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What does the blues reveal about african american culture
Blues in african american culture
Cultural implications in sonnys blues
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Blues is a popular music style even today. It is popular because of its characteristic style that later developed other styles and subsets of the primitive blues style and its ability to appeal to a larger audience; therefore, placing the music style into the light of mainstream society. Amiri Baraka, in his work Blues People, says that the blues is a product of the “Negro’s American Experience.” In addition, he adds that the blues “developed as a response to the Negro’s adaption to and adoption of America; it was also a music that arose due to Negro’s peculiar position in this country.” It would be difficult to argue that the blues are not a product of the African American experience. While there are instances where white American individuals Blues music is popular because of the characteristics it contains, for example, the musical form of the style. The simple but “expressive ‘microtonal’ pitch inflections, a three-line textual stanza of the form AAB, and a 12-measure form.” The pitch inflections or expressive notes are called “blue notes.” These notes were not found in the Western major and minor scale systems but did derive from the African musical practice. The form of the blues music was distinct from Western music because of the incorporation of African American musical practices; therefore, validating Amiri Baraka’s assessment of blues being the product of African American experiences and
Blues has played an extreme role in todays’ music. The music genre of blues, helps us express ourselves in which you can feel it from the ubiquitous in the jazz to the blues scale and the specific chord progressions. To start off, the blues is musically originated by African Americans in the deep South of the United States. Growing up in a southern household, I was used to listening to a variety music, but blues was always most listened to. Every time I listen to blues, the lyrics often deal with personal adversity, and it goes far beyond pity.
Rhythm and Blues also known as R&B has become one of the most identifiable art-forms of the 20th Century, with an enormous influence on the development of both the sound and attitude of modern music. The history of R&B series of box sets investigates the accidental synthesis of Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Ragtime, Latin, Country and Pop into a definable from of Black music. The hardship of segregation caused by the Jim Crow laws caused a cultural revolution within Afro-American society. In the 1900s, as a method of self-expression in the southern states, the Blues gradually became a form of public entertainment in juke joints and dance halls picking up new rhythm along the way. In 1910, nearly five million African Americans left the south for the
“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story in which the author presents a view on the realities of suffering in Harlem, New York in the 1950’s and how the presence of drugs can greatly impact not only the users, but the ones who care about the users as well. This can be shown through the literary use of setting, character, and theme. Throughout the story, the narrator struggles with trying to reason with the life his brother has chosen and the choices he has made. Sonny struggles to find an identity for himself having to live under the shadow of his brother his entire life. Sonny however finds solace in music which seems to become an escape for him and help him find meaning within himself. The narrator realizes at the end of the story why Sonny had chosen this life for himself.
In dealing with these issues, historians have neglected to examine the social implication of “race music” on a white audience, specifically teenagers. Historians most often explain the origins of the music as something of a legend; Afro-American music and culture is praised, and white American society is indebted to the cultural enrichment it has received from it. Afro-American music saved white society from being boring.[2] The social realities of the United States during that decade make this birth story seem hypocritical and condescending. The 1950s did not produce harmony between the black and white populations of the United States; racial tensions were enormous.
Musicologists have dated the ‘birth’ of blues to be around 1890 as a West African tradition involving blue indigo in which mourners at ceremonies would wear blue dyed attires to resemble their suffering . Although, blues derived from times of slavery, the Prohibition Era (1920’s), World War Two (1939-1945), and during the Vietnam War (predominantly 1960’s to 1970’s), it has been a continuously evolved form of music in America, in which the similarities have always remained; melancholy and protest.
Goldman, Suzy B. "James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues": A Message in Music." Negro American Literature Forum 3rd ser. 8 (1974): 231-33. St. Louis University. Web. Apr.-May 2014.
