Big Blog: Bluegrass Music
Hello all!! I hope you all are enjoying your weekend and getting some rest. For my big blog, I decided to write about Bluegrass Music. To start my blog off, I am going to discuss where Bluegrass originated from, what it was syncopated with, and how it spread. Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music and a reminiscent of folk music, and developed in the 1940's. Its roots are in Scottish, Irish, and English ballads and dances. Bluegrass music was syncopated with country and western style music. Its syncopated rhythm, high-pitched vocals, and a strong influence of jazz and the blues made Bluegrass music very unique and distinguished from other string-band music. Its name originated and derived from the band called Bill Monroe and The Blue Grass Boys. The guys who played with Bill Monroe were the ones who further developed and carried on Bluegrass music. Bluegrass music did not spread to the Urban Areas only from the guys who played with Bill Monroe, but also from audio recordings. Bluegrass music originally started out in hillbilly bars and then gradually worked its way up to college concerts, folk festivals, and coffeehouses. Here is a cool little off topic fact: Bluegrass music influenced some Rock music. What was it used for, you may ask? Well, Bluegrass music was frequently used as a dancing style known as buck-dancing, flatfooting, or clogging. That is probably where these current female hip-hop cloggers got clogging from, and then decided to turn it into hi-hop clogging. So, it is time for what instrument they use. Go ahead and try to guess, I am more than sure that all of you would guess correctly. It is the banjo. Ahhh. With Bluegrass music they like to use the three finger style to play the instrument and it is actually very unique to Bluegrass music. If any of you do not know what a banjo is, it is a stringed instrument that originated from Africa and has a tambourine like body with a hoop and a screw to secure the belly of the frame. What about the most popular notes though? Well the most popular key notes in Bluegrass music are G, C, D, A, E, and F, which all leads the music to range from a slow to extremely fast tempo. So guys, now that you all know the basics of Bluegrass music, lets watch some videos. Of course I had to include a video of the one who started Bluegrass music, which was Bill Monroe. Watch as he plays the banjo and how he uses his three fingers, and how the tempo goes from slow to super fast, anyways, this is one of his originals and it is called "Blue Moon of Kentucky".
next video guys!! This video is showing a person clog to the Bluegrass music and you can see and hear the banjos being played. I know it is not an older video but it'll have to do.
Hey Faith! I really enjoyed reading your blog on Bluegrass Music. I found that it was really interesting that its roots are from Scottish, Irish, and English ballad dances. To me, that definitely stands out. When I listened to the first video of Bill Monroe, and his band, I actually kind of liked it. I have listened to Bluegrass before, and even gone to some places that played Bluegrass, and I was not a huge fan. What I really liked about the video was the slow tempo at first, it puts you in this calm state, but then the tempo speeds up and it makes you want to dance. I also really enjoyed watching the video of clogging, and it made me think back to my blog, and how I should of put a video of dancing. I thought everything was well set up, and I now understand Bluegrass a bit more.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that you did a blog on this genre. I never really knew too much about Bluegrass, but my strings teacher in middle school played in a Bluegrass band. It is interesting how Bluegrass influenced Rock music. It is also cool how Bluegrass has certain notes that are special to that genre which is different from most genres.
ReplyDeleteI won't lie, I cannot think of one time this year where I thought about bluegrass music before this blog. It's not a type of music that you think about too often but it's actually really fascinating. Watching the older man clogging was really fun and I would have never thought it was influenced by rock music!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I read your blog today! I learned a lot about Bluegrass music and I realized that I never hear it anymore. My grandpa likes to listen to it so I heard it a lot growing up but I haven't even thought about Bluegrass since I was super young. I never knew it was influenced by rock music but I can definitely see it now with the changing in tempo!
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