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t. e. Bluesis a music genre[3]and musical formthat originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep Southof the United States around the 1860s.[2] Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative balladsfrom the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and ...
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The blues is a form of secular folk music created by African Americans in the early 20th century, originally in the South. Although instrumental accompaniment is almost universal in the blues, the blues is essentially a vocal form. Blues songs are usually lyrical rather than narrative because the expression of feelings is foremost.
Where did the blues get its name?
In the 19th century the English phrase blue devils referred to the upsetting hallucinations brought on by severe alcohol withdrawal. This was later shortened to the blues, which described states of depression and upset, and it was later adopted as the name for the melancholic songs that the musical genre encapsulates.
How did the blues begin as a musical genre?
The origins of the blues are poorly documented, but it is believed that after the American Civil War (1861–65), formerly enslaved African Americans and their descendants created this genre while working on Southern plantations, taking inspiration from hymns, minstrel show music, work songs and field hollers, ragtime, and popular music of the Southern white population.
Why is the blues considered the “Devil’s music”?
Although instrumental accompaniment is almost universal in the blues, the blues is essentially a vocal form. Blues songs are lyrical rather than narrative; blues singers are expressing feelings rather than telling stories. The emotion expressed is generally one of sadness or melancholy, often due to problems of love but also oppression and hard times. To express this musically, blues performers use vocal techniques such as melisma (sustaining a single syllable across several pitches), rhythmic techniques such as syncopation, and instrumental techniques such as “choking” or bending guitar strings on the neck or applying a metal slide or bottleneck to the guitar strings to create a whining voicelike sound.
As a musical style, the blues is characterized by expressive “microtonal” pitch inflections (blue notes), a three-line textual stanza of the form AAB, and a 12-measure form. Typically the first two and a half measures of each line are devoted to singing, the last measure and a half consisting of an instrumental “break” that repeats, answers, or complements the vocal line. In terms of functional (i.e., traditional European) harmony, the simplest blues harmonic progression is described as follows (I, IV, and V refer respectively to the first or tonic, fourth or subdominant, and fifth or dominant notes of the scale):
Phrase 1 (measures 1–4) I–I–I–I
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Phrase 2 (measures 5–8) IV–IV–I–I
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Little is known about the exact origin of the music now known as the blues. [1] No specific year can be cited as its origin, largely because the style evolved over a long period but blues is inarguably a Black American art form as it is noted "it is impossible to say exactly how old blues is - certainly no older than the presence of Negroes in the United States.
Mar 3, 2024 · The history of the blues is a story about American slavery, resistance, overcoming, and the birth of Western popular music. The catastrophic legacy of American Slavery gave rise to the blues, a musical style born in the African-American communities of the southern United States. The blues evolved over generations to include African musical ...
Feb 21, 2024 · The music echoed this feeling of struggle, with themes of sorrow and resilience common in early and contemporary blues music. This is the reason the emotional impact of blues music is so great and has touched so many people over the decades. 1870s: Field Hollers and Spiritual Whispers. Looking into “When did blues music start?” will take ...
- Musicnotes
Born in Alabama in 1873, Handy would later earn the title of the “Father of the Blues.”. As a musician and music teacher, he defied his strict upbringing, secretly practicing the guitar and trumpet, honing his skills. In 1903, during a fortuitous encounter in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Handy experienced a moment of epiphany.
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Feb 22, 2007 · Paul Oliver, probably the world's foremost scholar of the blues, first heard African-American vernacular music during World War II when a friend brought him to listen to black servicemen stationed in England singing work songs they had brought with them from the fields and lumber camps of the Deep South. Oliver was enthralled by the rhythm and drive of the music and the spontaneous ...
