What Elements Of African Music Ended Up In The Blues?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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What elements of African music ended up in the blues? Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s by African-Americans from roots in African-American work songs and spirituals. Blues incorporated

spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads

.

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What are some African music elements that influenced blues?

African influences are apparent in the blues tonality, the call-and-response pattern of the repeated refrain structure of the blues stanza, the falsetto break in the vocal style, and the imitation of vocal idioms by instruments, especially the guitar and harmonica.

Which elements are used in blues music?

The main features of blues include:

specific chord progressions, a walking bass, call and response, dissonant harmonies, syncopation, melisma and flattened ‘blue’ notes

. Blues is known for being microtonal, using pitches between the semitones defined by a piano keyboard.

What are the African roots of the blues?

The blues emerged from

the oppressed, economically disadvantaged African-American communities in the rural southern states of America

in the years following the American Civil War (1861–1865). Blues singers were descendants of slaves and elements of their music reach back to African origins.

What are the 3 elements of blues?

  • the harmony is predominately related to the tonic , subdominant and dominant.
  • minor 7th chords and other chord extensions are heard.
  • dissonant harmonies are a common feature.

What are elements of African music present in the blues quizlet?

African elements:

style, rhythms, tonal and timbral flexibility

. Define the form and structure of the blues. Consider both musical and textual characteristics.

What influenced the blues?

Blues developed in the southern United States after the American Civil War (1861–65). It was influenced by work songs and field hollers, minstrel show music, ragtime, church music, and the folk and popular music of the white population.

How do you define blues music?

Blues is

a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s by African-Americans from roots in African-American work songs and spirituals

. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.

Which form is the most common type of blues music?

The most common musical form of blues is the

12-bar blues

. The term “12-bar” refers to the number of measures, or musical bars, used to express the theme of a typical blues song.

Why is it called blues music?

The name of this great American music

probably originated with the 17th-century English expression “the blue devils,” for the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal

. Shortened over time to “the blues,” it came to mean a state of agitation or depression.

Why is there a link between African music and the blues?

In the United States, African music evolved into what we now call Blues.

Blues music is the product of African and European influences during slavery times

. It is a fusion of African musical traditions, African American field hollers and work songs, spirituals, and European-American folk music.

How did the blues develop?

The origins and birth of the blues

Although the blues evolved in the southern states of the USA from the late 19th century, it has lots of musical influences from Africa. African enslaved people brought their musical traditions with them when they were transported to work in the North American colonies.

Which cultural practice was part of the origin of blues music?

Blues is a musical form originated by African Americans in the Southern United States towards the turn of the 19th-20th century, as a genre developed from the roots in

African-American work songs and European-American folk music

.

What tempo is blues music?

Tempo Information

The Blues is generally danced to music in a 4/4 meter

between 40 and 100 beats per minute

(10 and 25 measures per minute). Click here to see a list of Blues songs between 10 and 25 measures per minute.

What is unique about blues music?

Within the scales, blues has the unique feature of

shifting seamlessly between major and minor keys

. The classic example of this is the “blue note,” which hovers in between the notes of the typical Western scales.

How many types of blues are there?

But would you know what genre of blues you’re hearing? Blues comes in many different flavors,

roughly 25

of them, each with their own nuances and style. Here are a few of the most popular genres of blues music and how you can recognize them from the first note!

What African and European musical elements are evident in the blues?

What African and European musical elements are evident in the blues?

African American element are evident in style particularly the music’s tone. European elements are evident in the form of harmony and instrumentation.

Where and when did the Blues develop what African and European musical elements are evident in the blues?

What African and European musical elements are evident in the blues? –

Blues started in the Deep South between Georgia and Easter Texas around the early 1900’s

. – The melodic structure can be derived from the field holler, a work song with forceful delivery.

Where did the blues originate quizlet?

How did blues music originate?

African American workers in the South

drew from the music of African American slaves to create the blues. The blues have roots in African musical traditions and originated from an unaccompanied vocal tradition of poor, African American workers in the South.

