Autobiography (Fictional)

 I was just a piano player in Topeka.  I played piano in junior high and high school.  My parents made me start taking lessons with the local piano teacher in town when I was 8.  All my sisters learned the piano, too.  After I graduated, I was supposed to get married to a boy from the city but he left town before graduation and I never saw him again.  I was a huge fan of Benny Goodman because I heard him on the radio every Saturday night on the Let’s Dance Show.  I decided the good life was in Chicago and left from home.  Obviously, I couldn’t transport my piano with me, so I just took a suitcase full of clothes and the little cash I had saved up from playing rags for the summer events.  My parents didn’t know when I left.  I hitched a ride from the edge of town to Kansas City and the man told me I was on my own to find another ride from there. 

Well, I couldn’t find a ride from Kansas City clear to Chicago and I got to thinking that I might get stranded if I tried to make it all that way.  So I looked for a job around town.  No white people thought a white girl should be wandering off all by herself and they only wanted to hire men.  So I wound up looking on the other side of the tracks.  It was then that I realized Kansas City’s potential.  There were clubs everywhere with musicians advertised to be there that night.  So I went into one of the cleaner looking joints and bought myself a Coca-Cola with some of my money so that they would let me stick around for a few hours until the band showed up.  I enjoyed myself immensely that night.  I can’t remember the name of the band that night, but they changed my life.  It was so inspiring, hearing all this new jazz that they didn’t play on the radio.  I hadn’t taken lessons for jazz music, but I wanted to be around it.  So the next day I tried applying for any job I could find in one of those clubs.  The next day I was hired as a waiter and dishwasher during the day and a bartender for the night.  I didn’t make very much an hour, but I had a free ticket that way to listen to the music every night.  I saw all sorts of bands come in there.   I became good friends with a few, but I just saw them every once in a while.  It got pretty lonely sometimes; I was holed up in a motel for a while before anybody had a place for me to stay permanently.  I finally sent word back home to my mama one day.  Too scared to tell her I was working in a black community ‘cause my folks would probably track me down and bring me home to a “civilized” community, I lied about where I was.  I told them that I was working for a lawyer man up North and that was it. 

One of the newsboys on the corner told me Duke Ellington was back from his first European tour and was going to be in a show right there on Vine.  I didn’t know him, but he sounded like a big deal.  I had to work that next weekend, but I slipped out for a few minutes to go see who he was.  After all the music I had been around, he just had me in awe.  The club owner told me I had to buy something if I wanted to stay around, so I went back home, but a gentleman at the back tipped me that the boys usually went to jam a few blocks away after the show.  So I went back to work, but when the show closed down and it was time for me to go home, I walked myself right on over to where that Duke Ellington was supposed to be.  I had been to a few jam sessions before and had finally started picking up, but I wasn’t anywhere close to runnin’ with the big names.  So I sat there and watched all the different men playing their instruments and listening to some gal sing a chorus.  That’s when I got the idea I could start singing and making more money in the music industry before I was good enough to play.  Duke Ellington was my hero; I was determined to play like him on the piano someday.  I became what you would call a groupie now.  Anytime they were around I made sure to make the show.  I started missing work because of my favorite bands and my boss cut my hours and gave me a warning to show up to work or I wouldn’t have a job anymore.  But I had started singing every now and then around the local jam sessions and got to play the piano at a club every now and then during the day.  Pretty soon I was fired, so I decided I better find a different job. 

The Swingin’ Several didn’t pay much, but their singer left them so I auditioned for that part at a jam session and they told me to meet them Thursday and practice with them so I could learn their songs.  So I had almost a week unemployed but when I got to practicing with the boys, it felt like I was finally in the right place.  The “show” they told me we had the next night was actually a recording session.  So we recorded live in an auditorium and actually had our first show together the next weekend.  Our show was the most fun I had ever had, being able to perform with real musicians that were so creative.  We could do all the popular songs since I was singing, but they did ones without singing, too.  The trumpet player could read music a little but the rest of them improvised all the time.  It was fun because they would throw new twists in the songs all the time, and I had to pay attention.  They knew I played piano, too, so they’d let me sit in on a song every now and then, but when it came time for a piano solo I was supposed to switch.  They let me fill in on a solo one time when the piano player was too drunk and he didn’t like that at all.  He didn’t want me stealin’ away his spotlight.  So I was limited, but I took every chance I got to learn to play like the pros. 

The clarinetist, Joe, and I would practice at his parents’ house where there was a piano every chance we got here in Kansas City ‘cause he took pity on me and wanted me to still be able to play.  Sometimes his mama would join us singing if it was during the day; she had such a sweet voice and I remember thinking just how nice they were.  After sneaking off at the end of the shows with him all the time, the band got to pokin’ fun about maybe we were going together.  Joe decided maybe that wasn’t a bad idea one day and I was sure glad.  We got engaged quickly and I sent for my mama and papa.  It had been forever since I had talked to them, but I sent them a record and a letter to explain my situation, and a little bit of money to make it here.  They arrived in Kansas City not very long after they got the letter.  They told me they had been scared to death and prayed ‘bout me every night.  Well, we got married, and the rest is history.  It was a small wedding with just our parents and close friends. 

After becoming a wife, that didn’t change my job at all until we had our two children.  I went on a couple regional tours with the band before I was done singing.  Then I stayed home with the kids and Joe kept touring.  Our band broke up a few years later, and Joe found a few jobs here and there, but it was sparse for a short while.  I don’t know how we made it back then, but we did.  Now he’s with a new band, but a couple of our members joined it, too.  They let me sing still every now and then while they’re in town.

But that’s my life up to this point.  I was part of a big deal for a while but now we’re a happy family in a house that’s just big enough for the four of us.  The kids and I visit Joe’s papa all the time.  Their poor grandma died last year of a heart attack.  But they say that’s how Bird went.  It must be a popular thing to do.  My folks make it this way sometimes, but we usually drive to Topeka for Christmas and I get to see my sisters that way.  Joe’s been good to me.  He’s one of the few musicians that doesn’t have a drug problem these days.  That allows us to save money back.  Next week he should be back in town and done touring for a while because they’ve got a solid gig downtown for the whole summer.  We bought a piano and I've been giving my daughter, Maybelle, lessons; we spend time reading music, and we spend a lot of time swingin' on that old piano.  Bobby's been interested in the sax for a while at school and someday soon when he's old enough Joe might take him to a show. 

Reflections...

