The blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on a pentatonic scale as well as a characteristic twelve-bar chord progression. The form evolved in the United States in the community of the African slaves from spirituals, praise songs, field hollers, shouts, and chants. The use of blue notes and the prominence of call-and-response patterns in the music and lyrics are indicative of the blues' West African pedigree. The blues has been a major influence on later American and Western popular music, finding expression in ragtime, jazz, big band, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and country music, as well as conventional pop songs and even modern classical music.^[1] A spiritual is an African American song, usually with a Christian religious text. ... A work song is a typically acoustic rhythmic song sung by persons who are working in likely mundane conditions. ... West Africa is far-reaching, stretching from the Sahara Desert to the Atlantic Ocean. ... The shared flood plain of the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers The Mississippi Delta is the distinct northwest section of the state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. ... A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... A guitar is a stringed musical instrument. ... This article is about the modern musical instrument. ... A harmonica A harmonica is a very common free reed musical wind instrument (also known, among other things, as a mouth organ, French harp, blues harp, simply harp, or Mississippi saxophone), having multiple, variably-tuned brass or bronze reeds, each secured at one end over an airway slot of like... A Fender Jazz Bass Bass guitar (also called electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply bass) refers to an electric bass or an electric/acoustic string instrument with a similar appearance to the guitar, but with a larger body, commonly four strings, longer scale neck and tuned an octave lower... For other kinds of drums, see drum (disambiguation). ... Saxophones of different sizes play in different registers. ... Vocal music is music performed by one or more singers, with or without instrumental accompaniment, in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. ... Jazz master Louis Armstrong remains one of the most loved and best known of all jazz musicians. ... Rhythm and blues (or R&B) was coined as a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine, used to designate upbeat popular music performed by African American artists that combined jazz and blues. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Blues can be categorized into a number of genres. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. ... Jazz blues is a musical style that combines jazz and blues. ... The jump blues is a type of blues music, characterized by a jazzy, saxophone (or other horn instruments) sound, driving rhythms and shouted vocals. ... Piano blues refers to a variety of blues styles, sharing only the characteristic that they use the piano as the primary musical instrument. ... Boogie-woogie is a style of blues piano playing that became very popular in the 1940s and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music. ... Blues Rock or Blues-rock is a fusion genre of music which combines elements of the blues with rock and roll. ... Soul blues is a style of blues music developed in the early late 1960s and 1970s and combining eliments of soul music and urban contemporary music. ... Jazz blues is a musical style that combines jazz and blues. ... The British blues is a type of blues music that originated in the late 1950s. ... The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago by adding electricity, drums, piano, bass guitar and sometimes saxophone to the basic string/harmonica Delta blues. ... Detroit blues is blues music played by musicians resident in Detroit, Michigan, particularly that played in the 1940s and 50s. ... East Coast blues casts a wide net covering all of Piedmont blues--a style that relied on fast, virtuosic fingerpicking and added influences such as ragtime--as well as the urbanized R&B of New York blues and countless smaller regional styles. ... The Louisiana blues is a type of blues music that is characterized by plodding rhythms that make the sound dark and tense. ... The Memphis Blues is the title of a tune and song published by W.C. Handy in 1912. ... The blues have been an important part of New Orleans, USA music since the earliest years of the 20th century. ... The Piedmont blues is a type of blues music characterized by a unique fingerpicking method on the guitar in which a regular, alternating-thumb bass pattern supports a melody using treble strings. ... The St. ... The swamp blues is a form of blues music that is highly evolved and specialized. ... Texas blues is a subgenre of the blues. ... The West Coast blues is a type of blues music characterized by jazz and jump blues influences, strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos (which originated from Texas blues players relocated to California). ... Blues can be categorized into a number of genres. ... Performers in the blues style range from primitive, one-chord Delta players to big bands to country music to rock and roll to classical music. ... Little is known about the exact origins of the music we now know as the blues . ... In music, a pentatonic scale is a notes per octave. ... Vocal music is music performed by one or more singers, with or without instrumental accompaniment, in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. ... Music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... In music, a pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes per octave. ... Twelve bar blues is a chord progression, typical of blues and later influenced musics. ... A chord progression (also chord sequence and harmonic progression or sequence), as its name implies, is a series of chords played in an order. ... The Buxton Memorial Fountain, celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, London. ... A spiritual is an African American song, usually with a Christian religious text. ... A chant (peace¹) is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, either on a single pitch or with a simple melody involving a limited set of notes and often including a great deal of repetition or statis. ... In jazz and blues notes added to the major scale for expressive quality, loosely defined by musicians to be an alteration to a scale or chord that makes it sound like the blues. ... In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first. ... West Africa is the region of western Africa that is generally considered to include the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte dIvoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. ... Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially. ... Ragtime is an American musical genre, enjoying its peak popularity around the years 1900–1918. ... Jazz master Louis Armstrong remains one of the most loved and best known of all jazz musicians. ... A big band, also known as a jazz orchestra, is a large musical ensemble that plays swing music. ... Rhythm and blues (or R&B) was coined as a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine, used to designate upbeat popular music performed by African American artists that combined jazz and blues. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the Southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, Celtic Music, Blues, Gospel music, and Old-time music. ... Depending on context, pop music is either an abbreviation of popular music or, more recently, a term for a sub-genre of it. ... Classical music is a broad, somewhat imprecise term, referring to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, European art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day. ...

