Robin, you have said something close to what I have thought, better than I can. I think in those early days, they handed down tunes, wrote tunes, etc that came initially from direct experience of the mother country,..and we ended up with what we call old time music.
My theory is, many, maybe even most families in the American SE are descendants of mainly uk people who migrated to the usa very early on, (talking 1600's and early 1700's). Over the generations in the early days many folks were isolated and had to invent their fun and that included their music. The influence may have been the pipes, and going to fiddle like you say. Folks did not call their music anything more than music all through the generations. They did not think of where it came from, it was just a tradition they understood because they grew up on it and understood it well. As each generation passed changes were made, to kinda morph it from the old country influences. Then that African influence plus gospel singing and harmonies there, all blended into something. I see Monroe's Bluegrass as a wonderful, creative fusion of traditions, resulting in a rich textured music style. One can look at the cajuns ...and their music and perhaps say the same thing but replace pipes for a popular french instrument of an early day, perhaps one of those old herdigerdies, that make a sound much like pipes, oddly enough (sorry about the spelling) or a sqeeze box of some kind or other, meeting with other traditions present or entering those bayous, beginning early on. Similar thing I reckon. Based on something I learned recently, it may be the early radio and recording businesses that began in the early 1900's that were the catalyst to fuse the existing traditions into new styles. All that was needed was a creative guy like Bill Monroe to do it. He would have lived in the era when radio was big and important in people's lives. I too am working from hunches based on what my ears and experience tell me. He likely also got around a bit in his early days touring with bands. Anyway that is how I see it and am sticking to it unless some kind of proof otherwise surfaces. When I hear Monroe's music I can only think..he was listening to what was going on around him, he used it, but he surely put his own stamp on it. <G> Linda On Jan 24, 10:13 am, Robin Gravina <[email protected]> wrote: > I never thought about Scottish music being a big conscious influence on > Monroe, but what I think, is that Scottish, Irish, Galician and Asturian > (and probably English) musics come from the pipes: the fiddle was another > way of expressing the pipe music, in the same way that the fiddle for the > blues guys was another way of expressing the African stringed instruments. > What got me thinking about this is the way that Hartford ended a lot of his > tunes with the exact sound of a bagpipe letting out the air. Also the > tunings of the pipes have all kinds of non standard pitches which are not > exactly blue, but are definitely not western classical. > > So how about American Old Time music being the Scottish pipe memory meets > the African banjo memory, even if the practitioners just dealt with what > there was around them and didn't have a genetic musical memory of their > roots, which would be magical and therefore impossible. > > As regards hip, there is nothing more driving than those sounds, and I think > you are on to something when you look at them: music went several ways from > those roots, but there are surely more ways that it can be taken: the mix is > so powerful that there must be.. > > Actually I may be completely wrong: no evidence, just intuition... > R > > On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 7:23 PM, mistertaterbug > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > > > In response to the public and private emails I've gotten involving the > > "scottish connection"...I get it. Considering the people that settled > > the southern and eastern part of the US (and the midwest and...), it > > is very unlikely that Monroe could escape the influence of the Scots/ > > Irish. The musical influence runs from there to here, did then and > > does now. If nothing else, something as simple as our incessant love > > of going from the root to the flat 7 and back again would give us > > away, I guess. Oh, and I do guess. I am not a scholar nor historian > > nor academic. What I am doing is trying to make a legitimate study of > > that means a great deal to me, something that has been taken for > > granted for decades mainly because Monroe was always around. Now that > > he's gone, somebody's got to make sense out of this and help us all > > understand why it's so hip because it's too hip to let slide. Back to > > the subject... > > > All I was saying was that I don't suspect Bill nor anyone else in > > Rosine, KY ever thought a lot about the roots of their music other > > than to say that they got such and such a tune from so and so or that > > "the old folks played it like this and now we play it like this". Oh, > > I'm sure they thought about it some, but not to the point of sitting > > down and tracing it back to its' origins. In the interview with Bobby > > Bare, Bill talked about bluegrass having blues and fiddle music and > > "sacred numbers" and jazz and Scottish bagpipe...ding, ding, ding, > > ding, ding....okay, he says it. So what? Far as I can tell, there's > > really only one tune in Monroe's repertoire that suggests anything > > about Scotland, and that's "Scotland". Did the Father of Bluegrass > > actively engage in tracing down the ancestors of the tunes he loved to > > play, or was that just another bit of information given him by > > somebody who's opinion he trusted, say somebody like Ralph Rinzler? > > I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I don't know when Monroe > > decided his music had Scottish influence in the sound. I do know that > > in the later years he was prone to write tunes that had titles that > > showed he was fond of reminiscing, but how far does it go? > > > Now, I understand too that David Long's suggestion to include Luke > > Plumb in the Monroe Camp mix is to "A/B" the old and the new, to have > > Luke play an old Scots/Irish tune in the manner he is so adept at > > doing and show a modern interpretation, maybe even one of Monroe's > > tunes. That would be very well worth the price of admission in itself. > > But I wonder who could tie up all the loose ends there? I'm honestly > > not educated extensively enough to even know where to begin, much less > > go indepth. > > > I don't think there has been any major unraveling of Monroe's > > bluegrass like there has been of classical and jazz, nobody taking it > > apart and making a serious study of it. Maybe I'm wrong. Seems to me > > somebody needs to do it. Or maybe this is just me justifying my own > > existence and interests again. Whatever. I suppose that this mandolin > > style, even with all its' links to other sounds/places/times is > > destined to become another pigeon-holed, underground minority clan. > > > Tater > > > On Jan 20, 9:15 pm, Mike Romkey <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Sounds like fun. The Scottish suggestions are appealing. A river runs > > > through it, Mister Tater, an I ain't talkin' no River Dance! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. 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