Before taking this Jazz in Kansas City and the Southwest, I hardly had an idea of what jazz was.  Yes, I knew there were woodwinds involved and some trumpets and I thought that a jazz tune was more of an instrumentally rambling song.  Ha!  I learned so many exceptions to my rule that I had to re-make my own schema of music entirely.  I never knew so much about bluegrass or just about actually listening to music before this class, either.

When class started, we talked about ragtime and the pre-jazz music to better help us understand the transition into jazz.  My older sister had often played Maple Leaf Rag when I was younger and I had seen a ragtime piano player perform for almost an hour at the same age.  Ragtime’s bouncy nature was always a joyful sound and I never had addressed the syncopation and the rigid, upbeat rhythm that made it sound so happy.  Thinking back, my grandma learned to play the piano partially by ear when she was a child because her mother was frustrated at her for quitting piano lessons.  Her aunt ended up teaching her how to play the basic chords with her left hand and somewhat follow the music with the right.  I now realize that it sounded very much like the syncopated left hand of a ragtime piano player, which my grandma can easily transition it into sounding like polka music.  So what did my grandma do?  She played every hymn in that old house like a polka.  During her Alzheimer years she would start off playing the one polka song she had learned and somehow turned it into Amazing Grace by the end.    The funny part about it was our lack of realization until later in the song.  It just leads us to show that there are many relationships between the different styles of music.  Our class demonstrated that the characteristics can often be mixed and then we run into a gray area where someone could be playing half-ragtime and half-jazz in one tune.  When I think about the time of transition and my grandma’s surroundings, it makes perfect sense.  She remembers the dust storms from the Dust Bowl era very well from her childhood, so that puts her at a point in time where her parents and grandparents had adjusted to ragtime but maybe weren’t quite accepting the jazz era yet.  They probably thought at that point that jazz was a bad influence on the young generation and segregation was still around in those days, so they probably didn’t hear much from black jazz bands.  The polka influence would have come from the fact that all of her parents’ farmhands were Czech and even as she mothered her own children, she often lived in Czech communities such as Milligan, Nebraska.  At that time, polkas were the thing to go to, if not the only public event to attend.  So through learning to listen closely to songs in this class and observe the influences of someone’s form of art, I have been able to better understand my own grandmother.  My, how I wish she was well enough to play the piano one more time for me now that I’ve taken this class.

As far as bluegrass is concerned, it is very connected to jazz.  The banjo and guitar in bluegrass music were common instruments in the blues and jazz, too.  But instead of transitioning from one to the other, bluegrass kept them both.  Another similar instrument for both musical styles is the string bass.  So the main difference in instruments used could be summed up as the fiddle and the mandolin versus clarinets, saxophones, and trombones.  But we did listen to Reinhart and Grapelli yesterday, who had an all string jazz band.  Drums or percussion can be used in both styles, depending on the artist’s preference.  Both bluegrass and jazz often have a swinging style, where the musicians defy the definition of rhythm and extend into extra counts on the notes they feel are more important.  Solos take pieces from the melody and improvise the boringness right out of it.  There can be songs with lyrics and purely instrumental songs.  Both fields have many artists who have pushed the limits of society’s knowledge and advanced the genres themselves.  Who would have known that hillbilly music and bluegrass would be such popular songs in television and movies, too?  I never realized that the “Ballad of Jed Clampett” on one of my favorite old-time TV shows was recorded by two of the earliest bluegrass musicians there are.  I knew that Alison Krauss and Union Station were included in the soundtrack for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, but I hadn’t realized to what extent and the fact that Dan from Union Station was George Clooney’s singing voice for the Soggy Bottom Boys.  I also never knew before that Krauss and Union Station had so many Grammys and international recognition in the bluegrass genre.   I thought people were less appreciative and knowledgeable than they really are about bluegrass.

But continuing with bluegrass alone, I researched a couple favorite artists of mine and summarized several songs I only thought I was familiar with.  Remembering the tune is much less complicated than breaking it down and understanding the work that went into each song to make it different from the rest.  Phrase extensions and interludes are often inserted to catch our attention in important places; improvisation takes our understanding of the song and throws it down the drain, demanding that we listen with a whole new set of ears.  I have loved Alison Krauss and Union Station’s music all my life, despite the fact that it made me cry as an infant.  Because of my parents’ enjoyment in listening to their music, I gained great exposure to it.  Before kindergarten, I had many of her songs memorized; I had grown to love Alison Krauss’s voice above all others.  “Oh, Atlanta” is still one of my favorite songs of hers from her younger recording years because of its happy, swinging feel.  I even remember pondering the meaning of her songs when I was in first grade.  I’ll never forget listening to “Deeper than Crying” with the lyrics “Leaving is the longest word I’ve ever heard…”, and wondering how in the world she could mean that because I knew much longer words than that!  The longest word I could think of was typewriter!  Obviously this was early first grade, before I learned the Mary Poppins “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” song.  At that point I was starting to realize she meant something more and I had to ask my older sister.  But through this class now, I’ve rediscovered their musicianship as more of a stroke of genius, as I have for Cadillac Sky.  Both groups have ignored the rules of popular music and you can’t help but wonder about what they are saying when forming these songs.  For example: Jerry, you take the chorus and make it sound like a different song; Dan, play the guitar until you don’t think you can anymore, and then play it faster; or Matt, although the banjo is a bluegrass instrument I want you to play it like rock and roll while Panda runs all over the bass;  Ross, throw some classical violin into the rock and roll sound while Mike takes the bluegrass approach on the guitar and I, Brian, will sing into my mandolin to make it sound like a voice coming from an old-time radio.  How do these people form such signature sounds?  Where does it come from?  Besides years of experience, Jazz424 reminded me that childhood idols and major influences in the beginning of any musician’s career can be a major ingredient to their success, they just have different ways of using that inspiration.  I won’t go into biographies because that’s already in my blog.  But a person should never forget to look outside the stage to observe a musician’s style and personality.