The phrase the blues is a synonym for having a fit of the blue devils, meaning low spirits, depression and sadness. An early reference to this can be found in George Colman's farce Blue devils, a farce in one act (1798). Later during the 19th century, the phrase was used as a euphemism for delirium tremens and the police. Though usage of the phrase in African American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912 in Memphis, Tennessee with W. C. Handy's "Memphis Blues".^[2][3] In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.^[4] George Colman (October 21, 1762 - October 17, 1836), known as the Younger, English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was the son of George Colman the Elder. Note that George Coleman was a jazz musician who played with Miles Davis in the 1960s. ... // Definition A farce is a comedy written for the stage, or a film, which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely and extravagant - yet often possible - situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include puns and sexual innuendo, and a fast... Delirium tremens (colloquially, the DTs) is a condition almost invariably associated with complete alcohol withdrawal (also occurs as a complication in benzodiazepine and barbituate withdrawal) in an individual with a reported history of long-term alcohol consumption. ... African American music (also called black music, formerly known as race music) is an umbrella term given to a range of musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large ethnic minority of the population of the United States. ... Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, of which it is the county seat. ... W.C. Handy photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1941 William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873–March 28, 1958) was a African American blues composer and musician, often known as the Father of the Blues. ... The Memphis Blues is the title of a tune and song published by W.C. Handy in 1912. ...

Characteristics

There are few characteristics common to all blues, because the genre takes its shape from the peculiarities of individual performances.^[5] However, some characteristics have been present since before the creation of the modern blues and are common to most styles of African American music. The earliest blues-like music was a "functional expression, rendered in a call-and-response style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure."^[6] This pre-blues music was adapted from slave field shouts and hollers, expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content".^[7] The blues, as it is now known, can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the West African call-and-response tradition, transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar.^[8] African American music (also called black music, formerly known as race music) is an umbrella term given to a range of musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large ethnic minority of the population of the United States. ... Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity and chords, actual or implied, in music. ...

Many blues elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. Sylviane Diouf has pointed to several specific traits—such as the use of melisma and a wavy, nasal intonation—that suggest a connection between the Muslim music of West and Central Africa and blues^[9]. Ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik may have been the first to contend that certain elements of the blues have African/Moslem roots. For instance, Kubik pointed out that the Mississippi technique of playing the guitar using a knife blade, recorded by W.C. Handy in his autobiography, is common to West and Central Africa cultures, regions where Islam is strong and where the kora, a guitar-like instrument, is often the stringed instrument of choice. This technique consists of pressing a knife against the strings of the guitar, and is a possible antecedent of the slide guitar technique. Africa is a large and diverse continent, consisting of dozens of countries, hundreds of languages and thousands of races, tribes and ethnic groups. ... In music, melisma is the technique of changing the note (pitch) of a syllable of text while it is being sung. ... Islamic music is Muslim religious music, as sung or played in public services or private devotions. ... Ethnomusicology (from the Greek ethnos = nation and mousike = music), formerly comparative musicology, is the study of music in its cultural context, cultural musicology. ... W.C. Handy photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1941 William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 - March 28, 1958) was an African American blues composer, often known as The Father of the Blues. ... A helpful diagram of a kora. ... This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...

Robert Johnson, a Delta blues singer, is generally considered responsible for the standardization of the 12-bar blues.

