{"id":17225,"date":"2016-12-05T14:05:22","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T19:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=17225"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:30:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:30:06","slug":"breaking-down-bluegrass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=17225","title":{"rendered":"Breaking down Bluegrass"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ast-oembed-container \" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Collaboration at the Carolina Bluegrass Summit\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UscHfbGNTPM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Playing in a new class called the Carolina Bluegrass Band, Liz Short experienced a surreal moment when the band shared a stage with the Grammy Award-winning Steep Canyon Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had not even played in front of people, and we\u2019re in Memorial Hall with an audience three times bigger than any I\u2019ve performed for,\u201d said Short, a first-year student at UNC-Chapel Hill. When she began to play her fiddle and sing \u201c<em>Little Cabin Home on the Hill<\/em>,\u201d she wondered if she was singing the correct lyrics. \u201cThen I relaxed and thought this is way too great an experience to not enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Short and 15 classmates, many of whom are classically trained musicians, spent the past semester in a new Music Department ensemble called the Carolina Bluegrass Band. The band consists of violinists, guitarists, a jazz bass player, a classical voice major and two banjo players. Only two had ever played or sung Bluegrass.<\/p>\n<p>Bluegrass giant Russell Johnson. a 1985 Carolina graduate and one of the genre\u2019s purest tenors, was chosen as the course\u2019s instructor. He is also an award-winning songwriter, mandolinist and front man for the Grass Cats with 28 years of music business experience that includes running his own record label.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>\u2018Find of the Century\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17226\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17226\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-17226\" src=\"\/\/casdev.unc.edu\/collegearchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2016\/12\/Bluegrass-4-by-Melanie-Busbee-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Grammy winners The Steep Canyon Rangers practice with the Carolina Bluegrass Band during the Carolina Bluegrass Summit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Photo by Melanie Busbee.)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17226\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grammy winners The Steep Canyon Rangers practice with the Carolina Bluegrass Band during the Carolina Bluegrass Summit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Photo by Melanie Busbee.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cRussell is the find of the century,\u201d said <a href=\"http:\/\/music.unc.edu\/people\/musicfaculty\/jocelyn-neal\/\">Jocelyn Neal<\/a>, the music professor in the College of Arts and Sciences who created the band. \u00a0\u201cHe has the complete skillset and an unbelievable resume. He\u2019s taking people who don\u2019t know Bluegrass and teaching them an entire musical art form.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neal teaches a History of Bluegrass course, and organized the first <a href=\"http:\/\/music.unc.edu\/event\/carolina-bluegrass-summit\/\">Carolina Bluegrass Summit<\/a> in November to showcase scholarship by Carolina\u2019s faculty and world-class research resources. The resources include the Southern Folklife Collection\u2019s books and commercial sound recordings, along with unpublished personal papers, photos, audio and video recordings.<\/p>\n<p>The band, course and summit form an initiative started by Neal and Mark Katz, the Ruel W. Tyson Jr. Distinguished Professor of Humanities, and funded with a gift from alumnus John A. Powell. The foundation is the Bluegrass history course, which teaches transferable skills in understanding the world through art, music and culture. The initiative also includes the ensemble and summit.<\/p>\n<p>The band\u2019s head-spinning semester of learning new techniques and song culminated in a performance with the Steep Canyon Rangers on November 11 and a public concert on December 1.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson says that with the violinists\u2019 classical technique, tone and posture, \u201cone of the coolest things is when they pick up a riff, a kick off or phrase that\u2019s full-blown Bluegrass fiddling and perform it. They are used to reading music and here they\u2019re doing\u00a0a fiddle kick that would have come straight off the stage of a Flatt and Scruggs show in 1957.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><strong>\u2018Fiddling has a different mindset\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17227\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17227\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-17227 size-medium\" src=\"\/\/casdev.unc.edu\/collegearchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2016\/12\/Bluegrass-13-by-Melanie-Busbee-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Grammy winners The Steep Canyon Rangers practice with the Carolina Bluegrass Band during the Carolina Bluegrass Summit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Photo by Melanie Busbee\/UNC-Chapel Hill)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17227\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Melanie Busbee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For Short, a Wilson, N.C., native who began violin lessons at age six, the most challenging part of the class has been learning to improvise. \u201cImprov is a big part of fiddling,\u201d she said. \u201cFiddling has a different mindset than classical. You have more freedom in it. There\u2019s no right or wrong, although having a classical background can make your fiddling a lot better. It brings a specific tone and a preciseness that I really like.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>William Hall, a first-year student from Nashville, Tenn., saw a poster about the band and auditioned. The classical voice major who Johnson says has a \u201cgigantic voice\u201d knew little about Bluegrass, and was looking for an outlet for his guitar playing. \u00a0Hall sang and played at an audition, then he and Johnson talked about playing, singing and music theory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had never flat picked before, which is the guitar style in Bluegrass,\u201d Hall said. \u201cI was used to playing a lot of James Taylor-style stuff, so learning to play a super-specific role is what I\u2019ve had to adjust to. The guitar is always hammering out a particular rhythm. I was used to guitar as accompaniment or as the only instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Short and Hall said their bandmates are fast leaners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we have some freedom, where before it was an exact, clean classical sound. We\u2019re learning breaks, solos and kickoffs and some of that involves techniques that are not as precise as classical,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the academic and performance parts, Neal said the course is one way that Carolina allows students to bring their whole selves to campus: \u201cFor students who are interested in Bluegrass, we want them to learn from our faculty, who have expertise and can help students with additional coaching that will enable them to contribute to the richness of campus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said the class made great strides from its first rehearsal: \u201cFor many it was their first exposure to Bluegrass and, for most, the first time they had played it with other people. We\u2019ve gone from individual members knowing one or two fringe\/folk songs to being able to perform an hour\u2019s worth of music in a full Bluegrass setting with arranged songs featuring duets, trios, quartet harmonies,\u00a0twin -and triple-fiddle harmonies, banjo, mandolin, guitar solos.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Note:<\/em><\/strong><em> Band members include \u201cCharlie\u201d Fischer Brown, Spencer Davidson, Henry \u201cKnox\u201d Engler, Madelin Fisher, William Hall, Emily Harrison, Tanner Henson, Reece Krome, Suzanne Long, Matt Samuel Lopez, Andrew McClenny, Sarah Michalak, Brent Matthew Pontillo, Liz Short, Willem Tax, Abbey Vinson, and community musician Parker Moore. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Story by Scott Jared and video by Melanie Busbee, UNC Communications and Public Affairs. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Playing in a new class called the Carolina Bluegrass Band, Liz Short experienced a surreal moment when the band shared a stage with the Grammy Award-winning Steep Canyon Rangers. \u201cWe had not even played in front of people, and we\u2019re in Memorial Hall with an audience three times bigger than any I\u2019ve performed for,\u201d said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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