Bluegrass Music Theory Genius or Not? The Redemption of Carlton Haney 

The best part of this video is watching Jimmy Martin! He’s like a real life cartoon character that was THE BEST bluegrass entertainer! Someone please make Jimmy Martin cartoons (in respect and honor of course) for the world to enjoy!

This is absolutely epic. I rate it two double augmented chords!

I loved it when Carlton called the IBMA office. It was fascinating to listen to him--kind of like seeing a new species of bird fly by my window! He was definitely one of a kind. I always learned something, i always got a bit confused, and he always got so passionate about some bit of history he was relating that he made himself cry. He always mentioned Pythagoras, and I hoped to write an article about his take on Pythagoras, Monroe, and bluegrass music. I never did, unfortunately. I had started a Carlton folder in my In Box.... I also tried to transfer a Carlton call to every new IBMA employee at least once. I figured it was something they all should experience! -Nancy Cardwell. Someone mentioned that Carlton didn't play bluegrass himself. I didn't know of him doing that, although he did try songwriting. He was more of an orchestrator of events and life, I think. He did tell me he got into bluegrass initially because he had a crush on Bill Monroe's daughter, Melissa.

Nailed it! Glad my vague memories of German dudes from the 1800s proved helpful 😅

When you got into the double augmented explanation , my brain began to spin. 😳

Nicely produced, edited and narrated Marcel. Well done. 👍

Your channel is wonderful. Thank you.

this is so great! brilliant and very humorous analysis and community service :D. thank you!

"The genius is the one who is most like himself," -Theonlius Monk (could certainly apply here)

I really appreciate this video. I was very blessed to have sat by Carlton many times in my early teens and listened to his theories on Bill Monroe and Pythagoras. Though at the time, I didn't understand alot of what he was saying, I would think about it as I learned more about theory. An important thing to know is that Carlton wasn't a musician, so he just didn't have the language or hands-on knowledge to describe the things in Bill Monroe's music that he knew were special and different. He obviously read a good deal about Pythagoras, and I think he put all he knew and understand together as best as he could and it formed the very engaging narrative that we see in this video! The first time I saw the original video used here, I was so happy that Carlton's theories were preserved as I had figured that they went away with him. And cudos to Marcel for standing up for Carlton! Carlton is remembered these days for not paying people in the latter days of his festivals and for these types of off-the-wall stories, but we all have a lot to be thankful to Carlton for. Aside from Carlton's management and relations with country music artists in the 1960s, the multi-day blue grass music festival has been the primary income generator for blue grass artists for 50+ years and we all have Carlton to thank for that! -Jeremy Stephens

To you Marcel I say: “Oh Magoo you’ve done it again!”

He said “an octave is a tier of notes” not 10 notes 😂. Great Video!!

Ok wait, hot take. Maybe he's talking about "come back to me" which hits a really odd 1 - 4 harmony over the IV chord, that slides up a whole step to do the same over the V chord, giving like C11 -> D11. It's a fourth interval that gets doubly augmented. It would be a pretty unconventional way of looking at it, but maybe it's an idiosyncratic explanation.

Hey my man Guido of Arezzo semi-legendarily clove-hitched them two tetrachords together and made him a fancyassed CHORD!!

Carlton Haney....the only man to ever silence Jimmy Martin 😮

A lot of this went over my head but I get the thing about octaves. I had always learned that when playing backing to not play the high e string on the guitar because by doing so I would be trespassing into the vocalist or lead instrument's range and thereby muddying the waters. This was something I think I originally learned from jazz players.

A few rebuttals: 7:10 I actually think he says "a tier of notes" not "uh, 10 notes". As in, each octave is a different tier. 9:38 He doesnt explicitly say Monroe invented this concept, nor does he really suggest it's unique to bluegrass. I interpreted "that's the secret of bluegrass" to mean that's the secret to making bluegrass sound good, not that it's a unique quality of bluegrass music. I think he's just saying that in his experience many bluegrass players fail to achieve the quality of Monroe because they dont arrange the parts well like Monroe, following this scheme. 16:05 Double augmented invervals exist and when Haney says "double augmented chord" I think he means C6 with the 6 replacing the 5. C6 isn't the same as A minor as C is still acting as the root, so I think his name for it is pretty legitimate tbh. "Double augmented fourth" however sounds like a mistake. 18:18 I may have misunderstood you but tthat is the correct use of augmented: to increase an interval by a semitone or raise a chord tone by a semitone. 23:38 He doesn't mix up diatonic and chormatic in fact he doesn't mention chromatic at all. He says the formula for the diatonic scale is "2 notes, 2 notes, 1 note" etc. which is totally correct considering he said "note" not "tone" or "degree", so he is referring to semitones. As for the final question, it sounds to me like he is talking about a scale including C D E F G G# A A# B but I can't make sense of it, other than the idea you touched on where you can play a B natural over a C7 chord, causing the tenor to "shoot up" due to the rub between the Bb (which Haney is calling A#) in the lower register and the B in the higher register. Where G# comes in I have no idea. I think your interpretation as Bb melodic minor is definitely a stretch tough and when he says B comes first I'm not sure he actually means B is the tonic but it's certainly hard to tell wtf he's talking about.

