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- Common themes addressed in early country blues songs were conflicts in love relations, loneliness, hardship, poverty, and travel.
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Aug 31, 2022 · Common themes addressed in early country blues songs were conflicts in love relations, loneliness, hardship, poverty, and travel. But it would be a mistake to assume that the blues were exclusively about sorrow—blues celebrated life’s ups and downs, and often reflected a keen sense of ironic wit and a resolve to struggle on against ...
- Emily Fairey, Douglas Cohen, Miriam Deutch
- 2015
- 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
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Phrase 2 (measures 5–8) IV–IV–I–I
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jan 30, 2024 · Early country artists adopted the soulful melodies and lyrical narratives from blues, intertwining them with their own musical traditions. This fusion created a distinctive sound that resonated with a wide audience and laid the foundation for modern country music.
Feb 21, 2024 · The originators of blues were the workers in southern fields who faced life’s hardships and newly freed slaves who used music to heal from the traumas of modern life. The music echoed this feeling of struggle, with themes of sorrow and resilience common in early and contemporary blues music.
- Musicnotes
Aug 30, 2023 · The genre’s lyrical narratives often revolved around themes of love, heartache, and the trials of working-class individuals. These themes mirror the emotional underpinnings of the blues, as both genres express the raw emotions of the human experience. The Blues Connection: A Shared Heritage.
Love, sex and betrayal are common themes in blues lyrics, but songs may also contain elements of bitter social or political comment. Urban blues in particular feature topics of love, separation from loved ones, betrayal, law and injustice, poverty and survival.