Blues music emerged as an African American music genre derived from spiritual and work songs at the end of the 19th century and became increasingly popular across cultures in America. The Blues is the parent to modern day genre’s like jazz, rhythm and blue and even rock and roll, it uses a call-and-response pattern. While Blues songs frequently expressed individual emotions and problems, such as lost love, they were also used to express despair at social injustice. Even though Blues singing was started by men, it became increasing popular among women, creating one of the first feminist movements. Ma Rainey, a pioneer in women’s
The Social construction of racial formation categorized racial groups and formed negative social identity. Skin color and skin pigment is used to categorize certain individuals which are causing oppression. Black music and blues were used as a form of arts to escape the oppression that was placed upon them based on their skin color. Our society has constructed a black/ white color line that forces evident uprising of racism. Media has become a big impact on racial oppression and developmental more issues that involve the black/ white color line. Music was a crucial survival method to slaves by creating a new separate language. The blues was a huge liberating foundation of this separate language. Musical history is crucial to comprehend because it involves the importance of our history. Different variations of music were formed off of blues which was the spiritual ideal. Blues ideals and black music, spiritual values were liberating for African Americans during their time of
According to Albert Murray, the African-American musical tradition is “fundamentally stoical yet affirmative in spirit” (Star 3). Through the medium of the blues, African-Americans expressed a resilience of spirit which refused to be crippled by either poverty or racism. It is through music that the energies and dexterities of black American life are sounded and expressed (39). For the black culture in this country, the music of Basie or Ellington expressed a “wideawake, forward-tending” rhythm that one can not only dance to but live by (Star 39).
Others do not explore the significance of how blues music relates to the commonly-agreed-upon basic themes of individualism and alienation. The chief value of living with music lies in its power to give us an orientation in time. In doing so, it gives connotation to all those indefinable aspects of experience, which nevertheless helps us make what we are. Works Cited • http://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/marie.dybala/engl-1302/research-paper-assignments-and-documents/baldwin-articles-on-sonnys-blues/Sherard%20Sonnys%20Bebop.pdfhttp://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/sblecture.html#bebop • http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/1321/1353476/essays/jbgioia.htmlhttp://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/sonnylinks.html • http://introduction-to-literature.wikispaces.com/Baldwin+and+Sonny's+Blues http://davinci.choate.edu/dloeb/webpages/SummerSchool/sonny'sblues.htm http://www.marinaskendzic.com/essayscriticalpieces/baldwinssonnysblues.html • http://www.jstor.org/pss/2901246
The development of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the late 1940s and early 1950s by young African Americans coincided with a sensitive time in America. Civil rights movements were under way around the country as African Americans struggles to gain equal treatment and the same access to resources as their white neighbors. As courts began to vote in favor of integration, tensions between whites and blacks escalated. As the catchy rhythm of Rock ‘n’ Roll began to cross racial boundaries many whites began to feel threatened by the music, claiming its role in promoting integration. This became especially problematic as their youth became especially drawn to ...
The Roots of Blues Music Blues is a very important type of music. Most music that you hear today has some form of blues in it. If it wasn't for the blues there wouldn't be any rock and roll, country, rap, pop, or jazz . Blues is also important for African American culture. African Americans were also the people who started the blues.
“Sonny’s Blues” revolves around the narrator as he learns who his drug-hooked, piano-playing baby brother, Sonny, really is. The author, James Baldwin, paints views on racism, misery and art and suffering in this story. His written canvas portrays a dark and continual scene pertaining to each topic. As the story unfolds, similarities in each generation can be observed. The two African American brothers share a life similar to that of their father and his brother. The father’s brother had a thirst for music, and they both travelled the treacherous road of night clubs, drinking and partying before his brother was hit and killed by a car full of white boys. Plagued, the father carried this pain of the loss of his brother and bitterness towards the whites to his grave. “Till the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.”(346) Watching the same problems transcend onto the narrator’s baby brother, Sonny, the reader feels his despair when he tries to relate the same scenarios his father had, to his brother. “All that hatred down there”, he said “all that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”(355) He’s trying to relate to his brother that even though some try to cover their misery with doing what others deem as “right,” others just cover it with a different mask. “But nobody just takes it.” Sonny cried, “That’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try—it’s not your way!”(355) The narrator had dealt with his own miseries of knowing his father’s plight, his Brother Sonny’s imprisonment and the loss of his own child. Sonny tried to give an understanding of what music was for him throughout thei...
For Stanley, the blues tell the stories of the African-American community. Some of the stories talk about the harshness of their lives, but they also talk about the good times they had. [People] play the blues to get rid of the blues not to get them." (Lamb, 1). When people play or even listen to the blues, they are letting all of their worries go. They are not worrying about their job, the bills, or their kids. They are just trying to enjoy the moment when the blues are playing. The blues are some people's release from the stresses of their lives.
Powell, A. (2007). The Music of African Americans and its Impact on the American Culture in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Miller African Centered Academy, 1. Retrieved from http://www.chatham.edu/pti/curriculum/units/2007/Powell.pdf