either.
As for the bodhran, I blame Christy Moore.
Even though he used it sparingly himself, and usually as solo song accompaniment. That image of him on the first Planxty album ...
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Bren
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Bluegrass was invented roughly at the same time as rock and roll. The two genres actually have a lot in common. They both spring from a common cultural background of blues, jazz, gospel, popular/folk songs, dance tunes, and other elements were fused together into a performance-oriented music that is intentionally ostentatious and provocative.
Indeed, most Americans do not know this.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by timmy!
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ Timmy "intentionally ostentatious and provocative" ... er . just like Bodhran players then, so isn't it surprising they don't fit in &/or are not accepted in Old Time/Bluegrass circles.
@ kuec aye maybe, an interesting idea alright, but how many wee Irish Session Pubs could cope with a Double Bass?
@ Random_humour I don't believe the best Old Time or Bluegrass Sessions are necessarily any better or any worse than the best Irish Sessions, but I'm wondering, have the Irish so much less in-built natural rhythm in their playing, that they could possibly need to have someone keeping the beat for them?
@ Ashkettle Fact is, I probably spend more time on my own Tenor Banjo & Old Time forums, but if I ever get around to learning Clawhammer on my SS Stewart, rest assured, you'll end up being be sick of the sight of me, on the Hangout!
@ The Merry Highlander You may be right about live Bluegrass Music, I've little knowledge of it live, but what I have seen sounded pretty darn good e.g. at the Ulster American Folk Park festival each year. However, you didn't mention Old Time & that sounds just fabulous ... & clearly has no need for drums, or spoons, or rattles or shakey eggs to keep it in time.
@ Mike Keyes Yes Mike, I'm sure there are exceptions, but as a general rule, drums aren't used in Old Time or Bluegrass, as seen on hundreds of YouTubes. Whereas, it's hard to find an Irish Session on YouTube that doesn't have someone battering the Goat.
@ skreech Yes, but I find that natural rhythm exists just as strongly in Old Time as it does in Irish Music & I can't keep my feet still listening to either, when it's played well. So, why can one be played in perfect time & rhythm without someone beating the crap out of a skin?
@ SWFL Fiddler Honest ... it is a serious question. I'm curious to know how, when the likes of Old Time evolved, those musicians avoided the drummer trap!
For example, in Irish Music circles, every Tom, Dick or Harry who visits a session, reckons straight away that they could join in no time flat, by buying a cheap Bodhran & diving straight in.
So, can anyone tell me what happens in Old Time music circles? Is there a similar entry level instrument, which tends to be latched onto by enthusiastic outsiders & ends up infesting many of their sessions?
I could be wrong, but most of the Old Time session instruments appear to require at least a certain element of musical skill & knowledge of the music, before learners can feel confident enough to join in.
Unlike the Bodhran, which so often ends up being played at sessions by complete beginners & consequently giving the instrument a bad name.
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Most Americans do not care about this.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by scordion
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The OP is far off track. Percussion is deep into the stuff.Even the stringed instruments are used as percussion instruments in most of the American traditional forms. Usually only one instrument plays melody while everyone else bangs out percussion on whatever they can get their hands on. . The earliest form of Bass consisted of a washtub turned upsidedown with a broomhandle and one string that was stretched and released to produce different bass notes.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFzPaK2rbIs&feature=related
The most traditional of the American percussion instruments is called the Limberjack and is certainly a deeply rooted Americn Old Time instrument.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyTNjo_YlSM
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
My good friend Jesper has just pointed out that Old Time does have the Hambone phenomenon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJYInQbb4b0
& here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5u2qEDb8Es
Bet you'd just love to have someone doing this next to you at an Irish session!
I guess it's really just Spooning ... for folks who can't afford Spoons!
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ Boatpiper Oh Oh ....... I had hoped nobody would mention those little guys.
I have a couple of Limberjacks myself, but mention them here & before you know it, they are going to start turning up at Irish Sessions as Limberjills, dressed up in Irish Dance dresses e.g. gaudy Book of Kells vomit patterns!
