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Boston music college strikes new chord with bluegrass

By The Boston Globe


At Berklee College of Music, a school founded as an incubator of jazz and steeped in the syntax of cool, the pluck of the banjo was once a sound disdained. The bluegrass instrument was considered the stuff of Appalachian Mountains, not urbane Boston.

But cool shifts. And next semester, bluegrass will become a sanctioned subject at Berklee.

The 3,800-student school will permit students to major in mandolin and banjo, signature instruments of bluegrass. Big names in bluegrass have come to play and teach. Banjo icon Earl Scruggs recently was awarded an honorary degree.

"We'd had these stealth bluegrass players at Berklee for several years, and the feeling was, 'Let's bring it out in the light of day,"' said Roger Brown, Berklee's president, whose great-grandfather was a fiddler.

Berklee's embrace of bluegrass - an acoustic mix of old-time mountain, Celtic, and Scottish music with jazz influences - places it among a handful of schools offering formal training in the genre.

Berklee administrators credit interest in bluegrass to a growing appetite among students for a range of musical styles. It also parallels the climbing popularity of the style nationally, with thousands of fans won over by the chart-topping bluegrass soundtrack to the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and others wooed by popular bands like String Cheese Incident and the now-defunct Phish.

There was also Brown's arrival in 2004. Growing up in Georgia, Brown saw bluegrass as a vestige of a culture best left behind in the post-Civil Rights era. "Now I am able to appreciate it for what it is," he said.

Bluegrass, a form that was most often learned by ear at picking sessions, is not easily mastered. It demands technical and improvisational skills. It can be difficult to teach bluegrass, which is more free form than some classical styles.

Part of the appeal of bluegrass, students say, is that playing it requires virtuosity.

Jaime Garamella, 25, a guitar player from Danbury, Conn., compares bluegrass' technical demands to jazz. "It's not something that you can just pick up and do."
Founded in 1945 as a college for contemporary music, the Back Bay school sat apart from the musical establishment.

Serious musicians studied classical music, not bebop. It is only recently that jazz has gained traction in academia. But even as Berklee's main musical focus became more universally accepted, the school all but shunned other genres.

Notes Ron Savage, chairman of Berklee's ensemble department: "For many years, there was the music that was considered acceptable: rock and jazz and classical. Bluegrass was not considered worthy of dedicating a life. It was something that if you failed at the serious things, you did bluegrass."

Simply admitting interest in a musical style like bluegrass could be social suicide.

But on a recent afternoon, students flocked to a bluegrass performance on campus. Some 150 of them craned necks in a packed recital room to watch a man with a thick twang and silver pompadour whip through bluegrass songs with his band.

Students peppered Del McCoury, the 66-year-old bluegrass maestro, with questions.

Raucous applause went up after McCoury offered this advice for budding musicians: "Find what it is you like to do, and stay with it. No matter what it is. If all your friends like the big rock acts, that's fine. It's what's in your heart."

from
http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_3361165





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I've just recently within the last two years been getting into bluegrass.
Very Cool...
THe Mandolin is the coolest instrument..

[This message has been edited by DavidW (edited 01-02-2006).]

I love bluegrass,I even write a bit of it.

Everett

Great for them for branching out.....but does anyone else find that college more highly recommended than it should be?

I mean I've played with a bunch of people who studied at Berklee and to be honest, they've all been pretty bad..... and every drummer I've heard from there puts the beat in the wrong place

I'm sorry if you went there and feel offended.... just stating my observations

Pece,
Christine

I have become a bluegrass fan.... my brother & son are big bluegrass players... if you can't beat 'em, join 'em... The bluegrass jams are lots of fun.

As for Berklee... I must disagree with Christine... I know several very talented & skilled musicians who have graduated from Berklee, I envy their abilities..
I recently took guitar lessons from a friend who is a Berklee grad.. I was amazed at the ease at which he was able to teach me.
There are bad apples everywhere.
Joanne

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[*]The Best is Yet to Be,Joanne Lurgio-singer/songwriter www.joannelurgio.com


[*] Joanne's Gig Calendar - http://www.musi-cal.com/search?key=performers&value=Lurgio

[*] http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=100751

[*] www.cdbaby.com/cd/lurgio

I've attended both Berklee and Musician's Institute. Of all the people I know from both schools, more people from Berklee are still in the music industry in some capacity.

You're going to find great players at any school, and you're going to find bad players as well. Just like you would for any profession. It's not the school, but rather a combination of the school and the student.

Jody

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com

I've always been an ardent admirer of the bluegrass genre... both songs.

Bill Monroe would be proud. Bill Monroe is the father of Bluegrass. Flatt and Scruggs did a great act. A lot of others think they do bluegrass. Some do some don't.

I had a next door neighbor at music school, that was heavily into the College Rock sound, but by the end of the year he had switched to playing banjo, he really started to rip it up on that instrument. Probably made him a better guitar player well.

In fact thinking about that, his name is William (Bill) Clark. I wonder what he's doing now. He was from Ohio.

Jody

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com

You couldn't be more wrong!!

Bluegrass....
Irish fiddle tunes
Sea shanties(sp?)
Rock & Roll
Punk
Other useless crap...

The basics are all the same....
The subtleties are what stand out..

Let's not lose ourselves in technicalities...

If it's heard...It's a 'hit'
If it's remembered...It's a 'classic'
If it's argued about...It's a 'legend'

:-)...:-)...:-).....

Midnite(please forgive my mispellings, it's been a long day)Bob...



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Satchel was right...Something is gaining on me....
www.jackcouldntmakeit.com

USELESS CRAP!YOU SAY!

I HOPE YOUR JOKING!! it's hard to tell..

I guess that's how you feel about all of our American Heritage.. WOW!
I can't even begin too or even want to argue with you on that Statement!
Unbelievable!!!

HOW ABOUT JAZZ TOO!!

Please Explain!!

Yeah, that's what Vivaldi said when they called him on his sound-alike compositions... 500 concerti, my ass... ONE concerto 500 times!

All seriousness aside... once you've heard the instrumental section of the theme to the Beverly Hillbillies and the getaway scene from Bonnie & Clyde, you've pretty much got it covered.

(just a joke, son... just a joke.)


[This message has been edited by RobertK (edited 01-04-2006).]

Go have another Vienna Sausage!!

I'm afraid the Vienna Sausage reference eludes me... am I missing a joke?

Of course, if I WERE to have a Vienna Sausage, I still have the majority of my own teeth with which to chew it...

Which is more than can be said for the majority of bluegrass aficionados!


[This message has been edited by RobertK (edited 01-04-2006).]

Vivaldi died in Vienna...

thus the sausage..

I betcha in the Baroque period they didn't have that many teeth either...

Well, if they did, their teeth were probably all baroque...

Joe
www.soundclick.com/bands/7/joewrabek_music.htm

Didn't know he died in Vienna... just knew he was born in Venice... my gondolances.

Wonder if someone played the violin while the patient was screaming in the Dental Chair.

I would of said "Elevator music" but there were no elevators then...

This is just getting silly.. just like Robert bashing a whole Genre of Music...
Of course I am guilty of bashing Rap in the past...

Ok I'm Done..To Each his Own..

lol

Okay, I admit I was being unfair to the bluegrass genre... it's more than just two songs...

I forgot to mention "Dueling Banjos".