Wife and I drove out of St. Louis to Fenton
Missouri to a bluegrass jam at Joe Clark’s
Restaurant and Package Liquor.
Wood panelled walls with lots of antlers,
a large stuffed bull’s head, pictures of
John Wayne–this is your typical Missouri
bar outside of St. Louis.
Lots of smoke, gorgeous waitress.
The musicians were in cowboy boots and
hats and they were busy smoking themselves
to death. There was a brilliant mandolin player,
a fine banjo player, a very good harp player,
and a first rate dobro player (who shuffled in
with a walker and lit up a smoke). Lots of
other guitarists and some good vocalists.
Very nice people, some a bit too much into
booze.
I played Copeland whistles in D and in A.
The flute wasn’t going to cut through. People
were a bit surprised, thought it was a piccolo,
asked me what it was. Then they were delighted,
lots of applause when I soloed. Very satisfying.
Irish whistle techniques transfer nicely to bluegrass,
the ornaments and slides work fine, and the nature
of bluegrass is improvisational–after the tune gets
introduced we go round and improvise on it.
Bluegrass seems to be heavily influenced by
blues, jazz, and ragtime, and that’s just fine
with me. I like improvisation–terrifying but
satisfying.
It’s great good luck to play an instrument that nobody
has really seen before but is welcome in these venues.
And nobody is competitive, cause it’s never occurred
to anybody to play flute or whistle.
These people did something charming. They put a
chair in the middle of our circle and encouraged
a girl to sit in it when we played a love song, so
we could play to her.
That’s really cool. I grew up with both Celtic and Bluegrass music and I love playing both on the whistle. I’ve jammed with a bluegrass fiddler before and I’ve gotta say…their fingers are WAY faster than mine! Alot of people don’t realize there is a historical connection between the two. The Appalacian mountains were settled by alot of Scots and Irish and alot of traditional jigs and reels and set dances eventually became Bluegrass songs.
I’ve never felt that modern bluegrass lent itself very well to whistle, (or at least no one has made it sound natural to my ears). But that PRE-bluegrass, oldtime mountain music you mention has strong echoes of its Celtic roots, and works very well on whistle and flute. Those are the tunes I tend to play when I’m not amateurishly wrestling with the standard session fare.
All that old appalacian stuff was heavily influenced (or directy imported) by the Scottish and Irish immigrants of the day. It’s perfect for whislte and forms a large part of the repertoire for The Jones Family band.
Bluegrass is close enough to it’s Appalachian roots that whistle should work beautifully with a lot of it.
This wikipedia entry on bluegrass music is very good.
I’ve never been clear on what bluegrass is and where it
ends and other genres begin. Apparently there are
several genres–traditional bluegrass, progressive bluegrass
(or ‘newgrass’). Obviously people like Alison Krause
are shifting tween bluegrass and country and old time
and folk. The bluegrass stuff that’s blazing fast isn’t
so good for whistle, at least not so far.
But anything melodic seems to work pretty well,
and ballads and more country stuff are fine. I expect
this group last night was all over the place, genre-wise.
I think it’s devilishly hard to improvise on jigs and reels,
and it doesn’t work well in sessions. That is, for me,
a limitation of ITM–though obviously not a defect.
I played whistle and flute for several years with
a bluegrassy sort of group and sort of have the
idea of the music. A background in blues guitar
helps too.
Also it’s nice to play harmony.
I’m not absolutely confident that whistle works in
this genre. I once, many years ago, tried to play a
recorder with bluegrass musicians–‘That sounds
foreign’ they complained. But the whistle seems
welcome and the Dixy Chicks, whatever they are
doing, have a whistler.
Anyhow on the way out of Joe Clark’s Restaurant
and Package Liquor the gorgeous waitress came
up and asked me: ‘What’ that you were playing,
honey? Sounded great!’ Need I say more?
there’ something to be said for developing these
instruments in American directions too–as much
of this music is gorgeous and very creative.