I hear what you are saying about the other guys giving a bit of percussion, behind anyone taking a lead in Bluegrass, but let's face it, at least that is 'melodic percussion'!
Also, in Old Time nobody takes lead, so the guys just have to keep their own time & they seem to manage that just fine, with a drum to keep them in place.
@ scordion Yes fair enough, but then neither do most Irish folk care about this either. However, I'm not exactly directing this question at most folk ... just at musicians, who usually are interested.
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Tell me there's no slap happy slam bangin goin on here. This is the most advanced and intricate form of commercialized American Old time music . Grand Ole Opry style.
Enjoy and remember it's comedy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn5qVaFW93k&feature=related
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ Boatpiper Yes, I can see why those guys all play together in a band ............ cause no other serious band of musicians could possibly want all that clattering & banging going on!
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I've played with and listened to alot of oldtimey players over here, although not in the last 10-15 years, and rarely did I find those crowds who play melody only. But when I do find those folks who play uncluttered, it's a joy to behold.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Mr. P. I think the mass participation in Irish music only really came about over the past 40+ years or so, yes? When the 60s folk music revival brought interest back to traditional music in Ireland the goat skin was there waiting for them.
The 60s folk music revival here didn't draw people to Old Time instrumental music, it made them pick up acoustic guitars and sing Bob Dylan songs. [shrug]
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Ptarmigan, by the sound of old timey, the entry level instrument for that music would have to be the fiddle. No question.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Point well taken Bren... that is about people outside the uSA and their impressions of bluegrass.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by The Merry Highlander
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
If and when an old timey fiddler has mastered his instrument (whatever that means) then, and only then, can they begin the steep climb up to mountain dulcimer and spoons.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
What mass participation in Irish music? I've missed the masses again?
OT is never a joy to behold. A racket to endure perhaps.
Bluegrass? I've heard some really good bluegrass played with an awesome double bass, but it's pretty rare, even around here.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by mickm
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Hmm. Percussion from a bodhran or from an old guy with a beard blowing into a jug with "XXX" on it. Pick your poison.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The perception of what is traditional in Old Timey and Bluegrass music in America is simply what has remained by virtue of being purchased, but it isn't indicative of what was there all along.The causality for the exclusion of various types of percussion being discussed here is illegitimate but it's easy to confuse. If there isn't much percussion (meaning bones, sticks, or drums) present in the most popular modes of American traditional music today then I think we owe that miscalculation to ourselves (meaning society) when we interpret what "traditional" music is. When we look for the parameters of traditional music, we look to archetypes for an example and an inspiration. This natural tendency to "look no further than.." is where the problems arise because the beautiful thing about American traditional music is that the country is so wide, with so many different types of music happening everywhere, that there isn't or shouldn't be any single set of parameters for what is and is not traditional for the whole. The true parameters of any tradition, as they are, seem incidental to me and predetermined by historical happenstances. With the profusion of American musical styles stemming from so many different groups of immigrants and the endemic styles that evolved from those imported roots, we have to pick and choose when we define a tradition. Regarding Old Timey and Bluegrass, we have already done so. The result was that after some musicians "picked" the style they wanted to play because they enjoyed it (like in the 60s revival) and the public "chose" it (by going to the store and buying the records) we now look to these trends established by said artists to tell us what is and isn't traditional about what have become genres rather than traditions.
The folk revival played a huge role in giving us the music we listen to today. In the States during the 60s the trend went in two directions, which weren't mutually exclusive. On the one hand there were groups like New Lost City Ramblers whose influence on a younger generation led to the "Newgrass" sound 20 years down the line, and also increased the head of steam for Nashville-based musicians like Monroe, Stanley, and Scruggs.. And then there were the singing folkies like Dylan, Baez, et. al. whose influence turned into a rock-folk hybrid and the singer-songwriter profession of the 1970s and beyond. They met somewhere in the middle in other places, like rock music, country-rock, folk-rock, and so-called alt country and Americana genres.
