What is Bluegrass?

[Redknuckles]

Today I was asked by a long lost friend in New York that I was catching up with after 20+ years of being out of touch.

What is Bluegrass?

I was shocked at the question when it was asked, but the more I think about it, the more I find myself at a loss to explain it.

It's far more than just music.........or a Genre.........a life style........

Can anyone help me with this?     What is Bluegrass to you?

[TheBanjomatic]

Read this the other day:

http://www.bluegrass.com/telluride/archive/Article-Program-IsItBluegrass.html

[Redknuckles]

I hadn't seen this, thanks.

[Matt]

Life.

[Hippie]

  Funny you should ask... I just watched:

High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Music

Last night. You should check it out. If only to see a much younger Sammy, Alison Kraus, and Alison Brown 

It's available at netflix.

[cletusaz]

quickly hand this person a copy of anything by the bluegrass album band.

[wisconsin]

5 or 6 years ago I went to a Sam Bush concert at Big Top Chatauqua in Northern Wisconsin. At that time they allowed anybody to go out behind the tent at intermission. I happened to be out there near Sam's bus, not really thinking that he might hang out back there. But Sam did show up there, and my brothers and I spent about 10 minutes chatting with him. It was something I'll never forget. One of the things he said to us was that he wanted to do a true bluegrass CD sometime. I was shocked. I was pretty new to bluegrass at the time and assumed that what I had just seen was bluegrass. But he said no. True bluegrass has only stringed instruments. There is no percussion or anything else. Just stringed instruments. I'm sure there's more to it than that, and he didn't elaborate. So I don't think I can answer your question completely. But since that day, I've known that if I see drums, or keyboards, or anything other than stringed instruments, it isn't true bluegrass!