There was absolutely no grammatical reason for me to place in quotes the latter phrase of that title. The word order submissively took care of definining the subject of the idiom I was referring to. But something quite unique happens when a phrase is placed between inverted commas: it takes on (get ready for the poetic circle…) an idiomatic connotation, becoming imbued with properties that were not necessarily associated with the naked words themselves.
Grouping together various instruments and styles does not ‘create’ genre in music: genre is, famously, an unexact science, and the labels come from us. Now don’t fret, gentle reader – I am not about to launch on another quest toward the tired old cliche of ‘genre does not exist’, or its brainier modern counterpart, ‘genre does exist, its inexact but its really useful in understanding what a piece of music is trying to do’ etc etc ad infinitum.
No, I am aiming at something rather different (this time).
Recently, I’ve been listening to what is commonly known as ‘bluegrass’, or ‘newgrass’ music. For the most part, this has consisted of several albums from American legends Alison Krauss & Union Station, Chris Thile (curiously pronounced ‘tee-lee’), and a charming band based in Birmingham known as ‘The Toy Hearts’.
This piece is not now going to stray into a ‘defence of bluegrass’, either. Far from it: I love this genre, but I don’t expect everybody else to. I will only say that, as with all ‘acquired’ tastes, it may take some effort to ‘acquire’, but that effort is important: anything we can learn to appreciate in life is always, after all, a boon, helping us as it does to enjoy more things that people have created and enjoy our lives that bit more.
My point (I think that’s quite enough buildup now), is that most people dislike this genre because the moment they hear a mandolin, flatpicked acoustic guitar and fiddle all threaded together by a slinking slide guitar, they immediately conjure up images (and often tired cliche jokes) of ‘hillbillys’, ‘hicks’ and ‘rednecks’. I understand this, very clearly in fact, because I used to do the same thing.
But I fell in love with Nickel Creek, who remain to this day just about my favourite band of all time, and they are a great introduction to bluegrass, somewhat ironically because they innovate the genre so much. They import pop melodies and rock sensibilities into a very traditional, ‘rootsy’ sound lent by their upbringing (as well as their oftentime-producer, non-other than Alison Krauss). But they have occasional tracks nested within their albums that strike an altogether more recognisable bluegrass sound, most memorably ‘Scotch and Chocolate’, ‘Ode to a Butterfly’, ‘Stumptown’, and so many more enrapturing little pieces. These instrumental ditties with their revolutionary takes on traditional sounds (gathering the label ‘newgrass’ on the way) were somewhat difficult for me at first.
The cliches and lousy old connotations reared their heads in mine. But with time, these idiomatic associations fell away: I encountered the tracks repeatedly in the course of seeking out their pop-ier counterparts on the same albums, and after a while found that I had ceased to ‘track skip’ them every time they came about.
I don’t expect everyone reading this to go off and get into bluegrass. That is not my intention at all. Indeed, I could have structured this exact same argument instead around my experience with The Cure and 80s synth-pop, or Alexisonfire and metal. The pattern is the same: stereotypes destroyed, idioms broken free-from, by an ‘entry band’.
So this is a plea to music fans everywhere to make their best efforts to break free from musical idioms, and dull cliches.
Finally, I would like to contradict myself and say something in defence of idioms. As I said at the beginning of this post, idioms can carry information not embedded in the word or concept that they are modifying. As I’ve mentioned, this information is often not useful, and clouds our judgement – tints our visions, taints our ears.
But that information is not without value. The bluegrass stereotype, for instance, tells us a lot about the reception of such music, and the traditions surrounding it.
However, the ‘defence’ already starts to fall apart here. Bluegrass is not the invention of bumpkin midwest farmers, any more than any genre is ‘invented’. Bluegrass’s roots are fascinating, and musicologists have made much of them. Broadly, we can say that the traditions of English and Irish folk music came to the new world to different landscapes and different-sounding instruments, and different stories in different tenors. So, a new musical idiom arose, a new genre flowed forth, and a culture around it. The ‘hick’ association belies the music’s complexity, both of origin and musical technicality.
I am no expert in this genre, and as I have said repeatedly, that is not the point. Idiomaticity is a smoke-screen, a simplification: of some limited use, perhaps, but for the most part to be considered merely a challenged to the intellgent listener.
I’ll end by repeating a previous point. Cultivating an appreciation is often considered insincere and ‘forced’ (as if that’s inherently ‘bad’). But I look upon it more as an opportunity. To learn to appreciate as many things as possible in life, is surely the key to happiness – or at least, gives one the greatest statistical spread to ensure that every day is enjoyed as fully as possible. Such a rich culture as this offers opportunities only snubbed by the foolhardy, and the poor souls stuck in the clutches of idiomatic snares.
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