Mixed Feelings...

[sgarrity]

Since Monoe wrote Southern Flavor I reckon he ought to know how to play it. There are certainly other ways it could be interpreted. You seem to read a lot into people's posts that isn't really there.

Care to give us some background on yourself? FYI.....this is all just spirited conversation about the passion that brought us together...mandolins and the music we play on them.

[mandolirius]

I'm with Old Sausage. I don't the point in all of this. You either like him or you don't. It doesn't seem that many people occupy a middle ground when it comes to Monroe. I love him but I don't care if others don't. It's not something anyone has to justify or apologize for.

[DataNick]

Tom,

Thanks for the video posts...This one point I must make however. You conclude that CT & Punch Brothers are a flavor of bluegrass that does indeed have soul. I will not dispute the character of "soul" or "drive" in their music, but why do we consistently mix musical genres with instrumentation? It is the style and character of the music that defines it's genre, not the instrumentation. Have you ever heard Bela Fleck's wife, Ms. Washburn play banjo with clearly "asian" style music. Well because she's playing a banjo, and there's a violin or maybe a mandolin included does it make her music bluegrass? Absolutely not. That Chris Thile cut you posted was great, but it is not bluegrass. If I changed the instrumentation to electric guitar vs acoustic guitar, electric bass, electric violin (a-la Jean Luc Ponty), and electric mandolin, it would be more clearly identifiable for what it is: progressive/soft jazz. CT & the PB play Progressive music, and that's OK. Would you call YES a rock n roll band? No they were a progressive rock band: multiple complex chord changes, changing melody structure, variant rhythmns; all within the context of one song. CT & PB are very similiar to YES, ELP, Kansas, etc; only acoustic vs electric with a flavoring of banjo.

I don't believe that anyone here is down on them or what they do; but it's not bluegrass, and I don't make the leap that listening to them will magicallly draw someone to bluegrass either. Also who cares if people are or are not "drawn" to bluegrass? Why is it that if I properly categorize a tomato as a fruit, that I'm a "hater" of vegetables. CT & The PB properly categorized are Progressive Music with clearly heavy jazz/classical/avant garde leanings. They kind of remind me of a somewhat acoustical version of Weather Report, who I used to listen to a lot back in the day! This doesn't mean that I don't like them, I do like them, but I would never think of categorizing them as a bluegrass band.

Regarding your comment that the kickoff on Roanoke (not Rawhide) was too fast and the note fidelity suffered, ever listen to "Friday Night in San Francisco" that features John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, and Paco DeLucia? I hear the same kind of speed and "blurriness" throughout that record, and I can't recall any critic having a problem with it!

I for one certainly don't have any kind of purists mentality. Is the Academy of Recording Sciences a "purist" outfit because they award grammys in categories? No, we classify all types of things in our society and it doesn't mean that I'm against blouses if I correctly categorize them as female and not male clothing. As Shaun stated earlier, I like all kinds of mandolin players, yet I would not describe Andra Faye's playing as "sloppy" because her style isn't like Grisman. As a blues mandolinist, her style is different, that's all!

[Mike Bunting]

Put me down as one who thinks Chris Thile has no equal, past or present. The first 19 seconds of Thile intro to 'I get a kick out of you' on Dolly Parton's 'Little Sparrow' album represents to me the material of months of study and endless respect. It's blindingly fast, but not in the least machine-gun like. Slow it down to about 60% speed and you hear flawless syncopation and immaculate, varied timing that is so subtle you don't know it's there when you hear it at full speed.

On the original topic, I am not much of a bluegrass fan, so I don't go out of my way to listen to Bill Monroe. Modern bluegrass seems to me to be too obsessed with playing the most notes in the shortest period of time, music that is largely absent of subtlety. YouTube clips of jam sessions at bluegrass events are (to me) a big y-a-w-n for that reason. In the history of traditionally-derived music, Bill Monroe earned and deserves huge respect, and it is almost inevitable that for some people this involves his elevation to near-deity status. To me that's unnecessary, but understandable. It's not to my personal taste, but that's only important to me.

ron

That sounds fine to me. I think that I may agree with you regarding modern bluegrass too.

[John MacPhee]

I got a real problem!!! I was always taught at school that Watt invented the steam train, WHAT, thats right WATT invented the steam train.
Just sayin'
Cheers
John

[Mike Bunting]

I got a real problem!!! I was always taught at school that Watt invented the steam train, WHAT, thats right WATT invented the steam train.
Just sayin'
Cheers
John

But who's on first.

[Griff]

"Different strokes for different folks," is how the old saying goes. ... Wish I could play as sloppy as Mr. Monroe.