Blues music later adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs"—"Ethiopian" is used here to mean "black"—of minstrel shows and Negro spirituals, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment.^[10] The style also was closely related to ragtime, which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music".^[11] Songs from this early period had many different structures. Examples can be found in Leadbelly's or Henry Thomas's recordings. However, the twelve-, eight-, or sixteen-bar structure based on tonic, subdominant and dominant chords became the most common.^[12] Melodically, blues music is marked by the use of the flatted third, fifth and seventh (the so-called blue or bent notes) of the associated major scale.^[13] What is now recognizable as the standard 12-bar blues form is documented from oral history and sheet music appearing in African American communities throughout the region along the lower Mississippi River during the first decade of the 1900s (and performed by white bands in New Orleans at least since 1908). One of these early sites of blues evolution was along Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Robert Johnson Source: fy:Ofbyld:Robertjohson. ... Robert Johnson Source: fy:Ofbyld:Robertjohson. ... Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1909/1912 – August 16, 1938) can arguably be considered as the most famous Delta blues singer and guitarist in history even though he lived to be only 27 and didnt start recording until 3 years before his death. ... The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... 1906 postcard advertising a minstrel show The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an indigenous form of American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, usually performed by white people in blackface. ... A spiritual is a African-American song, usually with a religious text. ... Ragtime is an American musical genre, enjoying its peak popularity around the years 1900–1918. ... Leadbelly, circa 1942; shown with an accordion, though he typically played guitar Leadbelly (born Huddie William Ledbetter; January 29, 1885 – December 6, 1949) was an American folk musician, notable for his strong, clear voice, for his forceful singing, and for his virtuosity as a twelve string guitar player. ... Media:Example. ... Twelve bar blues is a chord progression, typical of blues and later influenced musics. ... An eight bar blues is a typical blues chord progression, taking eight 4/4 bars to the verse. ... The tonic is the first note of a musical scale, and in the tonal method of music composition it is extremely important. ... In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth degree of the scale. ... In music, the dominant is the fifth degree of the scale. ... A minor third is the smaller of two commonly occurring musical intervals that span three diatonic scale degrees. ... The augmented fourth between C and F# forms a tritone. ... The musical interval of a minor seventh the first note (the root or tonic) and the seventh in a minor scale. ... In music theory, the major scale (or major mode) is one of the diatonic scales. ... Oral history is an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. ... Sheet music is written representation of music. ... This page is about the river in the United States; there is also a Canadian Mississippi River (Ontario). ... // Events and Trends Technology Lawrence Hargrave makes the first stable wing design for a heavier-than-air aircraft Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first documented flight in a powered heavier-than-air aircraft Mass production of automobile Wide popularity of home phonograph Panama Canal is being built by the... New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ... 1908 (MCMVIII) is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Beale Street is a street in Memphis, Tennessee and a significant location in black history and the history of the blues. ... Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, of which it is the county seat. ...

Blues is sometimes danced as an informal type of swing dance, with no fixed patterns and a heavy focus on connection, sensuality and improvisation, often with body contact. However, most blues dance moves are inspired by traditional blues dancing. Although usually done to blues music, it can be done to any slow tempo 4/4 music, including "club" music. Swing is a group of related street dances, that evolved from Lindy Hop. ... Connection is essential to all partner dancing. ... Improvisation is the act of making something up as it is performed. ... Body contact is a style of closed position in partner dancing. ...

Lyrics

Audio samples of blues music

"Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" ( info) Performed by Leadbelly, a renowned folk singer and guitarist, originally from Mooringsport, Louisiana; this song dates to the 1870s and is believed to be of Southern Appalachian origin "Crossroad Blues" ( info) Performed in 1937 by Robert Johnson, a Delta blues guitarist from Hazlehurst, Mississippi; this song's lyrics have helped inspire a legend that Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads in exchange for musical talent "Po’ Gal" ( info) East Coast blues from the Library of Congress' Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections; performed in 1939 by Zora Neale Hurston in Jacksonville, Florida "Caldonia" (info) Jump blues performed by Louis Jordan in 1945 "Back Door Man" ( info) Chicago blues performed by Howling Wolf in 1960 "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" (info) Blues rock performed by Janis Joplin in 1969 Problems listening to the files? See media help.