He might be talking about the Melodic Minor scale. Example in A (A B C D E F# G# A) in B (B C# D E F# G# A# B). It is a very common scale in Jazz and Classical Music.

I knew Carlton Haney. He was like Yosemite Sam in the flesh!

The fact you made this edit and I saw it on a random page doom scrolling through instagram 😂

C major 7#13 is how id write that chord.

Lol. You said, "F'n G". "It takes a lot of mistakes to get good at what we do". Amen 👍

Vids like this are why the internet is a net good

Awesome nerdout!!! Love it!

I think I am going to write a theory book based on the knowledge I have gained here and call it, The West Texas Clear as Mud Theory Course complete with Satanic 6th chords and demented 9ths... Vol 2 will include Augrautin 4ths and almost perfect 5ths...Lol...

Good morning Marcel!

Original Dixeland Jazz Band split up the voices and never let a saxophone in. Monroe did the same for dobros.

Loved your erudite treatment of Carlton, Marcel. It was like fertilizer for bluegrass. LOL

You said the tenor to the G note would be a third above...a more accurate statement is that the tenor to the G note would be the next higher chord tone. If the chord is G, the next chord tone to 'G' is 'B'. If the chord is C, the next chord tone to 'G' is 'C'. Maybe the '4' refers to the fact that the IV chord is being played and Bill is singing an unusual note. Could double augmented 4 means that on the IV chord the tenor sings the note two diatonic scale tones higher than the melody. Most importantly to me - and I think he deserves this point - he fills us in on a characteristic sound of Bill's tenor.

The banjo overlaps the guitar, so they are obliged to do obligato to not obstruct obnoxiously.

Circle the Wagons, Chef.

I think his last point about Bill Monroe making a new scale could mean a 9-note scale (C D E F G G# A A# B C). It’s the most straightforward to get 5 chromatic notes at "the top", and is in C, so I think he was trying to keep it simple. Thoughts?

Did Carlton Haney have perfect pitch? In one of his latest videos on perfect pitch, Rick Beato states that the gift begins to diminish around age 50 by a half step. So it’s possible he was giving the correct formula for what he heard.

You need to take into account whiskey a bit in his thinking at that moment…

Probably worth mentioning that at 22:55 you have a Bb major scale on screen, starting from C (C dorian, if you like)-a diatonic scale is just stacked fifths.

Maybe theory isn't the word - orchestration perhaps. The bluegrass string band setup is super well orchestrated/balanced,

I think that “Bill Monroe scale” with the minor third is just the melodic minor, which was well-established classical music theory long before Bill Monroe. But this just gets to the point that if something sounds good (like the melodic minor scale), musicians will find it and use it.

The pentatonic scale is 5 notes...5 and 5 equals the 10 note scale...works for me... BG music is so vast, and so Individual.... and it's all how the player puts it together... i say timing is more important than the notes...(Do I get a Point?)

Thanks for this. I followed about 72% of this. Kinda proud of myself for that 😂😂

Which octave do I put the drums?

Memes aside, I think all Carlton was trying to say was the idea that bluegrass music was intentional. Monroe didn’t just stumble upon this style of music. It was deliberate and and curated the same way many other popular forms of music were created. I try to explain this myself sometimes to other people, Monroe went through a lot of trial and error creating his sound and the sound we know today. I think Carlton was just trying to say that, just less eloquently… lol

I think most of the nonsense in the later parts of this video could be explained using a standard bluegrass tune we're all familiar with. Whiskey Before Breakfast.

Love it.

And with regard to the "B" scale...they're talking about singing in B at that point in the conversation. This is just a guess, but, that "high lonesome sound," they seem to suggest, comes from taking songs all the way up to B (capo fourth fret, yk???). That's why he say "F to F#, G to G#, A to A#," he probably just missed off the other two sharps by accident-he's talking about a B major scale. The tenor then has to "shoot up" to B when he goes to the high tonic. He seems to be using a technique in oratory known as "baffling with bullshit," where he explain really simple stuff, like major scales and transpositions, but throws in things like "Pythagoras" and "double augmented fourth" to dazzle the audience. Perhaps he's being a little funny...though he does seem kinda wild.

Bill Keith was a fan of Pythagoras.

Let's give both teams half a point 😂

Oh man 😂😂

So, was Carlton ahead of his time? Sounds like he was what an AI chatbot might spewout if asked to explain after a few.😂 Cheers 🍻

Entertaining at the very least...understandable...not so much...confusion

....and he is the only person ever to out-BS Jimmy Martin.

Okay look. I am 30seconds into this video and already i can tell you that the claim that no two instruments are ever in the same octave.... is horseshit. Mandolin and fiddle are very f.ucking often in the same octave The guitar and banjo share the same DGandB strings I dont know much about dobro... THIRTY SECONDS IN TO THE VIDEO!!!! the reason i know this is because i actually taught pythagorus how to lay floor tiles.

Bluegrass theory for bass players could be a good financial grift..

Cocaine is a helluva drug 😂

You are taking this too literal!!! He is just joking around.

@pythagoras_band ...😂