[Johnno]

You are right Mike hehehe.
Cheers
Johnno

[Eric Michael Pfeiffer]

This video says a lot IMHO. He was probably in his mid-70s here. This is how you play Southern Flavor as far as I'm concerned. You also get to see the stubborn, entertaining side of his "I'll Show You" personality.

My family is from central and western Kentucky and we go back to this area many generations...very early 1800s. My grandfather was from Hancock county Kentucky born on the old homeplace, only 1 mile from the Ohio county line which is where Bill was from. My granny and her side were all from Ohio county near Fordsville.
My grandfather had the same accent (western Ky) and personality and ways that Bill Monroe had and much of what you see and hear from Bill Monroe is cultural. I knew many ole Ky men from that area who were like him, aloof, hard working, terse...it's really very cultural alot of what you see in Bill Monroe...he is a true old time western Kentuckian......sometimes I see and hear so much of my own grandad or "popaw" as we called him when I her Bill speak that I get emotional. Heck my grandd was even a foxhinter just like Bill showed in the documentary....I used to do that with my popaw. thats why I like Bill and his music soo much...its a very nostalgic thing

[Michael H Geimer]

Mandolineer,
After reading your second post, I've edited this post down to nothing. Good morning all!

[David Lewis]

Mandolineer: just for the record, I think thile is a truly awesome player, and I've studied his stuff with great pleasure and interest. Te player I was talking about is a venerable and revered player.... My only issue is I don't 'get him'. I'll listen again, now I'm better on mandolin, and I just might get it.

[Randy Smith]

We learn from our forebears

**Yes.**

Or as T.S. Eliot wrote (I don't have the quote exactly), "People say we know so much more than those of the past. Precisely. They are what we know." Would Bush, Marshall, and all the others mentioned play the way they do without Monroe having played? (Would they play mandolin at all?) Monroe doesn't play as cleanly as Thile plays? No argument from me. But he's learned from musicians who played before him. Others will learn from him.

[Pete Jenner]

I got a real problem!!! I was always taught at school that Watt invented the steam train, WHAT, thats right WATT invented the steam train.
Just sayin'
Cheers
John

Don't be silly John, everyone knows Bill Monroe invented the steam train.

Train-spotters unite! How about them Shays?

[AlanN]

Too funny.

In a MWN interview with Bill, he said "...just note, note, note - covering up one note with another, that ain't no part of nuthin'..."

or some such thing.

And he was open enough to realize other styles of play. Grisman asked him in the same interview if there were any mandolin pickers he admired. He mentioned Jesse McReynolds. Crosspicking was not part of the Bill Monroe thing, at all.

[Alex Orr]

Monroe is my favorite mandolin player, and I would absolutely love to be able to master his style, so I guess I do have some bias

Also, just to get it out the way, Monroe was a brilliant visionary who basically created a thoroughly unique language for a musical instrument, and as such, created a whole genre of music. Not exactly musical kid's play.

As far as his style of playing...well...it actually varied quite a lot. However, in comparison to a lot of the guys around today who play super-clean with a ton of notes, well, yeah, Monroe's style was different, but oh how I prefer it to guy's like Thile. A lot of Monroe's playing reminds me of my favorite rock guitar stuff. I love messy, noisy, feedback drenched stuff. Hendrix, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and countless punk bands. Monroe reminds me a lot of that stuff because of how chaotic he often sounds, and how aggressive. The thing is though (and Mike Compton has said this many times) there is an immense amount of technical stuff and brilliant, controlled musicianship at play in what often seems chaotic or "sloppy" in his playing. In some sense, it's like someone listening to Ornette Coleman or late period Coltrane (which I also love) and saying those guys must not be very talented or technically competent sax players because they never seem to be playing a clean melody. Sometimes one's idea of what constitutes "good" playing can be misled by what you find pleasant and enjoyable.

I find Bill's playing infinitely exciting, original, soulful and full of moments of dynamic unexpected surprises. I also love how rooted it is in the blues. I don't hear those things as much at all in the new breed of flashy, super-clean hyper fast Thile-esque pickers. I don't see Bill's playing as some sort of backwards technology that was good enough at the time but we have now surpassed. I think that is a bad analogy for any type of music. However, as someone else has pointed out, many people on these boards have pointed out that they don't much care for Bill's style, and that's just fine. Each to their own as far as what one finds pleasant and enjoyable to hear. Lord knows I've received some ugly reprimands when I've said that I really don't like Chris Thile's music or his playing very much

Oh, and a couple of other thoughts. Recording technology was not as good as it is now, and I wonder if to some degree, it might have negatively impacted some of Monroe's recordings. He was (according to one bio) not a fan of studios, and often felt that as long as the song was good enough on first take then the record label could handle the rest of it. Compare that to today's world where guys spend weeks in a studio with the best quality equipment and professional engineers, reworking, re-mixing, and re-recording parts to have then spit-polished to audio perfection. Also, a lot of Monroe's stuff was recorded later in his life and I do think he got a little sloppier (in a bad way) later in his career. There are instances I've seen where he was simply trying to play too fast, trying to do things he may have been able to do when younger but which his hands seemed incapable of in his seventies. I believe he made some stylistic changes in response to that which "dumbed down" his playing a bit, often playing simpler and less dynamic breaks than he may have in his younger days. Just some thoughts...

