Bluegrass Country Music

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Bluegrass music is considered a form of American roots music with its own roots in the English, Irish and Scottish traditional music of immigrants from the British Isles (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants of Appalachia), as well as the music of rural African-Americans, jazz, and blues. Like jazz, bluegrass is played with each melody instrument switching off, playing improvised solos in turn while the others revert to backing; this is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carried the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment.
Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass relies mostly on acoustic stringed instruments: The fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin, and upright bass are sometimes joined by the resonator guitar (popularly known by the Dobro brand name), and an electric bass or electric upright bass is occasionally substituted for the upright bass.
Debate rages among bluegrass musicians, fans, and scholars over what instrumentation constitutes a bluegrass band. Several general criteria have been put forward. Since the term bluegrass came from Bill Monroe's band, The Bluegrass Boys, the instruments used in his band are considered the traditional bluegrass instruments. These were the mandolin (played by Monroe), the fiddle, guitar, banjo and upright bass. The guitar and banjo were played by Flatt and Scruggs, respectively. While, in his earliest years, Bill Monroe had an accordion player, the Bluegrass Boys had no accordion player during the height of their career, and the accordion is not considered a traditional bluegrass instrument.
One suggested definition is that a bluegrass band includes at least four musicians who play instruments including an upright bass, an acoustic guitar, and a banjo, though those instruments need not always be played. (Example: During gospel songs many banjo players switch to lead guitar, a tradition dating to Earl Scruggs.) At other times the musicians may play no instruments and sing four part harmony. Other common instruments include the fiddle, the mandolin, and the resonator guitar. Bluegrass bands have included instruments as diverse as drums, electric guitar and electric versions of all other common bluegrass instruments, accordion, harmonica, mouth harp, and piano, though these are not widely accepted within the bluegrass community.

Click on CD titles below to hear sample music.

Flatt & Scruggs

On Foggy Mountain
Father's Table Grace
Golden Hits

Bill Monroe

Greatest Hits
Blue Moon Of Kentucky

Stanley Brothers

20 Bluegrass Originals
On Radio

Rhonda Vincent

A Dream Come True
New Dreams and Sunshine
Timeless and True Love

Various Bluegrass

Blue Ribbon Banjo

Bluegrass Music Books

Alison Krauss: When You Say Nothing At All Performed by Alison Krauss, composed by Don Schlitz, Paul Overstreet. Single for voice, piano and guitar chords. Eb Major. 5 pages. Published by Hal Leonard. (HL.120033)
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Vince Gill: Go Rest High On That Mountain Performed by Vince Gill. Single for voice, piano and guitar chords. D Major. 4 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.PV95214)
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101 Red Hot Bluegrass Mandolin Licks and Solos Written by Larry McCabe. Instructional book and examples CD for mandolin. With introductory text, standard notation, mandolin tablature and chord names. 45 pages. Published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc. (MB.99446BCD)
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Hot Licks For Bluegrass Fiddle Edited by Stacy Phillips. Instructional book and examples CD for fiddle. With standard notation, chord names, instructional text, violin notation guide, introductory text and black & white photos. 128 pages. Published by Oak Publications. (MS.OK64378)
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It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Metasyntactic variable".