Listening in this class has brought me knowledge about the form of songs.  I had dissected poem structure before in junior high and high school, but never songs.  I’m one of those people that when they listen to music they forget to listen to the lyrical story, but instead pick up the feeling with the music.  I learned from my dad to pay attention to the different instruments in musical pieces and to better appreciate each person’s talent and not just the person playing or singing the melody.  As our family played, I gradually learned to separate the sounds of each stringed instrument I heard off the radio a little better.  So that part of listening I had already somewhat accomplished.  But this class changed the way I pay attention to songs.  I do still space out and just enjoy the music when I’m tired, but now I listen even more to the different riffs and licks that each artist comes up with and the quality of the arrangement.  I believe it is my job as a fiddle player to fill in the gaps when I play in the background of a song because that is what I noticed before in bluegrass.  But hearing all these popular jazz tunes and listening closer to bluegrass that I heard before, I’ve found that absolutely every instrument can find a way to converse with the melody to make a fuller sound.  I liked finding out that some of these bands that couldn’t read music did just as well with improvising as the trained musicians did reading music.  Improvising is my only method and that also means that I’ll play a song different every time and become more creative if I haven’t played a song recently enough to remember how I did it before.  The only sad part is when I think about how much effort I haven’t been putting into playing lately and how stupid it is that I’ve only attended two small jam sessions in my entire life. 

This course was more revolutionizing to me than any history, accounting, or economics class I have ever taken.  Observation and seeking more than the obvious is the key.  It takes my whole life and shakes it up like a snow globe, demanding I take all my knowledge laid down about music, throw it up in the air, and let it hit me again from another angle so I can see there are more sides to the story.  I must reflect on my entire past, now, to get a clear conception of what else may have gone unnoticed all along.

Rhonda Vincent and Listening Assignment #10

[1]

I’m Not Over You, by Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, has a sound a lot like Alison Krauss and Union Station.  But in addition to her wonderful voice, she also plays the mandolin, guitar, dobro, and fiddle.  She, like Alison, also performs gospel songs and songs that sound more country.   Her song I’ve Gotta Start Somewhere sounds to me like Sara Evans singing, with more emphasis on the singing and a little less emphasis on the instruments.  

Rhonda was born in 1962 in Kirksville, Missouri, where she still resides.  Her musical career started when she was very young.  Her father bought her a snare drum when she was 6, but at age 8, she started playing mandolin in her family’s Sally Mountain Show.  Immediately expanding her thriving skills, she began taking guitar lessons by the age of 10.  She kept playing in bluegrass groups throughout school, but she had her eye on a bigger prize.  TNN had a TV series called “You Can be a Star” where she competed in 1985 and won.  Her award was a recording contract and she started appearing in the Grand Ole Opry.  Alison Krauss replaced her for a short while in the Vincent family’s band.  She branched out into country music, but was soon disappointed and returned to bluegrass music.  Her goal was to innovate bluegrass itself.  She now has 17 albums under her belt and 16 singles.  In the past decade she has been awarded 6 International Bluegrass Music Association awards.  One of her more recent albums  features a duet with Alison Krauss, along with several other songs that she co-wrote with Alison.  It seems to me that the bluegrass industry is just one big happy family.  Many bluegrass musicians change bands and wind up working with a lot of the same people, similar to the jazz music industry in Kansas City in the earlier 1900s.  I also found that Rhonda was with Rounder Records for a while, the same recording company Alison has worked with, and many other bluegrass stars. [1]

But I digress.  This music video was made in 2002 from her album “The Storm Still Rages”.  I’ve Forgotten You is written in 4/4 time.  Vocals (melody and harmony) are included along with the dobro, guitar, string bass, mandolin, and violin.  The form of this song is ABAB binary.  There is an intro, two choruses with a reference back to the intro inserted in between them, and an outro.

Video from YouTube.

The 5 measure intro (first measure begins with a  half rest) starts with the dobro, mandolin, guitar, and bass on two staccato notes, and the third note starts flowing into the rest of the piece as they all start finding their own places for the melody.  The rhythm is immediately established by the bass, guitar, and mandolin as they all strum/pluck on the 2^nd and 4^th beats of every measure. 

A – 16 measures – at end of 8 measures, mandolin picks for a short moment and returns to strumming.

B – 16 measures – vocals include melody and 3-part harmony (female voice in harmony is probably Sonya Isaacs but could also be Alison Krauss)

<4 measure reference back to the intro>

A- 16 measures – Rhonda singing melody again, no other vocals.  Same rhythm on guitar and bass, dobro drops out, mandolin starts conversing with Rhonda – fiddle starts laying slow, drawn-out notes around the 11^th bar

B – 16 measures – vocals same as first B section, violin starts bubbling up in the gaps

Outro - 4 measures just repeating the last phrase of the B section, mandolin and violin close down the song

I was surprised that I never heard the dobro come back in after the reference back to the introduction.  I was also impressed to find out that Rhonda Vincent can play so many instruments, because I thought she was limited to the mandolin and vocals.  I don’t know why I assumed that just because I’ve only seen her perform on the mandolin and sing.  It was quite naïve of me to assume that about a successful bluegrass musician.

Listening #9 - St. Anne’s Reel with Musician Aly Bain

Aly Bain learned how to play the fiddle from Tom Anderson, a Shetland musical heritage fiddler of known by his friends as Muckle Tammie, or “Uncle Tommy”.  If you’re like me and you haven’t heard of Shetland before, it is a group of islands north of Scotland.  Lerwick, Shetland is where Aly Bain was born.  Mr. Bain has recorded several of his own albums and quite a number of them with other artists, plus 4 DVDs.  Bain has received many musical awards and honors internationally during his life-long career in music/recording/television.  His collaborative efforts have led him to work with other famous musicians than the ones in the St. Anne’s Reel video such as Dan Tyminski from Union Station, Emmylou Harris, Roseanne Cash, Joan Osborne, and many others.  Aly Bain has even received 5 honorary Doctor of Music degrees. [1]

Tonight I was in the mood to hear St. Anne's Reel.  I've only heard it before from The Franz Family, which is a gospel-bluegrass group.  But there is not a video for them playing this song on YouTube.  Instead, I had found Jerry Douglas, (whom I have mentioned from Alison Krauss and Union Station), playing his dobro alongside a few other very talented men.  Aly Bain is playing the fiddle, Russ Barenburg is on the guitar, and Todd Parks is on the bass, smiling the whole time.  Though I've never heard of the rest of these musicians in my entire life, I'm shocked that this is my first time hearing from them.  Perhaps I've heard them without being aware of it, but my goodness does Aly Bain tear up the fiddle!  It sounds like he's often fitting 3 notes into one beat, and it doesn't sound cluttered at all; it is very clean, precise, and dazzling all at the same time.  I was glad to discover him in this song.

This song has a folk/bluegrass sound.  I find that this is because it is a traditional Irish folk song, of which I cannot find approximately how far it dates back in history.  There are lyrics to this song, but of the two versions I've heard of it now, I've only heard it played as an instrumental song.