Overall though, don't worry if you don't care for his sound, it's your own preference, no need to apologize.

[Michael H Geimer]

I'm with Old Sausage. I don't the point in all of this.

The only point I can find (and it is a valid one IMO) is that the OP is 'talking aloud' about developing a personal style, having a conversation about what 'works' and what 'doesn't work'. The train engine analogy is a clue to the OP's perspective, where innovation of the past advances music as a whole, step by step, onwards and upwards. In that sense CT is more advanced than BM.

Another perspective is one where music exists as a field (non-linear). In this analogy BM is camped somewhere over there, CT is camped in another spot but everyone is sitting on the same fertile earth, around the same fire that has brought music out in us humans for many years. Both BM and CT needed to cultivate musical knowledge from the past to grow a style of their own. Neither is more advanced than the other; they did the same thing differently.

I can think of no specific technique that was created by either CT or BM that can be truly equated to the types of technological advancements that propelled* engine technology. Am I overlooking some obvious thing?

*pun alert

[JeffD]

While I have many mandolinners that I love, many musical heros, I do not worship any one player.

And I can appreciate great musicians even when their music doesn't speak to me. (I like a lot of the grundge era rock, but I am not that angry or disconnected or abandoned.)

I have a way of evaluating great musicians, regardless of whether I like the music or not. And that is a simple question. Are they able to execute what they intend? That's it.

So I look at Monroe, and I am in awe. What you may call sloppy-choppy to me is that he put the emphasis elsewhere. He achieved the effect he intended, amazingly powerfully.

Same with Chris Thile. Some of his music I love as the best thing I have ever heard, and some of it I cannot connect with. OK. But He certainly achieves what he set out to do.

To me, measuring a musician against his intentions (as far as I am able to perceive them, of course) seems to enable me to make a fair across the board assessment, independent of genre or whether I personally like the music. (And across time to a great extent.) And from that point of view, Monroe stands out as a giant.

[AlanN]

Well said, Alex. Especially the part about him wanting to do, but unable to do, what he could do in his younger days. Kind of like Muhammad Ali.

Also, this part

quote: I don't see Bill's playing as some sort of backwards technology that was good enough at the time but we have now surpassed. I think that is a bad analogy for any type of music.

How true. A good parallel is indeed 50's jazz. There's a great youtube snippet of Bird playing with either Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster. 2 very distinct styles; the old on-the-way-out lion with the young up-coming star. Couldn't be more different, each very great. And I believe Bird couldn't have flown without the ones before him.

[Bmore Matt]

It's funny how emotional we can get about music and our love for our favorite artists. What your ear enjoys compared to what another person's ear enjoys is the very definition of subjective. Many of us, however, will argue until we are blue in the face that what we think is right and what someone else thinks is wrong. I'm sure it has something to do with the emotional attachment we form to a particular artist or piece of music. We feel like we have to defend them, and the idea of "to each their own" goes out the window. We forget to be rational when our emotions take over. I'm not accusing anyone of doing this, just using the royal "we" for lack of a better term, and I'm probably more guilty of this than anyone.

I think that's why you felt the need to preface your feelings with a disclaimer about people getting too angry with your own personal opinion. Arguing about Bill Monroe with mandolin players can be like arguing about religion or politics. Emotions can take over and the conversation can get too charged. It's actually been pretty tame here in this thread, so that's a big credit to the population of this website.

I listen to a lot of different music and I don't really have a favorite band or song or individual artist. Variety is the spice of life, is what I'm all about. I go through phases where I listen to classical music for a week or so, then some old bluegrass, Bill and others. Then I'll switch to jam band music for a while or southern rock, I'm all over the place.

My point is, that if everyone who ever picked up a mandolin after Bill did, tried to play exactly like him, then that would be boring. I'm glad Grisman invented Dawg music and does some gypsy jazz type stuff. I'm glad that Thile branches out from pure bluegrass music. (Thile playing Bach is a beautiful thing) I don't think anyone beats Sam on pure rhythm. If all of these guys sounded exactly the same, it would be boring.