Image File history File links Gnome-speakernotes. ... Image File history File links WhereDidYouSleepLastNight. ... Leadbelly, circa 1942; shown with an accordion, though he typically played guitar Leadbelly (born Huddie William Ledbetter; January 29, 1885 – December 6, 1949) was an American folk musician, notable for his strong, clear voice, for his forceful singing, and for his virtuosity as a twelve string guitar player. ... Mooringsport is a town located in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. ... Appalachian Region of the U.S. Appalachia is a mostly rural, partly urbanized, and partly industrialized region in and around the Appalachian Mountains in the Eastern United States. ... Crossroads. ... Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1909/1912 – August 16, 1938) can arguably be considered as the most famous Delta blues singer and guitarist in history even though he lived to be only 27 and didnt start recording until 3 years before his death. ... The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. ... Hazlehurst is a city located in Copiah County, Mississippi. ... The Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity, who, in most Western religions, is the central embodiment of evil. ... Image File history File links PoGal. ... East Coast blues casts a wide net covering all of Piedmont blues--a style that relied on fast, virtuosic fingerpicking and added influences such as ragtime--as well as the urbanized R&B of New York blues and countless smaller regional styles. ... Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891–January 28, 1960) was an African-American folklorist and author. ... The Jacksonville skyline and the Acosta Bridge. ... The jump blues is a type of blues music, characterized by a jazzy, saxophone (or other horn instruments) sound, driving rhythms and shouted vocals. ... Louis Jordan (July 8, 1908 - February 4, 1975) was an African-American jazz and rhythm & blues musician who, unlike many of his black peers, was highly popular with mainstream audiences in the post-swing era. ... Image File history File links HowlinWolf_BackDoorMan. ... The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago by adding electricity, drums, piano, bass guitar and sometimes saxophone to the basic string/harmonica Delta blues. ... Howlin Wolf ( b. ... Blues Rock or Blues-rock is a fusion genre of music that combines elements of the blues with rock and roll. ... Janis Joplin on the cover of her posthumously released live album In Concert Janis Lyn Joplin (19 January 1943 – 4 October 1970) was an American blues-influenced rock singer and occasional songwriter with a distinctive voice. ...

Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often with the singer voicing his or her "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, hard times".^[14] Many of the oldest blues records contain gritty, realistic lyrics, in contrast to much of the music being recorded at the time. One of the more extreme examples, "Down in the Alley" by Memphis Minnie, is about a prostitute having sex with men in an alley. Music such as this was called "gut-bucket" blues. The term refers to a type of homemade bass instrument made from a metal bucket used to clean pig intestines for chitterlings, a soul food dish associated with slavery and deprivation. "Gut-bucket" described blues that was "low-down" and earthy, that dealt with often rocky or steamy man-woman relationships, hard luck and hard times. Gut-bucket blues and the rowdy juke-joint venues where it often was played, earned blues music an unsavory reputation. Proper, church-going people shunned it, and preachers railed against it as sinful. And because it often treated the hardships and injustices of life, the blues gained an association in some quarters with misery and oppression. But the blues was about more than hard times; it could be humorous and raunchy as well: In the song Down In The Alley, Memphis Minnie sings verses about meeting various men who, for example, ask to pal up with her and she says yes, take me down in the alley, which is where she can get his business fixed all right. Towards the end its... Memphis Minnie McCoy (born June 3, 1897 - died August 6, 1973) was an American Blues musician. ... A German prostitute Prostitution is the sale of sexual services, such as oral sex or sexual intercourse, for money. ... Chitterlings (pronounced CHIT-lins and sometimes spelled chitlins) are the small intestines of a pig that have been prepared as food. ... Soul food is an ethnic cuisine, food traditionally eaten by African Americans of the Southern United States. ...

Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,

Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,

It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me.

Author Ed Morales has claimed that Yoruba mythology played a part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua, the orisha in charge of the crossroads".^[15] However, many seminal blues artists such as Joshua White, Son House, Skip James, or Reverend Gary Davis were Christians, setting religious chants to music. The mythology of the Yorùbá is sometimes claimed by its supporters to be one of the worlds oldest widely practised religions. ... Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1909/1912 – August 16, 1938) can arguably be considered as the most famous Delta blues singer and guitarist in history even though he lived to be only 27 and didnt start recording until 3 years before his death. ... A crossroads (the word rarely appears in singular) is another word for road junction, where two or more roads meet (there are three or more arms). ... In Yoruba mythology, Eshu is an Orisha, and one of the most respected deities of the tradition. ... Osun Shrine in Osogbo Nigeria near river Oxalá, the supreme father who is associated with balance, peace, fraternity and union. ... Son House, circa 1965 Eddie James House, Jr. ... Skip James (June 21, 1902 – October 3, 1969) was an American blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter. ... Reverend Gary Davis (Blind Gary Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972) was an African American blues and gospel singer and guitarist. ...

The original lyrical form of the blues was probably a single line, repeated three times. It was only later that the current, most common structure—a line, repeated once and then followed by a single line conclusion—became standard. ^[16]

Musical style

Though during the first decades of the twentieth century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of chords progression, the twelve-bar blues became standard in the '30s. However, in addition to the conventional twelve-bar blues, there are many blues in 8-bar form, such as "How Long Blues", "Trouble in Mind", and Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway". There are also 16-bar blues, as in Ray Charles's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars". The basic twelve-bar lyric framework of a blues composition is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of twelve bars, in 4/4 or 2/4 time. The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a twelve-bar scheme: Big Bill Broonzy (1893 or 1898-1958) was a prolific United States composer, recorder and performer of blues songs. ... Ray Charles at the piano. ... A chord progression, as its name implies, is a series of chords played in an order. ... A chord is a geometric figure. ... Twelve bar blues is a chord progression, typical of blues and later influenced musics. ...