This song is AABB 32-bar form, or else AB binary with 16 counts per section.  But to the best of my knowledge I am going to go with the first option, because the second 8 measures of the chorus are exactly the same as the first, and the 4th section the exact same as the 3rd.  It is in 2/4 time.  This smooth-flowing song has an intro, 6 choruses, and an outro.

Video from YouTube. 

There is an 8 measure dobro intro that hardly even hints what the melody is going to be and then suddenly the guitar, string bass, and fiddle join Jerry Douglas on the dobro and we're off.  There is no slowing down with these boys.  The guitar and fiddle are both playing the melody together as the bass plucks the first beat of every measure and the dobro finds perfect harmony.  The second A is the same.

The second chorus changes direction, featuring the fiddle on the melody.  So the fiddle has a chorus-length solo.  This chorus a majorly different sound to it, partially because the guitar and dobro start strumming on the offbeats, forming syncopation in the rhythm.  Also, the bass starts plucking on every beat now.  What are they doing??  It's syncopated, but not.  The guitar and dobro have temporarily joined the bass in the duty of rhythm-keeping.  The fiddle does stray a little with improvisation but not by far.

The third chorus is a guitar solo.  The fiddle starts clucking in the background, and the rhythm keeps the same pattern on the bass and dobro.  The dobro does wedge in a few licks here and there, just barely noticeable in the gaps of the guitar melody.

The dobro is the next solo-length chorus and man is there improvisation.  Jerry Douglas just decided to have a hay-day with it, although he makes it look effortless.  So part of the time it is hard to tell if he is starting a brand new section or not, but then he caps it off with a few familiar notes so you can catch up before you stop breathing again.  The bass still has the same 2-beat rhythm and the guitar strums in the off-beats again.  I'm pretty sure the fiddle has fallen silent for the whole chorus.

Chorus number 5 is back to the head tune - all instruments jump in their original places as the fiddle takes the melody away again.  In the A section(s), the fiddle stresses the double-stringing and the dobro does a lot of bending notes with the slide.  The guitar has pretty much assumed a quieter and less "filled-in" melody compared to the  fiddle.  In the B section(s), the bass starts on every beat but quickly turns to every other beat once more.  The guitar echoes the sound the dobro previously made, including the harmony and sliding on the strings to bend long notes.  The dobro just quietly piddles around with more harmony to complete the fullness to the texture of the music.

Chorus 6 is pretty similar to the last one.  But the violin charges in on the chorus this time to signal that this is the last go-around.  The tempo may have sped up a little bit.  All instruments still have the same role with increased volume.  Finally, there is a 4-measure outro where the dobro and fiddle start the melody of an A section and then strike three notes with the bass to end the song.  During the outro, it was hard for me to hear the guitar, but the tune sounded less full after the first 2 measures of the outro, so I assume that is where the guitar dropped out of the melody or else strummed the ending notes with the rest.  Oh, and I can't forget the vocals in this song, as we hear a "Whoopie" from Jerry before the video stops. 

A Couple Instrument Manufacturers

There are many brands of instruments out there, but I want to highlight just a few of the top brands available.  For violins, Stradivarius has been a popular producing company since the 1680s, although back then many other violin producers copied the Stradivarius name on their own violins.  A Stradivarius violin made by the actual Stradivari family from the 1680s could be worth hundreds of thousands today.  The high quality of the Stradivarius brand supposedly results from the extreme consistency of the wood used and no change in growth pattern of the trees used for the wood.

U.S. Scientists Recreate Stradivarius Violin [1]

Fender is a well-known producer of guitars.  Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is headquartered in Arizona.  It was established in 1946 in California, though, by Leo Fender under the name of Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company.   It is home of the first mass-produced electric bass.  Others had produced electric guitars as early as the 1920s on a small scale.  They produce many other stringed instruments, amplifiers, and PA systems.  Leo Fender had started off as an electronic technician, making repairs on radios, phonographs, and amplifiers.  After starting to produce instruments he decided it was much more profitable and became solely a manufacturer.  It is still a privately held company.

Yamaha was established in 1887 in Japan.  It was originally just a piano and reed organ manufacturer.  It is still a very popular brand in pianos.  Now Yamaha is actually the world’s largest manufacturer of musical instruments.  In quality, my father’s Gibson guitar is far exceeded by his Yamaha guitar in sound and ease of playing.

Along the same lines, when the phonograph was invented it helped spread the sound of musicians and their instruments, which in turn probably increased the sale of instruments.   Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 in New Jersey.  

Listening Assignment #8 – Duke Ellington – Satin Doll

Today I thought I’d listen to a song by Duke Ellington, since he was one of the musicians I respected more after our last class.  The instruments used in Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll are piano, string bass and a cymbal for rhythm, 3 saxophones and a Bari sax, several trombones, and trumpets.  In the video it looks like there are 5 of both the trombones and the trumpets.  The full drum set is brought in for less than one measure.

The structure of Satin Doll is 32-bar popular AABA song format.  It starts with a piano and base intro of 4 measures.  One whole chorus is then performed by the entire band.  There is a shriek at the end of the first A and then a more harmonic end on the next A.  The bridge gets sassy and loud and uses stop time to immediately drop the volume to just a quiet piano at the start of the following A section.

The next entire chorus is done by the piano sticking to the melody and stopping here and there for a walking base.  Then the piano and base do a C section that we haven’t heard before.  It is very dissonant and grabs your attention to keep you listening by making you cringe a little.

The whole band chimes in again for a couple more familiar A sections before there is a reference back to the 4-measure introduction and the song ends on one final piano note. 

It is interesting to me that Duke Ellington had an 18 piece band at this point.  The song is definitely arranged and the song stays interesting with the alternation of bringing in the instruments on the first beat or making them lag.

Research Continues...

So I am lacking inspiration on what to research next, but for today I'm going to cover another instrument in the bluegrass industry.  The Appalachian dulcimer is not that common today, but I remember going to the local Clifton Vining Music Festival as a little tyke and watching a girl about 8 or 10 years old playing this version of the dulcimer very well.  Another common name for it is a mountain dulcimer or a lap dulcimer.

The Appalachian dulcimer isn't on short supply necessarily, as I've seen many in stock in Branson, Missouri.  But that is a city built around music and located in the Ozarks; of course they will have dulcimers for sale.  This dulcimer is obviously named for where it sprouted from.  Though there was similar instruments in Europe at the time, this version in particular was first seen in the southern Appalachian region of the United States.  It actually is considered to be similar in tone to Middle Eastern and Asian instruments, but it can be played with a slide just like the dobro.  It can come in many shapes and can have as few as two strings to as many as 12, but the common amount seems to be four.