Who started the blues music?

Handy. While is there isn’t a definite origin as to who exactly created the Blues, we do have a good idea as to how it came to us today:W.C. Handy. William Christopher Handy was born in Alabama in 1873 and who worked a number of odd jobs before establishing himself as both a musician and a music teacher.

What are the characteristics of Afro American blues?

African influences have been apparent in the blues tonality from its beginning;

the call and response pattern of the repeated refrain; the falsetto break in the vocal style; and the imitation of vocals by instruments, especially the guitar and harmonica

.

How has blues influenced music today?

The genre

pioneered new styles in guitar-playing, and its broad musical influences combined to create a truly unique and unheard of sound

. Rock music takes its cues from blues, and its footprints are easily visible from Led Zeppelin to Lynyrd Skynyrd to the Allman Brothers.

What is an example of blues music?


“Rocket Boogie” by Pete Johnson

. During the big band craze, blues in the form of boogie-woogie blues began to show up. The “Rocket Boogie” is an excellent example of solo piano utilizing the stressed rhythms of blues while utilizing the bent notes and twelve-bar phrasing trademark of blues.

What genres came from blues?

The blues has influenced or contributed to many different musical genres (

rock and roll, pop, heavy metal, country, jazz, hip-hip, rap, classical

, etc.)

What are the 5 types of blues?

Modern studies of the blues identify a range of different styles of blues:

delta blues, country blues, down-home blues, urban blues, harmonica blues

and so on.

What is the most common meaning of the word blues in this musical context?

What is the most common meaning of the word “blues” in this musical context?

A state of agitation or depression

(depressed mood)

Which rhythm and blues artist is known as much for his signature beat as for his songs?

What was Chester Burnett’s stage name? What rhythm and blues artist is known as much for his “beat” as for his songs?

Muddy Waters

used his real name, McKinley Morganfield, as a songwriter.

What is the basis of the blues?

The Foundation


The Blues is built around a chord progression known as the 1 • 4 • 5 progression

, also written in Roman numerals as I – IV – V. This chord sequence has been around in folk songs, ballads and in hymns since antiquity and is derived from a chord relationship model known as the circle of fifths.

What is the true meaning of the blues?

1 :

low spirits

: melancholy suffering a case of the blues. 2 : a song often of lamentation characterized by usually 12-bar phrases, 3-line stanzas in which the words of the second line usually repeat those of the first, and continual occurrence of blue notes in melody and harmony.

How does blues relate to the African tradition?

They were also a means of telling stories, passing along news, plotting escapes, and releasing frustrations. The early blues carried on the tradition of

voicing black aspirations and experiences

. This lesson explores both the African American oral tradition and the relationship of this tradition to the blues.

What impact did African music have on the blues and then rock and roll?

Rock and roll practically owes itself to African music because of how much it contributed.

IF you added a perfect amount swing and boogie-woogie with a deep African rhythm and blues, you’d get rock and roll.

How did the blues emerge from slavery?


The majority of blues musicians had descendants from Africa who were transported to America in the slave trade and were forced to work on plantations in the South, and factories in the North

. Enslaved people would sing work songs while working the plantations and religious spirituals in church.

Did slaves make blues music?

Contrary to what some people believe,

the blues is not “slave music.”

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.

Does blues come from Africa?

Although many would point to the blues having come from places like the Mississippi Delta,

the blues really originates from West Africa

. It began with the musical cultures of African people who were brought to American due to the slave trade.

Does blues have a rhythm?

Rhythm and blues Typical instruments Electric guitar Double bass Drums Electric organ Saxophone Piano Horn

Which scale is used in the blues?


The blues scale

is a six-note progression that sounds right at home in blues, rock, and country music. This scale is essentially the pentatonic scale plus one chromatic note, often called the blue note.

Emily Lee
Author
Emily Lee
Emily Lee is a freelance writer and artist based in New York City. She’s an accomplished writer with a deep passion for the arts, and brings a unique perspective to the world of entertainment. Emily has written about art, entertainment, and pop culture.