Why do we gravitate to certain kinds of music and not to others? I love bluegrass and old time music but my wife hates it. I used to listen to pop music like everybody else but these days if I have to answer a crossword puzzle entry with the letters adele or brunomars I have difficulty. I only know those names by scrolling past link after link on the news web pages I frequent.
When I was young, I of course listened to the dance music of the day. But when I stumble across dance music on the radio today it sounds more like a high tech simulation of music than actual music. Technology has advanced to the point where a voice can be corrected electronically by a computer to exactly the right pitch. And rhythm can be truly metronomic.
Maybe technology has given us riveting music to dance to and catchy ear worms but I like to really listen to the music and the pop music I hear these days sounds sterile and uninspired. That’s one of the big reasons I listen mostly to bluegrass and old time these days. It sounds like real music made by fellow humans.
Don’t get me wrong. I like progress and technology. They can enhance our musical experience no doubt. When the pipe organ was invented half a millennium ago it was revolutionary. It opened up a lot of musical real estate for creative people just like the synthesizer did in our own time. When Pete Wernick recorded his banjo through a phase shifter, I liked it a lot. It sounded cool and still sounds cool. Maybe some people would complain that it’s not bluegrass but it sounds good and to me that’s what matters most.
Bluegrass has a certain framework that I can understand. Five or six standard instruments, with allowable variations. Roots in ballads that tell a story. Driving rhythm with bluesy flourishes. You all know what I’m talking about. Bluegrass and old time still have that down home feel like it’s music you could hear on a back porch. Our best groups these days are very polished compared to their predecessors but the music is still the music of down to earth people and I like that.
Recordings change format, amps and microphones get better, instruments can be more accurately tuned than when the musicians had to approximate the relative pitch from a reference instrument. But the soul of the music will always be based on people who can really pick and sing. Simple as that.
