Bluegrass is traditional American music, and like most American things in American culture, its origins are murky. One big difference between bluegrass and American pop music is that bluegrass is improvised. In that way, bluegrass is like jazz. But the instrumentation is very unique. Since bluegrass started out in the country and on farms, some of the instruments used are normal tools found around a farm, like a washboard or a saw. How do you play a saw? You bend it and play it with a bow. While many nontraditional instruments are used in bluegrass, guitars and fiddles are common too. Listen Marni educate Mason about bluegrass.
Mason: I saw your shirt thing earlier and I’m pretty savvy with fancy shirts, but Clampitt Gaddis and Buck...
Marni: Oh yeah.
Mason: I don’t get it. Is that like…
Marni: Clampitt Gaddis and Buck.
Mason: ...a fake western outfit?
Marni: No…Clampitt Gaddis and Buck are a actually a local Portland bluegrass band.
Mason: Okay.
Marni: Yeah. They are really good.
Mason: Bluegrass like banjos?
Marni: Well yes. There is a banjo in the band. And a fiddle and a guitar and really great vocals. A lot of vocal harmony.
Mason: Uh huh.
Marni: Yeah.
Mason: Twangy?
Marni: Not really twangy. A little maybe. But, do you like bluegrass music?
Mason: I mean, I don’t know if I know what bluegrass is other than… Banjo, I like. You know, I like fiddle music. You know, stuff where people do the washboard thing.
Marni: Washboard. Yes, that’s often used.
Mason: Saw. Do they play saws ever?
Marni: Well…in some bands they do. I think that bluegrass has sort of evolved into incorporating the sort of traditional folk...kinda jug bands.
Mason: Mmm Hmm.
Marni: ...sort of just that whole element was sort of lumped into the bluegrass.
Mason: Maybe kind of a catchall term, now.
Marni: Yeah, exactly.
Mason: All the weird…
Marni: No. I mean a lot of younger bands, I think, are starting to play that more traditional music. And I think, it’s good. I think it’s great. It’s you know. It’s actually easier on the ears.
Mason: Yeah
Marni: It’s kinda nice to go to a show…
Mason: People just do it like live and acoustic a lot of time, right?
Marni: It’s not so loud always. Yeah. I just think that there are a lot of really good bands around town that play bluegrass. And I am sure that they are popping up all over.
Mason was confused by Marni’s shirt. It had the words Clampitt Gaddis and Buck on it. Marni explains that Clampitt Gaddis and Buck is a bluegrass band from Portland. She likes bluegrass. Mason, on the other hand, doesn’t even really know what bluegrass is. He lists off several instruments that he thinks might be involved.
Marni says that not all bluegrass bands use traditional bluegrass instruments, like saws. She thinks the genre of bluegrass is expanding and changing. Clampitt Gaddis and Buck is just one new bluegrass band, but there are a lot of new bluegrass bands these days.
Is the traditional music of your country popular with young people right now? Do they people music with unusual things like saws or washboards where you live?