I - I - I - I

IV - IV - I - I

V - IV - I - I

where the Roman numbers refer to the degrees of the progression. That would mean, if played in the tonality of F, the chords would be as follow: The system of Roman numerals is a numeral system originating in ancient Rome, and was adapted from Etruscan numerals. ... In music theory, a scale degree is the name of a particular note of a scale in relation to the tonic (the first note in the scale). ... Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a center or tonic. ...

F - F - F - F

Bb - Bb - F - F

C - Bb - F - F

In this example, F is the tonic chord, Bb the subdominant. Note that much of the time, every chord is played in the dominant seventh (7th) form. Frequently, the last chord is the dominant (V or in this case C) turnaround making the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The tonic is the first note of a musical scale, and in the tonal method of music composition it is extremely important. ... In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth degree of the scale. ... A seventh chord is a chord or triad which has a note the seventh above the tonic in it. ... Jargon used in the chemical manufacturing and petroleum refining industries. ...

The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the eleventh bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as a break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. The final beat, however, is almost always strongly grounded in the dominant seventh (V7), to provide tension for the next verse. Musicians sometimes refer to twelve-bar blues as "B-flat" blues because it is the traditional pitch of the tenor sax, trumpet/cornet, clarinet and trombone. Jargon used in the chemical manufacturing and petroleum refining industries. ...

Sheet music from "St. Louis Blues" (1914)

Even more characteristic of blues is the melodic scale. While the twelve-bar harmonic progression had been intermittently used for centuries, the revolutionary aspect of blues was the frequent use of the flatted third, flatted seventh, and even flatted fifth in the melody, together with crushing—playing directly adjacent notes at the same time, i.e., diminished second—and sliding—similar to using grace notes.^[17] Where a classical musician will generally play a grace note distinctly, a blues singer or harmonica player will glissando; a pianist or guitarist might crush the two notes and then release the grace note. Blues harmonies also use the subdominant major-minor seventh and the tonic major-minor seventh in place of the tonic. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (637x860, 123 KB) Summary First page of WC Handys St. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (637x860, 123 KB) Summary First page of WC Handys St. ... This article is about the song. ... Alternate uses: Flat (disambiguation) Figure 1. ... This article is about the musical interval. ... Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A grace note is a common term for a phenomenon of music notation used to denote several kinds of musical ornaments. ... Glissando (plural: glissandi) is a musical term that refers to either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another (a true glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another (an effective glissando). ...

Blues is occasionally played in a minor key. The scale differs little from the traditional minor, except for the occasional use of a flatted fifth in the tonic, often crushed by the singer or lead instrument with the major fifth in the harmony. Janis Joplin's rendition of "Ball and Chain", accompanied by Big Brother and the Holding Company, provides an example of this technique. Also, minor-key blues is most often structured in sixteen bars rather than twelve—e.g., "St. James Infirmary Blues" and Trixie Smith's "My Man Rocks Me"—and was often influenced by evangelical religious music. A minor scale in musical theory is a diatonic scale whose third scale degree is an interval of a minor third above the tonic. ... Janis Joplin on the cover of her posthumously released live album In Concert Janis Lyn Joplin (19 January 1943 – 4 October 1970) was an American blues-influenced rock singer and occasional songwriter with a distinctive voice. ... Big Brother and the Holding Company was a rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the psychedelic music scene that also produced the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. ... Trixie Smith (1895 - 21 September 1943) was a Blues singer and recording artist. ...

