{"id":16507,"date":"2019-05-24T05:30:04","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T09:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=16507"},"modified":"2019-05-17T08:15:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T12:15:14","slug":"unspoken-tradition-bluegrass-speaks-to-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/24\/unspoken-tradition-bluegrass-speaks-to-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Unspoken Tradition: Bluegrass Speaks to Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s something of a tightrope walk to move forward musically within the confines of bluegrass; there\u2019s a subset of the genre\u2019s fan base that resists change. But Unspoken Tradition confidently masters that path, with a sound that\u2019s firmly rooted in history yet forward-looking. The group recently released its third album, Myths We Tell Our Young<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Sandlin Gaither<\/p><\/div>\n

Ty Gilpin, the band\u2019s mandolin player, makes the point that all forms of music \u2013 even bluegrass \u2013 are constantly evolving. \u201cThere was a time when bluegrass music was considered [to be] made only by rural folks who lived in more isolated communities,\u201d he concedes. \u201cIt\u2019s what they did for their own entertainment. And the music was passed down generation to generation in the songs that they play, the way that they play them and even the subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in recent years, bluegrass has taken on more of an international character. \u201cAs the genre has grown, there\u2019s room for influences [in addition to] the handed-down traditions,\u201d Gilpin observes. \u201cUnspoken Tradition still loves to sing about things that matter to us: our community, hearth and home, the love of the place that we\u2019re from,\u201d he says, but the group\u2019s lyrical and musical worldviews expand to take in more as well.<\/p>\n

A representative example of that approach to the music is \u201cLand,\u201d the second track off the new Myths We Tell Our Young<\/i>. \u201cIt\u2019s basically the same kind of song as the old bluegrass classic \u2018Little Cabin Home on the Hill,\u2019\u201d Gilpin explains, \u201cbut it doesn\u2019t have just your three chords and repeat of the same verse-chorus-verse-chorus. It\u2019s got a different structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can only listen to those I-IV-V traditional bluegrass chord changes over and over for so long,\u201d Gilpin says with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

On other songs, Unspoken Tradition follows a traditional musical path, but explores modern-day subject matter. Gilpin mentions another new track, \u201cCold Mountain Town.\u201d He says that the song\u2019s lyrics \u201cdirectly address the changes that Asheville has witnessed in recent years. Decades ago, it was a more quaint mountain community where we had a lot of artists and arts and crafts,\u201d he says. \u201cNow it\u2019s becoming a lot more gentrified; the influence of people moving into the area is having a prominent effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both of those approaches gently update traditional bluegrass while holding onto the qualities that make it special. \u201cSo not only is the music evolving,\u201d Gilpin says, \u201cbut the subject matter of the music is also changing to reflect what\u2019s happening in the world today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like most musicians, Gilpin isn\u2019t overly fond of genre labels. \u201cI don\u2019t see that there\u2019s anything wrong with breaking the mold a little bit,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople ask us, \u2018Are you guys traditional bluegrass? Or are you progressive bluegrass?\u2019 We like to use the word original<\/i>, because we write a lot of our songs, and throughout a performance we\u2019ll land in both camps: traditional music and something that\u2019s influenced by something other than bluegrass.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band arranges its material together, but most of Unspoken Tradition\u2019s songs are written by guitarist Audie McGinnis, Gilpin or bassist Lee Shuford (recently replaced by Sav Sankaran; the band\u2019s lineup is rounded out by Zane McGinnis on banjo and fiddler Tim Gardner). Gilpin says that Audie\u2019s songs are \u201ca bit experimental\u201d and tend to spotlight his vocals. \u201cHe\u2019s got an authentic country sound with some gravelly blues texture,\u201d he says. As for his own songwriting style, Gilpin says, \u201cI\u2019m a little bit more influenced by traditional stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the perspective of many music fans, Gilpin isn\u2019t just Unspoken Tradition\u2019s mandolinist. He\u2019s also the public face of Crossroads Entertainment, the parent company of the band\u2019s label. Part of the company\u2019s marketing team, he coordinates many public events associated with album releases. But Gilpin emphasizes that he wasn\u2019t at all involved in Myths We Tell Our Young<\/i> being released on Mountain Home. \u201cI didn\u2019t even approach the people who make the decisions at the label,\u201d he says. \u201cI was in absentia on that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s fully involved in Unspoken Tradition\u2019s bluegrass mission. \u201cThe fact that it\u2019s lasted is because it\u2019s participatory music,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just \u2018listening\u2019 music. People can get up there and play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s something of a tightrope walk to move forward musically within the confines of bluegrass; there\u2019s a subset of the genre\u2019s fan base that resists change. But Unspoken Tradition confidently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,41,49],"tags":[3794],"class_list":["post-16507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-interview","category-new-release","tag-unspoken-tradition","cat-6-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16513,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16507\/revisions\/16513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}