The chief difference that I can see between these two classes are their respective focuses. The former class specialized in old-time string band music ("pre-bluegrass" banjo and fiddle traditions) while the other embraced a wider spectrum of the American musical canon -- everything from vaudeville and delta blues to rural folk ballads and the songster tradition championed by Woody and Cisco during the Depression. That much being said, both classes ultimately created distinctly new directions in American music because their practitioners fused together many preexisting musical modes in a way that was impossible in the past, given the lack of widespread recording media and playback devices, and geographic isolation preventing one style from merging with another.
All in, there were a lot of percussion instruments played in American music before the 1960s redefined what we see as "traditional." I still see a lot fo old-timey groups playing with percussion either on bones or sticks or small snare drums. In the South there were string bands that played for dances and often featured bones or snare drums. Early recordings of Blind Blake and a host of other songster and blues artists feature bones and percussion. Mandolin orchestras often had percussion featured. Piedmont music featured drums as witnessed in period photographs. The Museum of Florida history featured an exhibit about turpentine production with several photos of musical groups, each one having a drum if not two, or a man holding a set of bones. This was functional music -- it wasn't traditional yet because no one had stopped playing it. When we "revived" folk music in the 50s and 60s, we killed the part of it that we could extract most easily or that we enjoyed the most, preserved it in amber, and now have the tendency to refer to that drumless example as the one and only archetypal definition which it is not.
I was at work the other day listening to Wanda Jackson when a fella came in and atarted asking about the album on the stereo. When I concisely explained who she was, about her rockabilly and country past, her gospel rebirth and such, he said, "Oh! Yes! Traditional rock and roll... well I don't usually listen to too much of that..." Without getting into the vagaries of the the topic, I just nodded. But it illustrates that our perceptions of musical styles grow and change as we play the music and love it -- folkways become traditions overnight, while we sleep... it's like a geologic process happening very slowly starting with the birth of music and ending with the death of the last human. I wonder is we'll ever have "traditional heavy metal" or "traditional acid house" music... I wonder how my kids are going to scare me?
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by gravelwalks
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
@ gravelwalks That's all very interesting, but I think it's just a long-winded way of what we have already said really, that, in it's evolution to where it is today, much of the Bluegrass & Old Time Music scene has managed to get rid of much of those largely superfluous percussion instruments.
While on the Irish Music scene, the Bodhran has become ubiquitous, to the point where it is almost impossible to find a session without at least one.
In fact, to find an Irish session without more than one melody-less percussion instrument, is becoming increasingly difficult.
You seem to imply that the process, during the revival, was a combination of musicians, to a large extent, turning their backs on percussion instruments, while the buying public preferred to hear their music without percussion.
So what I'm asking is, how come our American friends largely succeeded, where we largely failed?
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Great post, gw. I enjoyed it.
In short, you say there were lots of percussive elements in rural, old time etc. music. They were just left out when commercial output started to define peoples' view of the genre. I hope I'm correct so far.
Percussion would have got into the way of the superfast runs on the stringed instruments I suppose.Bluegrass was no longer dance music but "l'art pour l'art". Could it be ITM is still closer to the dancing and thus percussive playing is called for?
I read various books on the development of Irish/celtic music in America, e.g.Nuala O'Connor's book 'Bringing it all back home'(TV series). As yet I found no answer as to why wind instruments, flute and whistle, which feature so prominently in ITM don't play any part in bluegrass/country/old time. But that's a different topic really.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by kuec
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
clawhammer banjo, guitar, and bass are all pretty dang percussive. I think the lack of wind instruments might be due to the large tobacco presence in the South
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by airport
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Ashkettle
I had for got about Harmonica - I knew a Blue's Harp player
who also played Irish and Bluegrass, Your right it dose work,,,
jim,,,
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Old time music? Not anywhere close to my favorite and I can't for the life of me imagine how a flute or whistle would be comfortable with all those drones and cross tunings the fiddles use.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by MaryMargaret
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There is a raw and primitive quality to old timey that is very dear to me. The lack of wind instruments from my limited knowledge stems from the lack of any of them being built. The players way back when built the instruments themselves out of things like cigar boxes, old gas cans, washtubs and chunks of wood with whatever they could come up with for strings. We're talking about folks who were very poor, had little to no formal education and had very little contact with anyone outside the Appalachians. The few instruments from any where else that did make it up there were highly cherished items, and primitively reproduced out of whatever it took.
