This Bluegrass Live – “Great Moments”

Jan 16, 2021 | Welcome Column

Remember the first time you heard Earl Scruggs play, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on the banjo? Remember the first time you heard David Grisman play his dawg-grass on the mandolin? Do you remember the first time you heard Rhonda Vincent and her band live? How about the first time you attended a CBA Fathers’ Day Festival at Grass Valley? What about the first time you actually held a banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, or bass and actually accomplished playing a song? Or the first time you heard your own singing voice, and liked it?

It felt really, really good, didn’t it? A first experience with something that “moved you” released all those natural chemicals in your brain, and you got a free, no cost, natural high that propelled you into a dimension never before experienced or expected. These are great moments. These are great moments in our bluegrass musical lives. But there is a problem.

The problem is that great moments cannot be repeated. That is to say, the intensity with which we feel these great moments begins to slowly fade. The “wow” factor is a little less each time we hear that “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” or when we see and hear Rhonda Vincent on the main stage at Grass Valley. The problem is that our brain doesn’t release the same amount of happy, natural chemicals that make the first experience of things great. Oh sure, the second, third, fifth, or tenth experience of something is good, but it lacks the intensity of being great. Familiarity reduces the impact. That’s just the way it is.

And to make matters worse, when we are young and encountering various bluegrass musical events, our brains are gushing like a new oil well, and releasing endorphins like a busted Alaskan pipe line. But faster than we like to admit, our brains age, and the oil in the pipe line moves slower than snail snot in Siberia in the middle of winter. That’s just the way it is. It’s normal, but it is a normal we are hesitant to embrace. What to do? What to do?

Okay, so GREAT moments cannot be repeated. But GOOD moments can. The intensity is not there, but there is SOMETHING there. Something happening, for sure. Something that IS good. Something that still beats the heck out of nothing, something that gives you a lift, something that still gives meaning to your bluegrass musical experience. So that’s it. If we want to experience that SOMETHING that is good, we still need to get out there and, “Just Do It!” And keep doing it. But wait, hold on.

Are the GREAT moments really all gone? NO! NO! NO! There are still great moments out there, just waiting for you. The thing is, you have to go after them. Go after them just like you did when you attended your first bluegrass festival, or got your first zither, or other musical instrument that “floated you boat.” There are a bunch of FIRSTS that are waiting for you to trap them.

One thing you can do is learn a new song or tune that you can play and/or sing. Go hear a new band. Go to a music camp if you never have. Learn a new/different musical instrument. Get involved in a different bluegrass jam the next chance you get. Get out of the key of G, C, D, and A, and play in the key of B, B flat, E, or F. Start a band. Get out of the habit of playing bluegrass with others in your living room or garage, and go out in public and perform (at a park, in a parking lot, on a street corner, at a church pot luck). Make a video of your band and put it on You Tube. Become a CBA Welcome Columnist. There are many others. You know what they are.

So the long and short of it is, no, great moments can’t be repeated, but GREAT moments can still be had. We just have to struggle to get out of our ruts to capture them.

And so what’s doing “IT” for me right now? What’s my current great moment? I just discovered Irene Kelly, bluegrass/country/Americana singer-song writer. She has a good website with videos of some of her performances. The magazine, “Bluegrass Unlimited,” gave her a “Highlight” review. And would I stay glued to all of her sets if she ever made it to FDF Grass Valley? Absotively! 

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