Loraine Wyman, an early dulcimer player.
This picture was in a 1917 issue of Vogue. [1]

Bristol Taylor was a dulcimer player, farmer, and poet. [1]

Though most aren't, some dulcimers have been made with 12 frets per octave to allow users to be able to play in any range without having to retune.  The idea of how the Appalachian dulcimer came around was the lack of tools and time to make violins in the mountains.  This is because the violin has many curves and is rounded.  This dulcimer is flat and has much less curvature to it.  In 1880, Edward Thomas from Kentucky started producing them.  Before that, there were just a few genuine dulcimers around.  No recordings were made with the instrument until about the 1930s.  Up until that point, it was used mainly for gatherings in homes because its sound does not project very far.  At this time a few makers of the Appalachian dulcimer were also scattered throughout "Appalachia", the southern cultural region of the Appalachian mountains from northern Mississippi up to the southern tip of New York.  

In the 1950s, musician Jean Ritchie from Kentucky introduced this instrument to the city of New York.  Her father was also a dulcimer player.  From this point, it became much more common and more people started producing it.  But it wasn't even until 1969 that it first became mass produced.  Although borrowed from similar instruments overseas just like the banjo, I am surprised that an American instrument like this lie in such a sleep from its development around 1880 to 1969.  No wonder I don't hear of it very often.

Jean Ritchie's 1950s album. [2]

From YouTube: Jean Ritchie playing the dulcimer in the 1990s.

Listening Assignment #7 - The Homestead Pickers playing Shenandoah

Shenandoah is an American folk song from the late 1800s.  Nobody knows exactly when it came about since nobody wrote it down right away, and the meaning of the song is controversial.  It could be talking about the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, but it could also be a love song to an Indian chief’s daughter by a Missouri river trader.  This extends my “hillbilly music” theme from yesterday, as I talked about the development of traditional folk songs into this genre.   The fiddle player in this video actually played in Loretta Lynn’s band for a couple of years.  All of these hillbillies have many years of experience in the music industry and play several instruments.  We actually got them away from Silver Dollar City for a day to play for my grandparents’ 50^th anniversary several years ago because my grandparents go down to Silver Dollar City very often, solely to see these fellows.  They’re a friendly bunch and they personally know a lot of us fans.  I wanted to find them playing Turkey in the Straw, since the song was mentioned on a movie in class a couple of times, but YouTube doesn’t have a video of that.  I’m sure it’s on one of our CDs or DVDs at home.

Their style of performance is care-free and humorous.  They have funny songs and sad songs, and always end with a gospel song or fiddle tune.  They even play an Irish tune every now and then, usually a jig on the hammered dulcimer.  For Shenandoah, Greg Bailey plays the violin, Greg Becker plays the hammered dulcimer and harmonica, Danny Eakin plays guitar and sings, and Dwight Murdy plays string base.  Sorry for the talking in the beginning; it is part of every one of their acts.  But I think it better shows their personality and style of humor that is mixed in with all of their jam sessions.

The form of this song is very simple.  It is in 4/4 time and I’m pretty sure it’s just AA over and over again.  Each A is 11 bars, so it would be somewhat similar to 12 bar blues in that matter, except that there’s never a bridge.  Each chorus would probably include AA since it alternates on every A section between instrumental and vocal.  On the internet, I find that this is very similar to a sea shanty.  So we get a 22 bar chorus repeated 3 times and then slow down for about 8 measures of the tag at the end.  There really isn’t any stop time in this tune, the fiddle converses a lot with the singer, and the hammered dulcimer adds complexity to this simple tune with the many notes played.  There is a key change in the last measure of the 2^nd chorus, led by the fiddle.  To tell you the truth, there didn’t used to be a key change in their performance, and they had been hounding on my family to get up and play for them and with them in one of their jam sessions.  So we finally did one day, and we had rehearsed Shenandoah at home with a key change.  The next time we heard them play this song, their style had completely changed.  The instrument soloing in the first A is the harmonica.  The 3^rd A features the violin and the 5^th A features the harmonica again.  The base, guitar, and hammered dulcimer all keep the rhythm in this song. 

I love Danny Eakin’s voice because it is so different than anyone else’s yet he never misses a note and you don’t expect that coming from the way he dresses in the same-looking outfit every day.  His wife makes all his clothes and he has worn the same type of outfit- black, white and red, complete with the handkerchief, for as long as I’ve known him.  Greg Bailey always wears bib overalls and so did their long-time guitar player who recently changed jobs to a solely religious setting.  These two were the reason they wrote a song called Bib Overalls.  The other two always have suspenders.  They are the one of the only features that never changes about Silver Dollar City.  These boys fully improvise every one of their songs even though it sounds like they are following the music.  They have the basic tune of each song memorized, but every time you hear them play, there might be a new twist to the song that differs from their recorded version.  The only thing that usually stays the same is the lyrics, except for when they add a new verse to one of their humorous songs.

*Video from www.youtube.com* 

Guitars, Cadillacs, and Hillbilly Music...

Okay, I'm really going to emphasize the latter of the title.  To continue on the hillbilly theme from the Ballad of Jed Clampett, I wanted to also dig a little on hillbilly music.  Really, hillbilly music was called the same thing as mountain music or country music at one point in time, which was later even labeled bluegrass music.  It had rural values incorporated into the songs and also folk values.    I think for my listening assignment tomorrow I will show readers some true hillbillies that I know from the Ozarks of Missouri.  They are called the Homestead Pickers and they play daily in Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri.  I believe their name comes from the fact that they have always played in an old homesteader cabin recreated in Silver Dollar City.  But now they like to joke about their band’s name coming from their age as they have been playing together for over 30 years.  Anyway, I can’t give away too much about them as I will be talking about them again tomorrow.  In the meantime, I will talk about the hillbilly music and not just hillbillies.


These old fiddle tunes were associated with the southern Appalachian region.  As mentioned in class, the banjo was invented in the United States, which gave a whole new rise to mountain/hillbilly/country music.  The acceptance of traditional folk music was necessary to accept hillbilly music, as the traditional music came with settlers and slowly developed into mountain/country music.  “The fiddle tunes were a direct link with the European continent and cultures, which the settlers had departed from” ([1]). The fiddle was the lone instrument often played in America, brought over in the late 17^th century from Europe, replacing the harp, hornpipe, and tabor (a type of hand drum played at the same time as the pipe) at rural dances.  Scottish, British, and Irish tunes were played and other European songs.  Thomas Jefferson was even a noted fiddler and composer, himself (Ryan Bernard).

