Classical Denison Students Breakdown and Play Bluegrass
The Music Department at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, is teaching students to play bluegrass music.

Bluegrass at Denison University

by Brent Davis

It's a regular Friday class for Andy Carlson, music department chair at Denison University. But instead of meeting in the recital hall, is bluegrass ensemble is giving a concert on the Fine Arts Quad.

Bryn Lewellen, a music major from Centennial, Colorado, is singing lead on "I Just Think I'll Stay Around." Though she had little exposure to this music before college, she got hooked.
"My freshman year here at Denison I went to the bluegrass concert both first and second semester and absolutely loved it. So I emailed Andy Carlson and said I'd love to sing and he said they'd love to have me, so I've been singing since the second semester of my freshman year."

Carlson is a classically trained violinist who's performed with symphonies in the U.S. and abroad. He teaches classical violin and conducts Denison's chamber orchestra. At the age of five he began learning fiddle music from his grandfather, and he's won state fiddling championships in Ohio and Georgia. Carlson, who also plays mandolin, is passionate about sharing this American-made music with his students.

"This is the musical heritage of our country. We're not proud of our music. And I think we ought to be proud of it. And I'm proud of it."

About 30 students play in the ensemble's several groups. Although there are non-music majors participating, some of them are classically trained musicians who have never heard bluegrass. Carlson says they face several challenges.

"American folk music has a completely different rhythmic pulse than Western classical music. So, European music is based much more on beats one and three, and bluegrass is based more on beats two and four."

Casey Cook is the co-chair of the ensemble at Denison and teaches flat-picking guitar. He says many of the students find bluegrass just as challenging as classical music.

"In classical, you're typically not providing a big rhythm section like you are in bluegrass. Not that classical music doesn't have a drive, but it's a totally different thing. It's all on the downbeat, and if you can't hear that, you can't really play this music well or successfully."

"So, another difference, I would say," Carlson continues, "is if we have students in a small bluegrass band versus and classical string quartet. With the quartet, you have students with violins and four music stands. There's an inherent separation—you've got the stands, you've got them staring at their music, concentrating just as much as they can on the notes on the page—and when our students get together to rehearse a bluegrass band, there's nothing between them. They're just standing there, in a circle. And some of them are terrified by this. There's no music. It's just them and what they can figure out. And yet I think that creates a real social bond. And some of these students wind up being best friends."

The social aspect of bluegrass does attract some students to the ensemble. However, Nellie Schranz, from St. John's. Mich., came to Denison because she could play this music here.
"Kind of what clinched it for me was during my classical audition here he said, 'I see on your resume that you play fiddle music. I'm a fiddler'—which I'd known ahead of time—and he had me play a tune, and then he started playing along with me. So I said, okay, this is where I want to go.

"We get split up into bands at the beginning of the semester and you work up a show's worth of music with them. But you can't get it done in that time, so we have outside rehearsals, and we get to be good friends, and have cookouts and stuff when the concerts are over because we've gotten used to hanging out with each other."
Carlson believes the bluegrass ensemble makes his classical students better musicians. For whatever reason, the program has grown since it started in 2000.

Schranz, who will continue graduate work at the University of Texas, seems a little surprised at how the bluegrass ensemble and Denison has taken off—and how it drew her in.

"I don't know what happened. I got here
when I was a freshman and the bands were small. Just five of us or so. And we did a show and it was packed. The shows just kept being packed. In fact, this semester the fire marshal came and was kicking people out because there were too many people there. I guess they just like us. We got a real big community following as well as a campus following. And I guess it's just something different and something unique to Denison. And we have all sorts of unique ensembles here. Bluegrass just seems to hit home with people around here."

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