What is bluegrass anyway? Category formation, debate and the framing of musical genre

Abstract

This article examines the contested issue of defining the genre of bluegrass music. Interpreting this debate as a subjective negotiation and renegotiation of a category, it focuses on the discursive and musical means through which ontologies of bluegrass are framed. In doing so, the article adds to a growing body of literature that considers genre in popular music as a flexible construct involving both musical performance and cultural formations. The article begins by exploring the idea of bluegrass as constructed by Bill Monroe and a number of early bluegrass scholars, after which it invokes recent work on human cognition and categorisation to analyse the genre debate among bluegrass enthusiasts. The article ultimately proposes that such discourse, notwithstanding its apparent futility, can be regarded as a vital means for a genre's self-perpetuation.

“Genrefluid” Spotify Playlists and Mediations of Genre and Identity in Music Streaming

“…Literature review: Genre, identity, and technological mediation in popular music and music streaming Scholars in popular music studies have aimed to theorize, create systematic typologies, and study the social practices of genres (Samson 2001). They have proposed theoretical concepts that encompass musical, social, and economic dimensions of genre in popular music (Brackett 2016;Holt 2007;Fabbri 1982) and have drawn on genre theory beyond music to theorize questions of delineation (Frith 1996;Beer 2012;Rockwell 2012), temporality (Krogh 2018;Lena and Peterson 2008) and meaning (Brackett 2016;Fabbri 1982) as core concerns of genre formations in popular music. On the one hand, these studies jointly understand popular music genres as dynamic and permeable; on the other, they acknowledge the "structuring" function of genre in popular music culture, by way of identification and differentiation (Holt 2007: 2).…”

Machines and music: instrumental contributions to bluegrass

“…The difficulty in defining bluegrass is explored by Joti Rockwell (2012), while good overviews can be found by Robert Cantwell (2003) and Neil V. Rosenberg (2005). In this article, my definition leans towards the repertoire that is performed in bluegrass jam sessions around the world, but especially in the USA, which is where I encounter the music, playing guitar, mandolin and banjo.…”