Being the earliest form of blues music, Delta Blues originated in the Mississippi Delta region. Delta Blues is an African American Race record that consisted of a solo singer and instrument. The most dominate instruments in Delta Blues are harmonica, guitar and slide guitar. The passionate vocal style would have a wide variety of themes which would include introspective and passionate, soulful and fiery. The most defining characteristics of Delta Blues it instrumentation and the emphasis of the rhythm. Delta blues is mostly a regional phenomenon. Delta blues is vocal music primarily. In its earliest form you would hear just voice and percussion (singing and hand clapping). Some of the music that Delta blues originated from is work songs, chain gang songs, and field hollers. Delta blues is the opposite of country blues. Delta Blues is much easier to perform than ragtime because it was simpler, and easier to play. This form of blues was a type of folk music and anyone who wanted to perform it could. …show more content…
Louis. It originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in St. Louis. It consists of each hand doing something different: The left hand plays a steady, almost march-like succession of alternating bass notes and chords in a steady "oom-pah, oom-pah, oom-pah, oom-pah" fashion. (http://www.jazzinamerica.org/LessonPlan/5/1/250) Early ragtime is written for solo piano. Conceived and developed before records were invented, Ragtime music was recorded on piano rolls. Ragtime is the precursor to the jazz. Ragtime’s harmonic varies from beat to beat and the rhythm’s are very complex making it the harder of the two to perform. Ragtime takes training on a piano to execute with ease. Ragtime and Delta Blues is primarily an African American invention and was a source of pride to African American composers, musicians, and listeners. Mixing these two art forms creates a completely new genre of music known as boogie
The first appearance of jazz was at the turn of the century in New Orleans and is called “Dixieland Jazz,” or “Classic Jazz.” It developed out of music for street parades in the black community. It also had deeper roots in a style of music called “Blues,” which was used to express the daily experiences of the community (History). Other influences include the combination of West African folk music with the popular classical music of Europe, developing into syncopated rhythms and chord variations on classical pieces (Passion).
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
Environments can influence life choices, actions, emotions, along with much more. Those influences can be positive or negative. Two people can grow up in the same environment but can prevail in different ways. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” takes place in Harlem, NY. The short story shows the narrator, who remains nameless, experiencing numerous of emotional struggles. It is an unquestionably poignant story, presenting countless endeavors. In specific, the narrator’s brother suffers from drug addiction, there multiple family deaths, as well as deteriorating relationships. Though there are troubling times, “Sonny’s Blues” is a genuinely heartwarming story.
Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood.
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.
...ey cannot deny that the Blues has influenced different genres from the cotton fields to the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame.
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
Body percussion, spoons, washboard, harp. Harmonica, a jug. Bluegrass Music - What is bluegrass music? Direct descendant of the old-time string band tradition, which developed out of Southern mountain dance music & songs. Combines old-time string band music with gospel harmonies & blues rhythms.
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).
Singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were the pioneers and inspirations to other black singer not just women but also men, they were also an inspiration in a state that they managed to get a better life. They transformed blues into a pop culture, which eventually opened an opportunity for black culture to emerged and recognized. They brought blues into a stage of professionalism, which later also gave the opportunity to the men blues to take part, and emerged to the music business. Blues was no longer merely a personal expression but also a way of earning a living. Blues was now offered a job beyond the plantation and a glamour life that were not possible before. Their blues were considered as country blues because it was different from the classic blues in the sense of the style. They performed accompanied by a jazz band in the clubs. It shown a togetherness and was different from a solitary performance usually did by men at that time, as historian Giles Oakley said that the blues women:
James Baldwin is a writer from the twentieth century. He wrote “Sonny’s Blues,” a short story with the image in Harlem, as many of his stories were, was published in 1957. “Sonny’s Blues” is about the narrator, who remained nameless, and how his life changed after he discovers his brother’s drug addiction. “Sonny’s Blues” highlights the theme of light and darkness throughout the story’s good and bad event, the struggles of brotherly love, and the dilemmas that the narrator and Sonny face as siblings by being raised the same but taking totally different routes in their lives.
They were a mixture of story telling and talking with a definite call and response. Religious music was very important in forming blues music. Because most blacks went to Christian churches from an early age and were exposed to Christian hymns. Ragtime was an influence that came later and is a faster blues played with the piano and someone singing which was usually played in bars called barrel houses.
Different from other forms of music, blues was only recorded by memory and passed down through generations through live performances. The blues began in the North Mississippi Delta post Civil War times. It was heavily influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups. This eventually developed into music that was set up in a call-and- response way so that the singer would sing a line and he would then respond with his guitar.
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.”