Blues shuffles are also typical of the style. Their use reinforces the rhythm and call-and-response trance, the groove. Their simplest version commonly used in many postwar electric blues, rock-and-rolls, or early bebops is a basic three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. Played in time with the bass and the drums, this technique, similar to the walking bass, produces the groove feel characteristic of the blues. The last bar of the chord progression is usually accompanied by a turnaround making the transition to the beginning next progression. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as "dow, da dow, da dow, da" or "dump, da dump, da dump, da" as it consists of uneven eight notes. On a guitar this may be done as a simple steady bass or may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the seventh of the chord and back. An example is provided by the following tablature for the first two bars of a blues progression in E:^[18][19] The shuffle rhythm is a rhythm that can be regarded as the basis of the blues backbeat, and can be heard on many jazz, rock and roll and soul music recordings. ... Groove is a popular music term, used in the sense of rhythm, for meter_(music) and its embellishment by a rhythm section. ... The electric blues is a type of blues music distinguished simply by the amplification of the guitar, or, more rarely, the bass or harmonica. ... Rock and roll (also spelled rock n roll, especially in its first decade), is a genre of music that emerged as a defined musical style in American South in the 1950s, and quickly spread to the rest of the country, and the world. ... Bebop or bop is a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos and improvisation based on harmonic structure rather than melody. ... In music, a riff is an ostinato figure: a repeated chord progression or melodic figure, often played by the rhythm section instruments, that forms the basis or accompaniment of a rock music or jazz composition. ... In jazz, blues, ragtime, ska, rock, Baroque music, and other musical genres, a walking bass is a bass accompaniment generally consisting of unsyncopated notes of equal value, usually quarter notes. ... Jargon used in the chemical manufacturing and petroleum refining industries. ... The shuffle rhythm is a rhythm that can be regarded as the basis of the blues backbeat, and can be heard on many jazz, rock and roll and soul music recordings. ... Tablature is a form of musical notation which tells the player where to place their fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play. ...

 E7 A7 E |-------------------|-------------------| B |-------------------|-------------------| G |-------------------|-------------------| D |-------------------|2--2-4--4-2--2-4--4| A |2--2-4--4-2--2-4--4|0--0-0--0-0--0-0--0| E |0--0-0--0-0--0-0--0|-------------------| 

A level (van der Merwe 1989, also tonality level, Kubiks tonal step, and John Blackings root progression) is a temporary modal frame contrasted with another built on a different foundation note. ...

History

Origins

Main article: Origins of the blues

Blues has evolved from the spare music of poor black laborers into a wide variety of complex styles and subgenres, spawning regional variations across the United States and, later, Europe, Africa and elsewhere. What are now considered "blues" as well as modern "country music" arose at approximately the same time and place during the nineteenth century in the southern United States. Recorded blues and country can be found from as far back as the 1920s, when the popular record industry developed and created marketing categories called "race music" and "hillbilly music" to sell music by and for blacks and whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country" except for the race of the performer, and even that was sometimes incorrectly documented by the record companies.^[20] Popular misconceptions attempt to place blues into these racial categories: studies have situated the origin of "black" spiritual music inside slaves' exposure to their masters' Hebridean-originated gospels. African-American economist and historian Thomas Sowell also notes that the Southern, black, ex-slave population was acculturated to a considerable degree by and among their Scots-Irish "redneck" neighbors. Little is known about the exact origins of the music we now know as the blues . ... Country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the Southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, Celtic Music, Blues, Gospel music, and Old-time music. ... African American music (also called black music, formerly known as race music) is an umbrella term given to a range of musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large ethnic minority of the population of the United States. ... Old-time music, a traditional style of American music, has roots in Irish, Scottish and African folk music. ... The Hebrides comprise a wide-spread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, and in geological terms are composed of the oldest rocks in the British Isles and Ireland. ... Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell (born 30 June 1930) is a prominent American economist, political writer, and conservative-libertarian[1] commentator. ... In modern usage, redneck predominantly refers to a particular stereotype of whites from the Southern United States, Appalachia, Ozarks, and Rocky Mountain States. ...

Much has been speculated about the social and economical reasons for the appearance of the blues.^[21] The first appearance of the blues is not well defined and is often dated between ca. 1870 and 1900. This period coincides with the emancipation of the slaves and the transition from slavery to small-scale agricultural production in the southern part of the United States. Several scholars characterize the development appearing at the turn of the century as a move from group performances to a more indidualized style. They argue that the development of the blues is strongly related to the newly acquired freedom of the slaves. According to Lawrence Levine,^[22] "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues. Psychologically, socially, and economically, Negroes were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." Booker T. Washington Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 15, 1915) was an African American educator and author. ...

Prewar blues

Flush with the success of appropriating the ragtime craze for commercial gain, the American sheet music publishing industry wasted no time in pursuing similar commercial success with the blues. In 1912, three popular blues-like compositions were published, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues" by Arthur Seals, "Dallas Blues" by Hart Wand and Memphis Blues" by W. C. Handy ^[23]. Handy, formally trained musician, composer and arranger was a key popularizer of blues. Handy was one of the first to transcribe and then orchestrate blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He went on to become a very popular composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues", though it can be debated whether his compositions are blues at all;^[24] they can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Latin habanera rhythm that had long been a part of ragtime.^[25] Extremely prolific over his long life, Handy's signature work was the St. Louis Blues. Ragtime is an American musical genre, enjoying its peak popularity around the years 1900–1918. ... Sheet music is written representation of music. ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday. ... Tin Pan Alley was the name given to the collection of New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States of America in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. ... The Memphis Blues is the title of a tune and song published by W.C. Handy in 1912. ... W.C. Handy photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1941 William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873–March 28, 1958) was a African American blues composer and musician, often known as the Father of the Blues. ... Habanera is an adjective meaning from Havana (also known as La Habana), Cuba. ... This article is about the song. ...