Listen to what you like. If Bill Monroe happens to not speak to you like others do, that's fine with me. I don't think his style is lacking fans.

[oldwave]

Once Mark O'Conner played at the Kent State Folk Festival a festival that I had been attending for 15 years at that time. His set was a complete virtuoso show off. I remember after about a third of it thinking well we know you can play fast, what else do you have to say? The point is that technical virtuosity is only one portion of how a musician communicates to the audience. Howard Louie Blouie Armstrong was by no means a technical virtuoso, (some of his early recordings were quite hot though)but his connection with the audience and his entire demeanor on stage was magnetic. There are aspects of performance that are tied to personality and expression that are hard to quantify. I always have been a fan of the rough and tumble styles of music besides the squeaky clean technical "toure de force". Monroe was a strong personality and was smart enough to hire many of the best players around. I like the edgy playing but by no means think it was the ultimate. Jessie McReynolds may be my favorite BG player, but there are so many great ones. Johnny Gimble once told me "I never met a fiddle player I didn't learn something from." If you ever met him you would understand what a gracious philosophy he lives by. There is no 'best' in this business. Art has no best, if you are thinking that way stop and ponder.

[Alex Orr]

Thile playing Bach is a beautiful thing

Other than a few of the instances where he's playing a trad bluegrass tune, the only Thile I really enjoy is his classical stuff.

A good parallel is indeed 50's jazz. There's a great youtube snippet of Bird playing with either Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster. 2 very distinct styles; the old on-the-way-out lion with the young up-coming star. Couldn't be more different, each very great. And I believe Bird couldn't have flown without the ones before him.

And to piggy-back on that a bit, sometimes I love way-out-there blaring free jazz, and sometimes I'm not in the mood for it. However, I will almost always be happy with some great traditional big band stuff. Both styles are considered "jazz", with one coming after the other in terms of stylistic chronology, but it's impossible to view the latter as replacing the older style and making it inferior in some way. Music simply can't be judged in the same way as mechanical technology.

[JeffD]

Music simply can't be judged in the same way as mechanical technology.

Yea I think you are right. New musical styles and tastes don't erase what came before or make it less relevant. But it takes some discerning and flexible ears to do it. We are soaked with high volume high precision sappy music all the time, and it takes an effort to grab a recording from only a few years ago, and not have trouble at first connecting.

But over the eons, Monroe connects. For me its a matter of getting in under my radar. I hear Southern Flavor as an intimate, visceral tune. Were Bill to be speaking to the audience that viscerally and that intimately, expressing in words the things that tune communicates, it would get pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly. Amazing what music can do.

[aneumann01]

Tom,

I'm right there with you. I have all the love and respect you can have for Bill Monroe. I saw him live when I was a kid. I didn't much care for what I heard 70 of the performance but the other 30 percent rocked my world. That was good enough for me. He had some awesome "moments" and that's it for me personally but that is what being a rock star in any genre is all about. Those music "moments" are what define who you are. I don't play in Monroe's style and don't aspire to. I think Mr. Monroe would prefer people to play as individuals and not be little Monroe Clones. Individuality is what he really inspired and that's what made him a legend in my mind. It's okay if other people worship him as a mandolin god. Why not? He really is but his shadow doesn't smoother out other great players before him and shouldn't smoother the players who came after. That's my personal opinion and I'm not looking to argue with anyone. I'm not gonna change my views and am not going to spend hours arguing with people who are irritated because I don't think just like they do. Just saying: Tom, you're not alone in your view of Bill Monroe's body of work.

[shawnbrock]

Okay...

As a 32-year-old who's been playing bluegrass for 23 years, I know where you come from on this. At the age of 9 my guitar teacher, (Picker123 on the Cafe), said, "You need to learn some of this Bluegrass". I told him that I didn't want to play that "Hillbilly" junk. I only wanted to play rock. Also let me disclose that I'm a Hillbilly, so please don't take to heart my derogatory reference as a 9 year old kid. My opinions of Grass were based on hearing Bill and the other legends, I didn't know that the music had evolved. My teacher dropped the Tony Rice Cold On The Shoulder album on me and that was it. All I wanted to learn was Bluegrass.

It was perhaps 10 years later that I came to respect the playing of our forefathers'. I began to think about how these guys just had to play. They came up with everything and didn't have other pickers to copy from. Now that's art! Bill was an artist, I'm just a mandolin player. Most of us just copy what we hear from someone or some place. Guys like Bill had to come up with a lot of what they played, they didn't have references like we do. It takes a talented and bad dood to do what Bill did, and I love his playing style. Having said that, I never have and probably never will want to play that style.

[OldSausage]

And that Johann Sebastian Bach. A lot of people like him, but it has to be said, he was no Mozart.