In the 1800s the banjo was incorporated into the southern Appalachian culture.  Although invented in America, the idea was influenced by similar African instruments.  The first model introduced by slaves was made of a gourd with 4 strings made of gut or vine.  It was an imperative instrument to the development and advancement in this type of music and the gourd was soon replaced by wood and a 5^th string was added. 

Story time! Believe it or not, I’ve tried playing with gut strings on the fiddle I have right now.  I my parents bought it for me at an antique shop in Nebraska after both of the fiddles given to my father by my great uncle had broken; my great uncle used to play the fiddle for dances all the time.  I am very glad he gave them to my dad because it encouraged my start on the fiddle.  But anyway, one broke while I was playing on it, and the other gradually pulled itself apart over time in its case.  My dad was unsuccessful in trying to glue it all back together, the wood clamps only slipped off the curved wood.  But back to the fiddle I have now, it came with cat-gut strings on it, and they would quickly stretch and go out of tune while I played them.  This lasted a very short moment before I restrung it with metal strings.  I supposed back in the day those strings were new, they probably didn’t stretch out so easily.

[2]

So back to the banjo, the addition of the 5^th string completely altered the way it was played and changed it from an African instrument to an American folk instrument ([2]).  It’s popularity increased before the Civil War from use in minstrel shows.  The banjo and fiddle became inseparable in traditional music and minstrel shows.   The Civil War was a cultural shock to many and secular music was accepted by some and rejected by others at first who were used to mostly religious or gospel songs.  But vaudeville shows incorporated the humorous secular music and it became much more popular.  Railroads and the industrialization of the south furthered the communication of “hillbilly” music. 

In 1900, the term hillbilly was printed in the New York Journal as “Hill-Billie” meaning a “free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, whil lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him” (Archie Green).  That biased stereotype being said, you get a better view of early Northern Americans toward “hillbillies” and their music.  But in the 1920s, there was a radio station set up solely for hillbilly music, called WLS based out of Chicago.  It encouraged rural southern values and traditions at the same time.  Other hillbilly music was advertised by the broadcasting of barn dance songs over the radio.  With the creation of recording industries, media was supplied for the already existing style of music, and that is when it was actually labeled hillbilly music.  The musicians were then called hillbillies, no matter what their actual appearance, attitude, or upbringing was.  Hillbilly music of course changed constantly, just any other type of music.  In time it was used to identify folk, rural, country, western, bluegrass, mountain, hill and range, and Dixie tunes.  None of these forms could have developed without the existing diversity in America (Ryan Bernard).  String bands played hillbilly music, involving any acoustic instrument available at the time.  A typical hillbilly group today would, in my opinion, use a fiddle, banjo, and guitar.  If there are enough people, then a string base would be added.  From there, the larger group size can pretty much use their imagination with stringed instruments, including even the hammered dulcimer which I can show you tomorrow. 

One of the most famous hillbilly musicians on radio, phonograph, and stage was “Uncle” Dave Macon, born in Tennessee about 60 miles from Nashville.  He was the son of a former officer in the Confederate army and his parents ran the Broadway Hotel in Nashville where he grew to love music.  At age 15 he got is first banjo (1885).  He didn’t hesitate to reveal having learned his tunes from the “darkies”, and African American music made a clear impact on hillbilly music not only with Macon but with other artists of the era.  The Opry show on the radio (later the Grand Ole Opry) portrayed its musicians such as Uncle Dave Macon as characters similar to Davy Crockett. This helped him and other hillbilly musicians to become more popular and the listening numbers to the Opry became even larger. He partnered up with Sid Harkreader and they recorded with Brunswick-Vocalion Records and that record had the first song with “hillbilly” in it, called Hillbillie Blues, along with similar songs such as Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy.  I only mention that song just because of the humor I see in it and its connection with the band we mentioned in class – Uncle Dave Macon and His Skillet Lickers (Ryan Bernard).  This is all I care to cover right now on hillbilly music, as its advancement in history blurs so much with blues, country, bluegrass, and anything remotely the same as anyone in our Jazz 424 class has found out.

Sources:

Archie Green, “Hillbilly Music: Source and Symbol,” The Journal of American Folklore, 78

(1965): 204. 

Ryan Bernard, "A Rise and Fall of the Hillbilly Music: A History 1922 - 1930," Master's Thesis (2006).

Listening Assignment #6 - The Ballad of Jed Clampett

This song is written by Paul Henning, sung by Jerry Scoggins, and accompanied by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, two of the earliest men in American bluegrass history, (that is after we actually labeled it “bluegrass” from Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys).  It was recorded in 1962.  Obviously Flatt and Scruggs's fame wasn't limited to a short period of time.  I didn’t realize they were the ones playing the Ballad of Jed Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies television show that I’ve watched so many times. 

This song has a simple ABAB 32-bar form.  It is easy to follow, which is nice after the last couple of songs I have listened to.  The only twist, though, is that even though it is in 4/4 time, they tack on a 2/4 measure to each section of the chorus.  So every A section is still 8 measures; but if we were counting in 4/4 time we would come up with 7 and a half.  Each B section is the same but much shorter.  The Bs alternate between 3 measures in length and 4, so we get a chorus in the following pieces:  A- instrumental (8 measures), B- instrumental (3), A- singing added (8), B- talking added (4).  The very last B is extended into 6 measures to fit all the talking into the song.  So I get a 2/4 measure of intro then 3 choruses of ABAB and a short, fading section of A for the ending of the song. 

Other than voice (alternating between singing and talking), instruments included are banjo, guitar keeping the rhythm, and a fiddle that talks back a couple of times.  I thought that the banjo made sounds like a chicken in the B sections and the guitar strumming the rhythm sounds like a train moving down the tracks.  There is no improvisation in this song, it just repeats the same tune over and over in a moderately fast pace.  There is no stop time or solos, and the rhythm is explicitly followed; I see no indication of a swing element. 