Blind Blake was an influential blues singer and guitarist known as the "King of Ragtime Guitar".

In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music in general, reaching "white" audience via Handy's work and the classic female blues performers. It evolved from informal performances to entertainment in theaters, for instance within the Theater Owners Bookers Association, in nightclubs, such as the Cotton Club, and juke joints, for example along the Beale Street in Memphis. This evolution led to a notable diversification of the styles and to a clearer cut between blues and jazz. Several records companies, such as the American Record Corporation, Okeh Records, and Paramount Records, began to record African Amercian music. As the recording industry grew, so did, in the African American community, the popularity of country blues performers like Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Son House and Blind Blake. Jefferson was one of the few country blues performers to record widely, and may have been the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade, the sawed-off neck of a liquor bottle, or other implement. the slide guitar went on to become an important part of the Delta blues.^[26] When blues recordings were first made, in the 1920s, there were two major divisions: a traditional, rural country blues, and a diverse set of more polished city blues or urban blues. Image File history File links The only existing photograph of Arthur Blind Blake File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links The only existing photograph of Arthur Blind Blake File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Blind Blake Blind Blake (born Arthur Blake, circa 1893, Jacksonville, Florida; died: circa 1933) was an influential blues singer and guitarist. ... Theater Owners Booking Association or T.O.B.A. was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s and 1930s. ... A nightclub (often shortened to club) is an entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. ... The Cotton Club was a famous nightclub in New York City that operated during and after Prohibition. ... Juke joint (or jook joint) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring blues music, dancing, and alcoholic drinks, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. ... Beale Street is a street in Memphis, Tennessee and a significant location in black history and the history of the blues. ... The American Record Company, often known as ARC Records or simply ARC, was a United States based record company. ... Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918; from the late 1920s on was a subsidiary of Columbia Records. ... Paramount Records was a United States based record label, best known for its recordings of African-American jazz and blues. ... Leadbelly, circa 1942; shown with an accordion, though he typically played guitar Leadbelly (born Huddie William Ledbetter; January 29, 1885 – December 6, 1949) was an American folk musician, notable for his strong, clear voice, for his forceful singing, and for his virtuosity as a twelve string guitar player. ... Blind Lemon Jefferson (September, 1893 – December, 1929) was an influential blues singer and guitarist from Texas. ... Alfonzo Lonnie Johnson (February 8, 1894 – June 6, 1970) was a pioneering blues and jazz singer/guitarist born in New Orleans, Louisiana. ... Son House, circa 1965 Eddie James House, Jr. ... Blind Blake Blind Blake (born Arthur Blake, circa 1893, Jacksonville, Florida; died: circa 1933) was an influential blues singer and guitarist. ... This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Country blues were often unaccompanied, or performed with only a banjo or guitar, and were often improvised. There were many regional styles of country blues in the early 20th century, a few especially important. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy style, often accompanied by slide guitar and harmonica, and characterized by a spare style and passionate vocals. The most influential performer of this style is usually said to be Robert Johnson,^[27] who was little recorded but combined elements of both urban and rural blues in a unique manner. Along with Robert Johnson, major artists of this style were his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House. The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, based on an elaborated fingerpicking guitar technique, was represented by singers like Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller.^[28] The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the '20s and '30s around Memphis, Tennessee, was mostly influenced by jug bands, such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. They used a large variety of unusual instruments such as washboard, fiddle, kazoo or mandoline. Representative artists in this style include Sleepy John Estes, Robert Wilkins, Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. Memphis Minnie was a major female blues artist of this time. She was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. The pianist Memphis Slim also began his career in Memphis, but his quite distinct style was smoother and contained some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late thirties or early forties and participated in the urban blues movement, straddling the border between the country and electric blues. This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... A harmonica A harmonica is a very common free reed musical wind instrument (also known, among other things, as a mouth organ, French harp, blues harp, simply harp, or Mississippi saxophone), having multiple, variably-tuned brass or bronze reeds, each secured at one end over an airway slot of like... Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1909/1912 – August 16, 1938) can arguably be considered as the most famous Delta blues singer and guitarist in history even though he lived to be only 27 and didnt start recording until 3 years before his death. ... Charley Patton Charley Patton (May 1, 1891–April 28, 1934) was an American delta blues musician, and one of the first mainstream stars of the genre. ... Son House, circa 1965 Eddie James House, Jr. ... The Piedmont blues is a type of blues music characterized by a unique fingerpicking method on the guitar in which a regular, alternating-thumb bass pattern supports a melody using treble strings. ... Fingerpicking is playing the guitar using the fingertips or fingernails, rather than with a plectrum (or pick). It is usually used in Classical guitar styles, and some other acoustic styles, but it has found its way into other genres as well, including rock and roll, although its use in such... Blind Willie McTell (May 5, 1901 – August 15, 1959) (probably born William Samuel McTear) was an influential blues singer and guitarist. ... Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen) was an American blues guitarist and vocalist. ... The Memphis Blues is the title of a tune and song published by W.C. Handy in 1912. ... Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, of which it is the county seat. ... A jug band is a band employing a jug player and other traditional and homemade instruments, such as rhythm guitar, washtub bass, washboard, jug, mandolin, spoons, and kazoo. ... This music article needs to be wikified. ... Gus Cannon (September 12, 1883 - October 15, 1979) was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannons Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s. ... A washboard (left) and a piano player A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. ... The violin is a stringed musical instrument that has four strings tuned a fifth apart. ... Two examples of the kazoo A metal kazoo The kazoo is a simple musical instrument (membranophone) that adds tonal qualities when the player hums into it. ... Carved and round backed mandolins (front) A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument. ... John Adam Estes, commonly known as Sleepy John Estes or Sleepy John, was a blues guitarist and vocalist born January 25, 1904 in Ripley, Tennessee. ... Robert Wilkins is a seminal blues guitarist and vocalist. ... Joe McCoy (born May 11, 1905 – died January 28, 1950) was an African American blues musician. ... Memphis Minnie McCoy (born June 3, 1897 - died August 6, 1973) was an American Blues musician. ... Memphis Slim (1915 in Memphis, Tennessee-1988 Paris, France) was a blues pianist and singer. ...