I love traditional bluegrass/Appalachian folk tunes on whistle. One of my favorites is “Blackberry Blossom” which I’ve been playing for 20+ years now from “The Pennywhistle Book” by Robin Williamson. It goes at a fairly fast clip, as fast as my fingers can fly.
These days, I gotta warm up a bit and get a running start at it as I’m coming back to whistling after more than a few years hiatus.
Amazing what springs up around you when you least expect it, like an entire whistling community!!!
Of course, modern bluegrass shows a heavy Irish/Scot influence. If you don’t have the CD’s already, get a copy of the Chieftans’ “Another Country” or “Down the Old Plank Road” to hear the beautiful, and sometimes seamless, connection between bluegrass and IrTrad.
I played Bluegrass long before I tried a whistle. Many of the tunes sound great. I am thinking off the top of my head Banks of the Ohio, Long Black Veil, Keep On the Sunny Side and many others. If you want some exercise try some of the Earl Scruggs Banjo tunes.
I second the citation of these Chieftains albums. “Another Country” in particular. There is a rendition of “Cunla” on there I believe is sung by Ricky Skaggs that is really nice. It’s been some years since I’ve owned it but it’s definitely an album that brings the common ground of two genres together.
Jason, I totally agree with about “Another Country”; one of my all-time favorite albums in any genre and a classic for sure. I must admit I was a little disappointed with “Down the Old Plank Road”, but I guess they had set the bar so high with the first album that it was hard to live up to my expectations! I think I liked the latter less because it seemed to lean too much toward the country side and less toward IrTrad.
…Yep. “The Rout” sure is a good old tune. Music to my ears, and a breath of fresh air in troubled times. Sounds even better to me today than it did yesterday. Those oldtimers sure knew how to celebrate an event. Well, off to practice “Merrily Kiss the Quaker”…
“Cold Frosty Morning” is one of my favorites on flute too. “Falls of Richmond,” and “Kitchen Girl” too, and “Kitchen Girl” makes a nice set with “Red Haired Boy.”
I sat in with a Bluegrass band’s practice session once.
One of the wives said, “It sounds like that Celtic crap to me!!”,
so needles to say I didn’t persue it further, ha ha ha
Lolly
I sat in with a Bluegrass band’s practice session once.
One of the wives said, “It sounds like that Celtic crap to me!!”,
I grew up around bluegrass music and that type of attitude is one of the things that turns me off about playing with many “bluegrass” musicians. I think they fail to see the music’s true origins and they mistakenly believe that it is some type of new genre of music that was invented by Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, etc. The five-string banjo was really the majopr musical innovation that brought in modern bluegrass, IMHO, but the music itself was, and is, simply traditional mountain music that was passed down and evolved from our forefathers.
What is most irritating is that many traditional “bluegrassers” are not only very pedantic about what songs can be played, they’re extremely rigid about what instruments can be used. Irish musicians seem to be more open to adapting any instrument to their music- like the bouzouki, the accordion, or the 5-string banjo.
Well, Missouri is the ‘show me’ state. Everybody has been very
welcoming so far. Just played on Saturday an Irish flute with another bluegrassy/ old timey group. No question they were glad
I was there–asked lots of questions about the instrument
e.g. how many keys it plays in and so on.
So far the only fellow who has doubts about whether the
instrument works in a string-band is myself.
Ah, but look what you’ve done, Jim. You got all those old time tunes going in my head, which led me to take out the fiddle after too long a lay-off, which led to cross-tuning the thing, all of which led to the need to find twice as much time in the day to try to play stuf, which will lead to who knows what level of distraction from what (I guess) I ought to be doing. Not to mention time hanging around at http://www.oldtimemusic.com/, and digging out the Bruce Molsky, Tommy Jarrell, Crooked Jades, and Walt Koken cds.
as I’m coming back to whistling after more than a few years hiatus.
Well, off to practice “Merrily Kiss the Quaker”…