Bluegrass Guitar
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Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and is a sub-genre of country music. It has its
own roots in Irish, Scottish and English traditional music. Bluegrass was inspired by the music of
immigrants from the United Kingdom and Ireland (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants in
Appalachia), as well as jazz and blues. In bluegrass, as in jazz, each instrument takes its turn playing
the melody and improvising around it, while the others perform accompaniment. This is in contrast
to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the
lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment. Traditional bluegrass is typically based
around acoustic stringed instruments, such as mandolin, acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, and upright
bass, with or without vocals.

Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass relies mostly on acoustic stringed instruments. The
fiddle, five string banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin, and upright bass are often joined by the
resonator guitar (popularly known by the Dobro brand name). This instrumentation originated in
rural dance bands and was being abandoned by those groups (in favor of blues and jazz ensembles)
when picked up by European-American musicians.  Instrumental solos are improvised, and are
frequently technically demanding. The Acoustic Guitar is now most commonly played with a flatpick
unlike the style of Lester Flatt who used a thumb and finger pick. The style is known as flatpicking.
The banjo players often use a three-finger style developed by Earl Scruggs.

Bluegrass musicians, fans, and scholars have long debated what instrumentation constitutes a
bluegrass band. Since the term bluegrass came from Bill Monroe's band, The Blue Grass Boys, many
consider the instruments used in his band the traditional bluegrass instruments. These were the
mandolin (played by Monroe), the fiddle, guitar, banjo and upright bass. At times the musicians may
perform gospel songs, singing four-part harmony and including no or sparse instrumentation (often
with banjo players switching to lead guitar). Bluegrass bands have included instruments as diverse as
the resonator guitar (Dobro), accordion, harmonica, piano, autoharp, drums, Drum kit, electric
guitar, and electric versions of all other common bluegrass instruments, though these are considered
to be more progressive and are a departure from the traditional bluegrass style.

Bluegrass as a style developed during the mid-1940s. Because of war rationing, recording was limited
during that time, and it would be most accurate to say that bluegrass was played some time after
World War II, but no earlier. As with any musical genre, no one person can claim to have "invented"
it. Rather, bluegrass is an amalgam of old-time music, country, ragtime and jazz. Nevertheless,
bluegrass's beginnings can be traced to one band. Today Bill Monroe is referred to as the "founding
father" of bluegrass music; the bluegrass style was named for his band, the Blue Grass Boys, formed
in 1939. The 1945 addition of banjo player Earl Scruggs, who played with a three-finger roll originally
developed by Snuffy Jenkins, but now almost universally known as "Scruggs style", is considered the
key moment in the development of this genre.

-- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: February 19, 2009
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music)
Click on the musicians' names for more information about their lives and their music.
GUITAR SPACESHIP
**I decided to add banjo and mandolin players to the mix in this posting.  They're such close relatives
of the guitar, and they're both featured so heavily in bluegrass, so it made sense to me.  Enjoy!**