Many of those folks were runaway slaves and the persecuted who managed to get far enough out there to be forgotten by those who hunted them and they got there with nothing more than they could carry by hand if anything at all.
The sheer tenacity of those peoples will to survive is what I hear in the raw energy of Old Timey Music.
I like it.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Dick, that's exactly my point, regarding one music which is open to a drum and another that is not -- it's simply a coincidence of history that events happened in a specific way so that one music could keep a drum on, while the the other decided it didn't need to be there. That's the critical moment, if you could go back in time to change things, I'd start at 1947 and start handing out or destroying drums.
I think the really interesting part is that when drums are present, in either music, a lot of people tend to get irritated (myself included -- to an extent). The commercial viability of American Old Timey and Bluegrass were and are certainly threatened by drums, which are offensive for some reason and tend to destroy instrumental charm where it is present. As kuec suggests, I think it has a lot to do with the purpose of the music. Country and western bands always have drummers, and bluegrass is often accompanied by clogging -- which sound quite a bit like drums to me. In Irish music, how much of a precedent is there for hand drums to be played as instrumental accompaniment for dance music before 1950? Not much was my understanding.
Jimmy Shand had a few drummers in his bands, didn't he....
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by gravelwalks
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The Chieftains are the reason for the prominence of bodhrans in trad sessions today.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by timmy!
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
One word: washboards.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
OK folks, show of hands, who likes Irish better than Bluegrass, despite the aforementioned "thumpers, clickers & bangers?"
I thought so.
There you go, Ptarmy!
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There was a thread a while back that pointed out the use of the Bodhran in some old recordings from the 1920's & 30's. The Chieftains were definately not the first.
Here's Packie Dolan with Bodhran a thumping.http://www.juneberry78s.com/sounds/j33008-10.mp3 Not sure what year it is but it's way before the Chieftains.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The originators of Irish music were just as materially poor, poorer really. They invented a far better product, though. However, I second the remark about the music the American slaves invented, and the ingenuity of their instrument construction. I love the stories of how they 'obtained' bits of cyprus clapboard and whatnot for their stringed instruments.
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
cypress (The other thing being a country. Dunno about Cyprus's being proof against bugs and rot.)
# Posted on August 31st 2010 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
There was also a cultural taboo against drumming by the slaves in the States. All attempts were made by the slave owners to extinguish any form of African identity. Even the banjo was originally used by whites in black faced comic routines.
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by Boots MacAllen
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
It seems to me that there are two elephants in the room:
one ,
that clacking on bones and spoons goes way back in the tradition of african/anglo/irish/scottish/central/western/ european music in the US.
two,
that the traditiion of flatfoot/buck/clog/step/sean-nós/tap dancing was developed as a percussive accompaniment to music inasmuch as it was an expression of terpsichorean artistry...
ever seen those lederhosen guys slappin their feet and stompin around? ever seen those ham-bone guys slappin their feet and stompin around? i'd say there's a good chance that somewhere, sometime in the past, those guys were coppin steps from one another. so, to address the OP- i think there is a long (and yes,rich) history of percussion in the old-timey tradition
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by pipewatcher
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Boatpiper: I didn't say the Chieftains were the first to use the bodhran in a trad setting, I said they are the reason for its current prominence.
Unlike in Irish trad, bluegrass music just didn't happen to have any such historical accident associated with it that managed to install a percussion instrument in a central musical role.
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by timmy!
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
I think comparing Bluegrass to Irish dance music is comparing Apples to Oranges.