Bessie Smith was a very famous early blues singer.

City blues were much more codified and elaborate.^[29] Classic female urban blues singers were extremely popular in the 1920s, among them Mamie Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Victoria Spivey. These women were among the first major musical stars in the country. Bessie Smith, known as the "Empress of the Blues", was perhaps the most well-known and respected of these women, and one of the top performers of her day.^[30] Her mentor, Ma Rainey, similarly respected, was called the "Mother of Blues". According to Clarke,^[31] both performers used a "method of singing each song around centre tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room" and Smith "would also choose to sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". Urban male performers included some of the most popular black musicians of the era, such Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr. Before WWII, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the king of the slide guitar." Carr made the unusual choice to accompany himself on the piano.^[32] public domain photo from the library of congress From Library of Congress This image is in the public domain in the United States and possibly other jurisdictions. ... public domain photo from the library of congress From Library of Congress This image is in the public domain in the United States and possibly other jurisdictions. ... Bessie Smith photographed by Carl Van Vechten Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA is largely regarded as the most popular and successful blues singer of 1920s and 30s, and an enormous influence on the singers who followed her. ... Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America and in Australia as the Roaring Twenties . In Europe it is sometimes refered to as the Golden Twenties. ... Mamie Smith on the sleeve of volume 1 of the Complete Recorded Works reissue collection Mamie Smith (May 26, 1883 - September 16, 1946) was a vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist and actress, and appeared in several motion pictures late in her career. ... Gertrude Pridgett Rainey, better known as Ma Rainey (April 26, 1886 - December 22, 1939) was a classic female blues singer, the earliest known professional blues singer3, and one of the first generation of blues singers to record. ... Bessie Smith photographed by Carl Van Vechten Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA is largely regarded as the most popular and successful blues singer of 1920s and 30s, and an enormous influence on the singers who followed her. ... Victoria Spivey (died 1976) was an American female blues singer. ... Big Bill Broonzy (1893 or 1898-1958) was a prolific United States composer, recorder and performer of blues songs. ... Leroy Carr, probably born in 1899, was an American blues singer and pianist who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced artists like Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. ...

A typical boogie-woogie bassline

Another important style of 1930s and early '40s urban blues was boogie-woogie. Though most often piano based, it was not strictly a solo piano style, and was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-Woogie was a style characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff. It was featured by the most familiar example of shifts of level, in the left hand which elaborates on each chord, and trills and decorations from the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based