Listening Assignment #5

Molly Ban by Chieftains and Alison Krauss

Today my listening assignment ties in with my research.  I couldn’t get away from Alison Krauss so I chose an entirely different song of hers to display this time.  In Molly Ban, Alison Krauss and the Chieftains have attempted a Scottish or Celtic twist with the incorporation of bagpipes, and a flute or some other type of whistle into their bluegrass music.  There is also a harp, hand drum, cymbal, vocals (melody and harmony), violin, and a string base, sometimes played with a bow to make longer sounds to match the bagpipes.  The bow on the base always gives me goose bumps.  There is an instrument that I assume is a banjo but it sounds like it could possibly be a related instrument instead.

Anyway, I feel 3/4 time in this piece.  I have no idea what the form is because this song is put together in a very random way when considering just the form.  But it sounds so perfect to me that it seems like there could be no other way to piece this song together.  There is a constant emphasis on the first beat of every measure.  At first the song sounds very simple and pure.  But as I listen closer, it is not simple at all.  There is still a pure sound for the melody, but the background builds up and dies down according to the lyrics with many different instruments.  I’m not just talking crescendos and decrescendos; I also mean the number of instruments being played at the same time and also the complexity of the notes.  Some of the instruments chosen are unusual for her to include in her own songs-thus we get Alison Krauss WITH the Chieftains.  The instruments that use vibrato in their playing during the song are the bagpipes and the flute.  This gives the song character without overdoing it and still keeping a separate duty and sound for each instrument.  The song is VERY arranged, there definitely isn’t any improvisation or solos going on, but it’s still not rigid in following the rhythm– it still flows past the edges of each beat and therefore has an element of swing style to it.  Like flowing down a river, there is no holding it to a specific rhythm.  The rhythm is provided by the strumming of the banjo or banjo-like instrument and a drum plus a wood block on many of the 3^rd beats of the measures.  I think there is even a maraca or else the drum is played with the whisk-like sticks instead of normal drum sticks.  When comparing another usual characteristic of the songs we hear in class, there is also stop time in this song.  Instruments and harmony stop altogether many times to let just the voice sing the melody with little backup.  It is also heterophonic; though most instruments play the melody, they all have their own version going on.

Here are my notes on the form of the song.  I had to replay it a few times just to figure this part out:

Intro 12 measures| a 16| interlude 4| a 17| interlude 5| a 17 | a 16 |interlude 4| a 16| pipes 4 (tempo has slowed down)

The intro consists of just one low note at a time on the bagpipes along with the drum and base for 4 measures and then 8 measures introducing the melody as the violin brings in the harmony.  In the first A, Alison sings the melody and the bagpipes back down to low notes only again.  I think the fiddle dies down here.  In second half of it, I think a harp comes in and then an instrument that sounds similar to a banjo starts strumming but I’m not sure if it is really a banjo or not as I am used to the picking rather than strumming when it comes to the banjo.  Either way, it provides a strange sort of echo that quietly compliments the song in a large way.  At this point the violin and a flute joins for the 4 measure transition to the next chorus.  The flute and banjo/non-banjo stick around after that, the banjo instrument sounding in my opinion almost like it is playing oriental music.  The flute/whistle mostly sticks to the melody but adds a few licks here and there to fill in the gaps.  The chorus that follows has a one measure extension in the middle of it with the flute to echo the thoughts of the first lyrics. The 2nd half here is where the harmony vocals come in to emphasize the climax of the song.  Then another transition after it has strong bagpipes and violin plus a high-reaching flute to intensify the effect of the lyrics.    The immediately following A sounds very much like beginning – simple with no harmony to illustrate the boy’s single worry on his mind while he is running to see what happened.  But in the second half it has a haunting violin and harmonic vocals again to point out the anxiety happening in the story of the lyrics after the boy realizes he has actually shot “Molly Ban”.  There is another transition between choruses and the haunting vocals and violin stick around now for another 8 bars of a chorus while he runs home and tells his father what he has done and another single measure is inserted for a moment to pause and let the thought sink in to the boy’s father before he explains.  Then the harmony goes away for the second half of the A section while a Alison’s voice repeats how it happened.  Finally there is an interlude with the pipes to help provide closure in our feelings so the music does not carry us too far away. Another A comes along, sad and lonely in the beginning then our feelings start to rise as the last half has a harp plucking like the dancing of a swan on the water to turn the mood into bittersweet.  The song closes with a few bars of the slow, lonely wail of bagpipes.

In this song, I could almost get the whole story without ever listening to a word as the instruments and vocals do a very well job of portraying the feeling throughout.  I find it funny that during the song I had a hard time telling if there was a banjo or not and I enjoyed the harp weaving in and out of the background.  This is a very unique collaboration.

Video from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-73VKA0FSH4

Alison Krauss – A Timeless Artist (Continued)

A few similar artists include Rhonda Vincent, Emmylou Harris, and Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike.  In fact, Alison Krauss and Valerie Smith both play the violin and sing and were actually competitors in their young age.  When taking a look at the bluegrass influences that may have been Alison’s childhood inspiration we see beginning of bluegrass collaboration in America.  Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were leading bluegrass stars from the 40s up through the 70s along with Bill Monroe and the Foggy Mountain boys whose biggest fame extended clear through the 90s even though they also started in the 40s.  This made the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, a pioneer in the bluegrass industry in the same time period as Alison.

I thought I would also look up some of the American culture that could have impacted Alison during her teen years – the beginning of her career.  The 1980s saw an eruption of Mount St. Helens, double-digit inflation, rising unemployment, a war on drugs, big hairdos, spendthrifts, an emphasis on the richest people rather than biggest companies, the movie ET, the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada, an assassination attempt on the pope, the popularity of Cabbage Patch Kids, the finding of the wrecked Titanic, Black Monday, and the falling of the Berlin Wall.  The 80s also saw the fame from bands and musicians such as Aerosmith, Def Leopard, Bruce Springsteen, Olivia Newton John, Madonna, Cher, Michael Jackson, Blondie, John Mellencamp, and Bon Jovi.  It was a decade of greed and luxury; a flourishing time for musicians as America indulged themselves in conveniences.

As a kid, Alison Krauss couldn’t wait to grow older so her fame would spread more easily.  She definitely predicted the future, because she has now exceeded most artists in talent and recognition.  She doesn’t record a song unless it really pulls on her own heartstrings and make her feel the lyrics and the music – a good reason why a lot of her best-performed songs, though sorrowful, really speak to us.  Something I love about musicians like Alison Krauss is her modesty.  Every award she has ever won was immediately packed away for safekeeping rather than put on display.  I admire those who are able to separate their lives at home from their career and fame.  Yes, she may display a few work photos on her fridge at home, but there is no boasting of awards won.  She is constantly listening to new talent on the scene and admiring other people’s abilities with her coworkers.  The other main characteristic that keeps me coming back to Alison Krauss and Union Station is that their music has a unique sound.  Some songs they record are completely unexpected, like the one in my Listening Assignment #5 blog posted today.  I never imagined Kraus incorporating bagpipes into her music!

