Bluegrass Music Research Paper

Southern music known today as country music became popular in the 1920’s. This was music that was based on folk music of cowboys in the southeast (Collins English Dictionary, 2003). In most of the early music the artist played stringed instruments like fiddles, guitars, banjos and some were even playing harmonicas. When this type of music started some people called it

Last week I was sent out on mission to discover what connections could be found between two unlikely genres of music. When beginning my investigation I was determined to pick two genres that, on the surface seemed to have little in common but once you looked a little closer you would see that they are not that different after all. After some research I decided on Hawaiian folk and bluegrass music. At first both genres sound very different but with some examination connections are easily made. Musically the two genres link through their chord progression as well as their simple melodies and rhythms which are paired with rich textures.In order to see these connections some background information on both of the genres will help to paint a clearer picture.

The way the whites treated the African Americans was terrible, especially since they were plucked from their homes and moved across a sea and forced into unpaid labor. Fortunately, the African Americans brought with them their culture that influenced the Appalachian region to this day. A staple in Bluegrass music is the banjo. The banjo is “an instrument of African origin” which the slaves brought with them from Africa (Williams 142). “Bluegrass music eventually gave special prominence to the banjo, which many now think of as the Appalachian instrument” (Williams 143).

Kentucky became a state in 1792 as the 15th state, also becoming the first U.S. state west of the Appalachian Mountains. Kentucky University’s colors are white and blue. Explorer Daniel Boone was one of Kentucky’s most important explorers and many immigrants followed the trail he traveled through the Cumberland Gap, also known as the Wilderness Road. Although it went with the Confederacy during the Civil War, the population was deeply divided, and many Kentucky residents fought for the North. Mostly known as an agricultural area into the 20th century, Kentucky is also a major U.S. coal producer and site of the U.S. military bases Fort Knox and Fort Campbell. It is also known as the home of the legendary Kentucky Derby horse race and bluegrass

"Hillbilly music,” “the high, lonesome sound,” and “old-time string band music” have all been used to describe bluegrass, though none of these terms is quite right.

s toured throughout the country. It reached its peak in the 1850's and 1860's as it became the popular music of the people. It ran on New York's Broadway for over forty years, and it was the music of the Mexican War, the California Gold Rush, and the Civil War. This form of popular music gave birth to our Ragtime, Blues, Dixieland, Country, and Bluegrass music of today. When a plantation owner had a man with musical talent, he might send him to New Orleans or up north to be trained in violin so he could play Celtic music for the cotillions and parties. But, when that man was alone in his quarters, he would pour his African soul into his Irish fiddle. This was the music the blackface minstrels tried to copy.

The band I pick was the Avett Brothers, mainly because I don’t know many bands. And they are a contemporary bluegrass band slash everything else. I heard about the Avett Brothers back home early on before they were big. They are from Concord, NC which is where they received from the Mullis family. Piano lessons from Karen, guitar lessons from Nelson, and banjo lessons from Ned. “They began with dreams of rock/pop stardom (Scott) and astronaut adventures (Seth). Eventually, they abandoned those dreams for the more attainable goals of folk and old-time stardom, and ultimately, abandoned these dreams for the even less likely dream of making a living playing original songs for people.” (1)

Music during the progressed quite a bit over time. It all started out with a less complex type of music known as ragtime. Ragtime was popular from around the 1890’s through 1915. Ragtime originated from the

The purpose of this experiment is to determine which type of grass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Bentgrass, Zoysiagrass, Tall Fescue, or Ryegrass, produces the most biomass, and therefore the most energy.

always been what we recognize it as today. Country music began in the 1920’s in a town in Tennessee called Bristol and was recognized for its hillbilly and folk format. Country music artists like Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis are each responsible for creating this music format that was written mostly about everyday life. Today country music is recognized as a more modern contemporary version of music. Today’s country artists have started to change their sound in order to appeal to the mainstream audience in order to make more money. Miranda Lambert said “there’s been a shift: country music is popular now. Every other genre wants to come over to our land.”

Country music originated in the 1920s in Tennessee. The genre was influenced by folk music from the Appalachian Mountains and revolved around themes of love, faith,

Most of us have watched a college sporting event at one point or another in our life. Few people actually know and are aware of all the hard work, and dedication college athletes put towards their sport. However, they do not receive a compensation for their hard work. These Athletes are sometimes mistreated physically and mentally, yet the debate over whether or not to pay college athletes is a big debate.

“When first entering in America, British folk music was distinguished by three-chord tunes, sparse instrumentation (with some fiddlers), mostly male performers, improvisation, the singers’ sporadic shouts (Scottish “yips”), Christian themes served up in hundreds of hymns, and a secular collection of songs that told stories, generally about love and lost love, using metaphor and symbol to tell those stories” (Allen 101). By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British music changed and became Americanized. Vocal harmonizing slowly evolved, and fiddlers were accompanied by those who played banjo, an African American opening. “Tambourines and “bones” (tapping out rhythms using pork rib bones) were a minstrel show contribution” (Allen 102). When African Americans were forced into slavery and brought to North America in the 1600s, they brought their own musical traditions and sounds. Slaves who were on the Mississippi River Valley delta soil developed what will later be introduced as blues music. On the plantations, slaves greatly changed British American hymn singing. They took non-religious British American songs and turned it into their own forms of music that followed their culture and taste of music. Blues emerged in the early twentieth century at the same time country music became settled from its folk roots. Blues music talked about the indifferences African American slaves were going through at that time. “The blues voiced human

Different from other forms of music, blues was only recorded by memory and passed down through generations through live performances. The blues began in the North Mississippi Delta post Civil War times. It was heavily influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups. This eventually developed into music that was set up in a call-and- response way so that the singer would sing a line and he would then respond with his guitar.

Many people would say that Appalachian music is American and is natve to American. There is some truth to this notion, there is however a significant influence from outside America. Proior to the 1750 discovery of easier acsess