bluegrass, festivals and improvisation

[gusl]

The Wikipedia totally needs an article titled "Bluegrass Festival", or at least "Picking Party"... it's an interesting subculture.

Bluegrass festivals are noteworthy because most attendants are themselves amateur musicians, who bring their instruments along. Jams happen *everywhere*, from hallways to staircases, to any little corner they can find, or even out on the sidewalk (and this is only the indoor festivals).

Why is this the case? I'm not completely sure, but it might be because bluegrass is such simple music that anyone can improvise it. There's also a whole culture of "standards", and I'm not sure why jazz festivals aren't similar... unlike in jazz, there's little to no snobbery. I know many people who have played with bluegrass superstars, and this is not because they are good, but rather because everyone jams with everyone. Maybe it's the happiness factor of the music.

While I don't have such magical moments all the time (I need the right group chemistry), this is a rather typical scene from a bluegrass festival:

When I first began seeing bluegrass jam sessions up close, I could not believe what was happening before my eyes. ... Four men were standing together with instruments (guitar, banjo, mandolin and bass), and from the conversation, I could tell they had just met. After they had tuned their instruments, one of the men suggested a song and he asked if the others knew it. The banjo player said he did, but the other two players (mandolin and bass) said they did not. "Oh, it’s easy" said the guitar player, and the banjo player kicked it off with a full verse break.By the fourth beat of the kickoff, all the instruments were playing. After the kickoff, the guitar player sang a verse and a chorus, and then the mandolin player played a wonderful break. Next the guitar player sang another verse and chorus, only this time the chorus was sung in three-part harmony, with the mandolin player singing tenor and the bass player singing baritone. Remember, these are the same two men who seconds before had said they did not know the song. The song finished up with another banjo break followed by a final verse and chorus (again in three-part harmony). The whole performance was excellent, seeming as tight to me as many of the acts on stage. And it was not a once-in-a-weekend occurrence, for as I watched, the men repeated the same type of performance many times on many different songs. I was hooked. It was clear that just as I was hearing this music for the first time, the musicians who were playing the music were also hearing it for the first time themselves, and they were personally delighted with their new creations. A magic afternoon for them and me alike, provided by four men who may well have never even learned each other’s names and may have never seen each other again. Their music, like much of the music in bluegrass jam sessions, was only performed once, and to hear it, you had to be there.
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Comments

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

My personal theory is that the simplicity of the chord structure makes it easy for anyone to join in, while the fact that the players rotate through instrumental breaks keeps the interest of advanced players.

Plus it's just a fun type of music---extremely honest, catchy, and non-pretentious---and it's sufficiently quirky to attract typically really interesting people. :)

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

just wondering: what does "honest" mean when applied to music? I watched a bluegrass documentary once, and it repeated "bluegrass is honest music" way too many times.

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

my feeling is that it's equivalent to non-pretentious. so i guess i repeated myself.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

What makes bluegrass non-pretentious? Would it become pretentious if you could major in it in music schools?