Bio and 80s Culture Information from:

http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade80.html

http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1980timeline.htm

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/80smusic.html

Images from:

http://alisonkrauss.com/about

(Opinions purely homemade and partial to Alison’s area of expertise.)

Alison Krauss - A Timeless Artist

While perusing through my Alison Kraus CDs on ITunes this weekend, I realized that I wanted to know more about her life and how she became famous at such a young age.  I’ve purchased almost every one of her CDs and I play the same instrument.  Why not discover more about her past and what contributed to her international fame?

The fact that she is a tremendous violinist and has the soothing voice of an angel come from many years of practice.  Born in Illinois in 1971, she started playing violin at just the age of 5.  She took classical violin lessons but soon switched to playing bluegrass and country.  At only 8 years old, she was performing in talent contests across the state.  This child prodigy had her own band by the time she was 10.   12 years of age brought her accomplishments most children could only dream of – the Illinois State Fiddle Championship and “Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest” from the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America.

At 14 years old she made her first record, Different Strokes, with a backup band including her brother and then quickly signed on to Rounder Records.   Her debut album was published in ’87 with Union Station, her backup band still today.  Although members changed somewhat in the Union Station band, they became relatively solid in the 90s.  Their success as a group is directly tied to the talent each one brings to the table and that no person, including Alison Krauss, tries to take over and run the show.  Each one has an area of talent and none of them could have been who they are today without each other.  In ’95, their album Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection, made number two on country charts and top 10 overall.  Selling over a million copies, she became a leading influence in bluegrass history.    Alison Krauss also appeared on the soundtrack of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” a movie I’m sure most of readers are familiar with.  Her first Grammy Award was Best Bluegrass Recording in 1991 for her album I’ve Got That Old Feeling.  At that point she was the second youngest Grammy winner in history, now currently tying for third.  Last year’s album was Paper Airplane.  As of last year she has won 26 Grammys, produced 11 albums of which Union Station accompanied her on 6 of them, and won 55 awards overall.  She has won the most Grammys out of any female artist; making her the third most awarded artist in Grammy history.  She has accompanied Brad Paisley, making her appearance in country music even stronger.  CMT listed her as ranking 12^th in the “40 Greatest Women in Country Music”.  The current members of Union Station include Ron Block, Jerry Douglas, Barry Bales, and Dan Tyminsky.  Ron Block plays the guitar, banjo, sings, has written songs recorded by Randy Travis and Rhonda Vincent, and has performed with Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, and Josh Turner.  Jerry Douglas plays dobro, has been a member of Union Station since '98, produced Alison Krauss's I've Got That Old Feeling, is a multiple winner of Dobro Player of the Year, and has netted 12 Grammys.  Barry Bales plays bass, sings harmony, and has also played with Merle Haggard and Vince Gill.  Dan Tyminski plays guitar and mandolin, has been a member of Union Station since '94, is George Clooney's singing voice in O Brother Where Art Thou, and 4-time-winner of Male Vocalist of the Year.

Please enjoy the clip above from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" of the song sung by Dan Tyminski as George Clooney's voice in the Soggy Bottom Boys singing Man of Constant Sorrow.  Feel free to listen to the other songs on the same soundtrack by Alison Krauss on www.youtube.com.

(To Be Continued)....

Bio information from:

http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/krauss_alison/bio.jhtml)

http://www.superiorpics.com/alison_krauss/ 

http://alisonkrauss.com/about

Images from:

http://alisonkrauss.com/discography

http://991.com/buy/productinformation.aspx?StockNumber=477419 

Video from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTgDiE4btvg

Listening Assignment #4- Cadillac Sky’s “Insomniac Blues for Matthew”

Don’t ask me what the title means.  But as a huge fan of Cadillac Sky, I sought out one of their shortest songs to analyze, as they can range from two or 3 minutes to almost 10.  This song is barely under 3 minutes because of the extremely fast tempo.  This group survived long enough to get several music videos out there and this is one of them.  This song is comprised of vocals, stand-up base, guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle.   The form is the popular AABA 32-bar song form and the meter is 4/4 time signature.

There is a short, 3-beat intro before the first A section starts with Brian’s voice singing the melody.  Already on the first note of the song, every instrument is playing.  All instruments are playing in an upbeat way even though the vocals are sort of depressing, and that continues throughout most of the song.  This is done to illustrate the lyrics, that the singer is wide awake and nowhere near sleep.  Brian sings a second A section as the mandolin and guitar continue to strum, the banjo rolls, and the violin plays long sweeping notes.  Then the bridge comes along.  In the bridge the harmony repeats after his first words, the guitar and mandolin coordinate in four fully defined strums a couple times in a row to place emphasis on the singer’s words.  As the bridge section ends the singer’s last word extends into the next section (which it will proceed to do each time) and a violin solo takes place for the next 8 measures, double stringing and fitting in as many notes as humanly possible.  The two A sections that follow have Brian singing again with the usual strumming, the rambling banjo, and the strong, back-lashing rhythm from the base.   Bridge number two is almost exactly the same as the first bridge but the banjo builds up to a higher range and then immediately after, takes an exceedingly fast but precise picking solo while Brian’s last word takes several long, pondering notes to finish.  Another solo section follows, starting with a mandolin versus a fiddle and ending with just the mandolin picking its heart away instead of strumming.  The solo ends with a chiming noise from the banjo like a coo-coo clock.  Another A section progresses with singing but a strong sound comes from the base as Panda uses the bow to play continuous notes instead of plucking the rhythm.  The banjo and guitar have fallen temporarily silent and the fiddle plays sweet harmony to the base.   As the other A section comes into play, the guitar strums back into the picture by accenting the first beat of every measure and halfway through it the banjo starts boiling again and the guitar takes off with it.  There is a double bridge section with vocals and all the instruments still picking away as fast as they can go and then a fading tag that takes over 12 measures to disappear as the singer keeps muttering his one-phrase remark; just like the music running in circles, he’s getting nowhere.

Now that’s what I call bluegrass on acid. (Because 5-hour energy just doesn’t sound as cool).