Bluegrass has no where the depth, history, or national pride associated with it that traditional playing has in Ireland. Traditional Irish dance music has thousands of tunes incorporated from a few hundred years, and can be played with a wide variety of differences in style and instrumentation.
Bluegrass, is quite specific in era and style of playing. Not as many people play it, there aren't as many "tunes". Not to mention, once someone makes any significant change to bluegrass like adding a drum kit or winds, it easily gets dumped into the broad and ambiguous genre of Americana.
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by banshee misfortune
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Sheesh y'all talk a lot! The question is 'So what I'm asking is, how come our American friends largely succeeded, where we largely failed? Easy--
You Irish made the mistake of making your music and your goatskin drum 'sexy'.
Nothing sexy 'bout old fat rednecks pickin' and grinnin' but young guys playing 'the ancient war drum of the Celts' and young ladies dancing ala River dance not to mention the party scene in the Titanic movie and now it's cool to play bodhran!!!
I guarantee if everyone playing Irish music looked like the crew from 'Deliverance' nobody'd be playing bodhran.
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by shanty
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
case in point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0NiIME5FIA&p=B683EA081B1F7CB7&index=2&playnext=2
--or--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcAcZp6_ykY
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by shanty
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
this is in no way an endorsement by me of any opinions of 'sexy', 'the ancient war drum theory(it wasn't-not loud enough) Riverdance(hated it) Titanic etc etc--just going by the almighty pop culture. Personally I like this--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcAcZp6_ykY
but it won't get ya laid!
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by shanty
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Shoot! wrong clip!
try this!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI92oDdXazg
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by shanty
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Got ya Timmy, sorry I misunderstood your Chieftains post.
But I do wonder how much of an accident the bodhran really is even if some don't like it.
I don't really see it as a failure. I like a well played bodhran
My wife plays bodhran. I love when she plays with my pipes. Her drumming is really good too.
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Dick, yer hambone man bears a striking resemblance to your good self - is this the next thing after the hammered dulcimer?
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by On Sabbatical
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Speaking of which we had a hammered dulcimer in the pub last week...
Sorry Dick - chris
No wait, that's not right, ...
we had a Hammeredaul'singer in the pub last week.
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Sorry I missed that.
# Posted on September 1st 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Hambone, limberjacks, and the likes of Jimmie Riddle barely scratch the surface of percussive esoterica. Have a serious look at Spike Jones. Yes, you have to watch the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvt4b_qwC_Q&a=GxdCwVVULXeDjr5yLW36yyu7ZbmWGWzm&playnext=1
# Posted on September 3rd 2010 by oldstrings
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Spike who? And his what band? Just kidding Oldstrings. Spike Jones and his City Slickers (or his Music Depreciation Revue) have been one of my favorites since I was a boy and discovered an old 45 RPM record with too many "knock-knock" jokes on it. I wore this record out from playing it too often.
Laurence
# Posted on September 3rd 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
Now that Oldstrings has mentioned Spike Jones, I am trying to imagine what might have happened if Jones and his partners-in-crime (either the City Slickers or the Music Depreciation Revue) sat in and participated at a stereotypical Irish session.
Laurence
# Posted on September 3rd 2010 by fauxcelt
Percussive Jam
"Whole Lotta Love"
à la Duhks ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmG9bAWG7Y4
# Posted on September 3rd 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
airport, I've actually noticed there are plenty of smokers who play wind instruments. Following your reasoning though, you might expect a dearth of singers from the same region.
# Posted on September 3rd 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
they don't even sing a whole song - like in this Tommy Jarrell clip (interesting commentary toward the end)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttGZZhEEg5A
# Posted on September 3rd 2010 by airport
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
That's grand, airport!
# Posted on September 4th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Old Time & Bluegrass Music manages just fine without them!
The old time music group has a new spoons player. We jokingly told him that he couldn't play with us at our next monthly meeting unless he brings a knife and a fork with him to play them also.
This man also plays the ukulele and has a good singing voice.
Laurence
# Posted on September 8th 2010 by fauxcelt