Bluegrass String Band from the United States
Bluegrass music has its roots in the Anglo-American culture of rural Appalachia and takes its name from the ‘Bluegrass State’ of Kentucky. As a commercial category of music, bluegrass coalesced in the 1940s when performers such as Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys started to be broadcast on the Grand Ole Opry radio program. Here, the term ‘bluegrass’ music will be used to subsume Appalachian fiddle traditions as well as string bands that include such characteristic instruments as the banjo, steel-strung guitar, mandolin, violin and the double bass. A variety of combinations of these instruments, along with a few less common ones such as the autoharp and the harmonica, is represented in the five audio examples.
Bibliography:
Rosenberg, Neil V. “Bluegrass,” in Grove Music Online. Accessed December 6 2014: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/03309?q=bluegrass&search=quick&source=omo_gmo&pos=2&_start=1#firsthit
(by Roger Vetter)
violin
flat-back mandolin
guitar – steel-strung
banjo – five-string
autoharp
harmonica
