Search results
- This decade saw a significant shift in blues music style and themes. The rural, acoustic styles of the Delta blue s began to give way to the electric, band-oriented Chicago blues. This new style was characterized by the use of electric guitars, harmonicas, and sometimes saxophones, creating a more powerful and amplified sound.
People also ask
How did blues music evolve in the 1990s?
Who created blues music?
How did blues music influence other music genres?
How did blues music become popular?
Blues music continued to develop and evolve in the 1990s. While traditional blues styles remained popular, there was also a growing interest in contemporary blues, which blended blues with elements of pop, rock, and other genres.
Feb 21, 2024 · By the end of the century, blues music started to evolve into something distinctive and recognizable. This is the time many historians would say the music came into its own. Artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson helped give voice to the sound.
- Musicnotes
“In the first decades of the 20th century, there was a confluence of styles that led to the blues and ultimately to rock music,” he said. Oliver’s second lecture focused on recordings from the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Music.
- Overview
- Form
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
Britannica Quiz
Pop Culture Quiz
Phrase 2 (measures 5–8) IV–IV–I–I
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
May 9, 2018 · Although it was cultivated by the descendants of slaves, the blues was the expression of freed African Americans. The Great Migration directly influenced the blues’ many evolutions. As Black people moved from the South to northern cities, the music reflected the new urban terrain in which the people set up communities.
3 days ago · With origins deeply embedded in the African American experience, Blues has evolved into a powerful and emotive form of expression, resonating with audiences worldwide. The genesis of Blues can be traced back to the late 19th century, originating from the Mississippi Delta region.
Mar 3, 2024 · The blues evolved over generations to include African musical traditions, gospel church spirituals, and the folk music of white European settlers in the American South. Musically, the blues employs a four-beat–per-bar structure in a 12-bar “blues” form.
