Acoustic Blues Guitar Teacher Queensland 4280 Stockleigh
From its source in the South, the blues’ simple but expressive forms had become by the 1960s one of the most significant influences on the development of popular music throughout the United States.
Although instrumental accompaniment is almost universal in the blues, the blues is essentially a vocal kind. Blues songs are lyrical rather than narrative; blues vocalists are expressing feelings rather than telling stories. The emotion expressed is normally one of melancholy or depression, commonly due to problems in love.
Normally the first two and a half measures of each line are given to the last measure, singing and a half comprising an instrumental “break” that responses, recurs, or complements the vocal line. When it comes to functional (i.e., conventional European) harmony, the most straightforward 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):
Acoustic Blues Guitar Teacher 4280 Stockleigh Queensland.
African influences are apparent in the blues tonality, the call-and-response pattern of the imitation of vocal idioms by instruments, the falsetto break in the vocal style, and the repeated refrain structure of the blues stanza, particularly the guitar and harmonica.
The origins of the blues are poorly recorded. Blues developed in the southern United States after the American Civil War (1861–65). Blues derived from and was largely played by Southern black men, most of whom came from the milieu of agricultural workers.
The first references to blues date s back to the 1890s and early 1900. In 1912 black bandleader W.C. Handy’s composition “Memphis Blues” was released. It became very popular, and thereafter many other Tin Pan Alley tunes entitled blues started to appear.
Jefferson, Blind Lemon [Credit: Archive Photos]The rural blues grown in Texas, Georgia and the Carolinas, three principal areas, and Mississippi. The blues of the Carolinas and Georgia is noted for its clarity of enunciation and regularity of beat. Affected by ragtime and white folk music, it’s more melodic than the Texas and Mississippi styles.
The Texas blues is characterized by high, sharp singing accompanied by supple guitar lines that consist usually of single -string picked arpeggios rather than strummed chords. Blind Lemon Jefferson was by far the most powerful Texas bluesman. Mississippi Delta blues is the most intense of the three styles and has been the most influential. Vocally, it’s the most language-like, and the guitar accompaniment is rhythmic and percussive; a slide or bottleneck is regularly used. The Mississippi style is signified by Charley Patton, Eddie (“Son”) House, and Robert Johnson, among others.
Acoustic Blues Guitar Teacher 4280 Stockleigh Queensland.
Rainey, Ma [Credit: Archive Photos]The first blues records were made in the 1920s by black women like Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, and Bessie Smith. These performers were primarily stage singers backed by jazz bands; their style is referred to as classic blues.
The World Wars and the Great Depression caused the geographic dispersal of the blues as millions of blacks left the South for the cities of the North. The blues became adapted to the more advanced urban environment. The harmonica that was amplified and the electric guitar created a driving sound of emotional and rhythmic intensity that was great.
Hooker, John Lee [Credit: John Lee Hooker settled in Detroit, and on the West Coast Aaron (“T-Bone”) Walker developed a style later adopted by Riley (“B.B.”) King.
It was Chicago, however, that played the greatest part in the development of urban blues.
Many other musical styles have been affected by the blues. Blues and jazz are closely associated; such seminal jazzmen as Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong employed blues elements in their music. Rhythm and soul music and blues also reveal shapes and clear blues tonalities. The blues have had their greatest impact on rock music.
Early rock singers for example Elvis Presley often used blues material. British rock musicians in the 1960s, especially the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and John Mayall, were powerfully affected by the blues, as were such American rock musicians as Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, and the Allman Brothers Band.
Acoustic Blues Guitar Teacher Stockleigh 4280 Queensland