That High Lonesome Sound & What is “Old Time” vs. “Bluegrass” Music?
Column Number 1, March 2021
By Susie Glaze
That High Lonesome Sound!
I was talking to new student Lori Litow about Bill Monroe and Bluegrass singing and lo and behold I stumbled on this really great article about Bill and what they call “that high lonesome sound.” Here’s an excerpt:
“…But more than just sounding high, the actual physical strain to reach the notes is kind of iconic to the genre — giving bluegrass that “edge” that everyone loves to talk about. When you listen to Bill Monroe sing, it isn’t beautiful or effortless…What makes it interesting, and what gives it the authenticity that bluegrass audiences crave, is the fact that it actually sounds a little bit painful. That is what takes it from just being your dime-a-dozen falsetto to being that high lonesome sound.”
Here’s the full article: https://www.nodepression.com/50-states-of-folk-the-enduring-power-of-kentuckys-high-lonesome-sound/?mc_cid=1a654deaed&mc_eid=df1f485025
What is “Old Time” vs. “Bluegrass” Music?
Sometimes the terms “old time” and “bluegrass” when talking about music styles can get confused or confusing. Certainly, the two styles have much in common, probably more than other kinds of music genres. There are subtle differences between these two, however, that do identify them differently. We can begin with what we call “old time.”
Wikipedia defines Old-time music as a “genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin.” It states that the origins are Appalachian, meaning the southern mountain range where some of the first immigrants to America settled, coming from England, Ireland and Scotland. Other nationalities that share credit include Welsh, Irish, French, German, African, and even Native American. Derivative forms are listed as Bluegrass, country, and Cajun fiddle. It also goes on to describe: “Old-time music represents perhaps the oldest form of North American traditional music other than Native American music, and thus the term "old-time" is an appropriate one. As a label, however, it dates back only to 1923.”
Read more about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-time_music
The article discusses the use of instrumentation, and this is where the two genres most typically converge.
Bluegrass music is a genre that emerged from the traditions of Old-time, developed in the work of the pioneering band leader Bill Monroe, sometime in the late 1940s. The story of his upbringing has been told in the wonderful biography “Can’t You Hear Me Calling” by Richard D. Smith, in which his fiddle-playing Irish mother handed Bill a mandolin, and along with his high tenor voice, Monroe developed a unique sound around his unique talents. The elements of this sound fit his strengths perfectly, and ramped up the speed of the music itself, making Bluegrass music an exciting, energy-packed, rapid-paced sound, featuring what came to be called “that high lonesome sound,” referring to the sound of his high tenor voice. The itself genre was named by the public after Monroe developed his band, The Blue Grass Boys, referring to the area where Monroe lived, the Kentucky “bluegrass.”
From Wikipedia:
“Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the United States Appalachian region. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass is traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments. Bluegrass has roots in traditional English, Scottish and Irish ballads and dance tunes, and in traditional African-American blues and jazz. Bluegrass was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe, including 5-string banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt. Monroe characterized the genre as: "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound."
Bluegrass features acoustic stringed instruments and emphasizes the off-beat. Notes are anticipated, in contrast to laid back blues where notes are behind the beat, which creates the higher energy characteristic of bluegrass. In bluegrass, as in some forms of jazz, one or more instruments each takes its turn playing the melody and improvising around it, while the others perform accompaniment; this is especially typified in tunes called breakdowns. This is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment. Breakdowns are often characterized by rapid tempos and unusual instrumental dexterity and sometimes by complex chord changes.
Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music
What we understand then about the two genres is that they have derivation, instrumentation and context in common: “context” meaning the cultural environments from which they spring. Generally speaking, however, you can distinguish “Old time” music in the way that it captures the oldest forms of traditional music, while “Bluegrass” is distinctively fast-paced, hard-driving, marked by virtuoso mandolin and high tenor lead vocals.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!
About Suzie Glaze
Award-winning recording artist, Broadway singer, journalist, educator and critically-acclaimed powerhouse vocalist, Susie Glaze has been called “one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass and folk music today” by Roz Larman of KPFK’s Folk Scene. LA Weekly voted her ensemble Best New Folk in their Best of LA Weekly for 2019, calling Susie “an incomparable vocalist.” "A flat out superb vocalist... Glaze delivers warm, amber-toned vocals that explore the psychic depth of a lyric with deft acuity and technical perfection." As an educator, Susie has lectured at USC Thornton School of Music and Cal State Northridge on “Balladry to Bluegrass,” illuminating the historical path of ancient folk forms in the United Kingdom to the United States via immigration into the mountains of Appalachia. She is a current specialist in performance and historian on the work of American folk music icon, Jean Ritchie and now offers private voice coaching online via the Zoom platform. www.susieglaze.com