Assignment
"August Wilson" (general intro notes);
This introduction comes in its entirety from the experts at Musical-U. I've abridged the article here for our use, but you can read the entire essay - an essay that includes great information about and resources for learning to play the blues yourself! (Reading the material at this link isn't required but if you are curious, you can learn more at their website here.)
There's no other musical genre quite like the blues. Steeped in lyrical emotion and sultry melodies, it's easy to understand why blues music has had such a deep and lasting impact on the music of the United States, the UK, and beyond.
Its name notwithstanding, blues music can evoke a range of emotions: joy, anguish, triumph, or plain old sadness. As Nina Simone demonstrated, the blues can feel really really
Blues music instrumentation is as varied as its lyrical content, its influence is more widespread than you would believe, and best of all, the genre lives on in contemporary music styles that top the charts today!
So, let's dive in. By the end of this article, you'll know what blues music is, how and when blues music developed, why the blues are still important in modern music, and how to play and write blues tunes of your own.
History of Blues Music
A genre that's over 100 years old, the journey of blues can be traced from West Africa to the deep South, to urban centers in the northern U.S., where it fed directly into rock 'n' roll and rhythm & blues. However, one type of blues did not completely eclipse another as time went on - older forms of blues have persisted and seen revivals and surges in popularity!
(The information at this link isn't required, but for more on how the different styles of the blues are related, check out Screaming Blue Dogs' "The Different Types of Blues Music".)
What's the true origin of blues music? It can be hard to know, seeing as there are some gaps in documentation and history is never perfectly linear. However, Sitting at the Foot of the Blues has some fantastic information - not required reading at this link! - on why the blues are called the blues in the first place, along with some great insight into what the earliest blues music looked like!
For this history lesson, we are going to begin with what is widely believed to be the origin point of the blues: the African slave trade, and the music that resulted.
African-American Beginnings
Fittingly, the beginnings of blues music were anything but happy. The genre originated during the pre-Civil War era in the southern United States, with the field hollers, work songs, and spirituals of African-American slaves (and later sharecroppers) struggling to express their human thoughts and emotions in the midst of subhuman oppression.
These slaves had brought with them the rhythms and musical sensibilities of West Africa. Their music echoed these key features of the music of their ancestors:
Pentatonic scales with characteristic tunings
Conversational elements (such as call-and-response)
Improvisation
Complex polyrhythms
(Not required reading, but this article is a VERY deep dive into the African roots of blues music! I find it really interesting, but it may be way too much information for you. However, it gives us a couple of great examples of the pentatonic scales and polyrhythms that you might not have been introduced to unless you have a pretty immersive background in musicology or music history.)
A. First and foremost, had you heard of the musical genre (type or style of music) of the blues before? Have you listened to any blues music in particular?
B. As usual, what surprised you about what you read and listened to!? What sticks with you?
C. Is thinking about the beginnings of a style of music - any style - a new endeavor for you? It can be hard to imagine the "before-ness" of things that are so deeply familiar. But what does it say about our human relationship to music - our need for music - that we are eager to hear something new and then add it to what we know, turning it into something even newer?
D. Were any of the songs you listened to in that introduction songs you'd heard before?
E. The article outlines the influence of the blues on several other major types of music, like country, and rock and roll. Can you hear any of the sounds of the blues in the music you listen to?
F. What does it mean that we don't hear much - if anything - about the women who are such an integral part of the history of American music - and whose influence today is worldwide?