cheryl lynne skinner: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

3. Bluegrass Bop

I heard Bluegrass music so much growing up in Kentucky that I acquired a curiosity about the form although playing traditional bluegrass music did not come natural to me. During my research I found some interesting history best expressed by the Encarta Encyclopedia:

“In some cases, African musical traditions have blended into American culture with little notice. The “banjo” now associated primarily with the bluegrass music, popular among white Southerners, was originally an instrument used in African religious ceremonies. Southern slaves adapted the instrument to suit secular (nonreligious) musical styles in the 18th and 19th centuries.”


I decided to experiment with the idea in this arrangement.
Naturally, choice of instrumentation would best capture the essence of bluegrass. So this arrangement used a synthesized rhythm section/groove featuring banjo, bandoneon, accordion, piano and drums.
The intro features the harmonica followed by chant duet introduced by the fiddle supported by the flute. The chant speaks 3 times each with a different ending. The solo choruses are in basic blues form but like my mind interrupted by a short Jazz swing progression. (the bop) In the end all the elements come together.

According to web research the bandoneon, which looks something like a large square concertina, is another free-reed instrument which has, until recently, rarely been heard outside dance halls. The New Grove Dictionary does not even give the instrument its own listing; it merely mentions one sentence about it in passing, tucked away within a two-page article on the concertina: "Another development was the much larger bandoneon constructed by Heinrich Band (1821-60), firstly as a diatonic and later fully chromatic instrument, particularly favored in South America." Albert Wier, however, claimed in The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians that the bandoneon was invented about 1830 by C. F. Uhlig of Chemnitz and was named after the Krefeld musical instrument dealer Heinrich Band.