LAUNCHED DEC. 11, 2003
This Website is dedicated to the preservation, information and promotion of Traditional Classic Bluegrass Music.
SharonGraeff.com
Bluegrass Unlimited
SPBGMA www.bluegrass-museum.org
IBMA
www.bluegrassworks.com www.RFDTV.com BluegrassWorld.com
www.Americanaconnects.com http://www.bluegrassmusicprofiles.com
www.bluegrass-anonymous.org
Bluegrass Now
www.thebluegrassblog.com
WWW.CYBERGRASS.COM
Northern California Bluegrass Society's National Information Page for
Lost & Stolen Instruments.
http://ncbs.us
A lot of you know D.A. Callaway, but a few of you don't, so I'll tell
you. D.A. is the guy who hires entertainment for Silver Dollar City's
music events. He is a great writer in my estimation and is very
talented at short "essays" such as this one, which should appeal to all
music lovers who are fed up with today's so called "music", and
specifically "country".
N. R. Quillen
EXPERIENCING THE WONDER OF MUSIC
By D. A. Callaway
The recent Grammy Awards were a celebration of recorded music, one of
the world's biggest industries. And most of us support this trade with
our hard earned cash. I personally have a stack of CDs, a bunch of old
cassette tapes, and a few dozen vinyl records.
Many of us enjoy music every day, even listening to the radio or stereo
while in our vehicles. And as wonderful as it is to listen to recorded
music, it is always a feeble substitute for the real thing.
Recorded music is to live music as an electric bathroom heater is to a
crackling campfire. Live music compares to recorded music in the same
way that a porterhouse steak compares with a chunk of cold Spam.
We all know the truth. Spam was originally meat, then boiled,
pulverized, pasteurized, processed, preserved for long shelf life,
squirted and solidified into the proper shape, sealed in a colorful and
easy to open package, and finally pushed onto the consumer by the
slickest marketing that money could buy.
A similar process takes place in the CD factories owned by the major
music labels. And the end product is as removed from the original by an
equal distance. By comparison, live music satisfies much more
deeply. It connects us to an ancient past as surely as our genetics
connect us to our mothers. And the human voice, whether that of the
operatic tenor or the cry of a newborn child, can carry us away to a
reality otherwise lost to the eons of time.
Music is so very old, yet ever changing, vigorous and modern, with
tendrils stretching back to the dawn of creation. I can imagine
that some Stone Age wanderer first blew a note on a flute fashioned from
the hollow bone of a bird's leg. And some long gone tinkerer may have
stretched a green vine across a hollow opening before plucking the first
sounds on a stringed instrument. Those sounds still ring today.
Beautiful melodies don't only tickle our ears, but satisfy a yearning
in the deep center of our being. The chords strummed on a guitar by even
the most uneducated greenhorn resonate with a delicious richness.
Yes, song lyrics may reflect current events and situations. But there
are only twelve notes, and the mathematical relationships between them
would certainly be familiar to the musicians of olden times. Ancient
harmonies fly across the centuries in the songs of every little church
and every kitchen jam session. If you want to give the gift of
music to a friend or relative, please remember that for the price of a
home sound system or car stereo you could buy a pretty good guitar, a
mandolin, or a used piano. Not only will you be giving a lifetime of
enjoyment, you will be preserving the art of music, one of humankind's
noblest traditions.
reprinted with permission by D.A. Callaway