Blues and R&B Flashcards
What is the blues scale?
Blues musicians use the blues scale when they are playing. The blues scale is a particular set of blue notes, with certain ones that are bent, within the octave. If we have the notes of the major scale, do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do, we can also sing (or play) them as numbers: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8,
Blues musicians didn’t think that way, as in they didn’t think about the major scale. Instead, they would “play around” with certain notes, mainly bending notes around 3, in the region between 4 and 5, then sometimes a little lower than 7.
It’s a pentatonic scale meaning it has five notes: one two three four five in total
What is the origin of rural blues?
The earliest report of the blues is from 1902 or 1903.
originated in an area of north Mississippi called the Mississippi Delta
The blues is a style of music used for entertainment, and this “rural blues” was usually sung by a bluesman and accompanied by guitar and sometimes a harmonica (called a “harp”—not to be confused with the large stringed instrument). he would usually travel between farming areas (previous plantations) in the rural south. At Juke joints.
Predecessors of the blues are work songs, griots (bards), the diddley bow, spirituals, and other sacred singing.
What is sharecropping?
In the case of farming alone, white landowners set the price for renting land, prices for grain or tools. Freed slaves rented or purchased these on credit (a high price). Then, African Americans had to sell their harvest back to the sharecroppers (at a low price). For the white landowners, the practice ensured that the harvest would be less than what was owing, driving African American farmers further and further into dept.
What is the cultural backdrop of the early blues?
. Leisure was restricted by hard economic conditions. Politically, all African Americans were confronted with new social and economic circumstances. Work experiences were characterized by isolation and solitude, which encouraged a culture of individuality (yet, in a good way for music).
What where juke joints?
The earliest juke joints started after Emancipation (ca. 1865). They were shacks close to sharecropping farms, and were meeting places for games, food, drinking, or the weekly “Fish Fry” on Saturday night—a weekend community party before church on Sunday. These juke joints and weekly parties were everywhere. Bluesmen would travel from juke joint to juke joint, offering music for the parties (and other times of the week) for free board, some food, and drinks.
What is the potential pitfall in studying the rural blues recorded in the id 1920’s?
The rural blues recorded in the mid-1920s poses a few problems for studying the music. Did it really sound that way in 1902? It likely did, but maybe not. The rural musicians would have wanted a “hit” of their own in the 1920s, and the Classic blues was being heard in performance as early as 1914, giving about 10 years of popular blues music to be integrated into the rural blues style.
What were the musical features of early rural blues?
From the evidence of what we have, the musical features of the earliest rural blues were:
> Acoustic instruments such as the guitar, harp, washboard or the gut bucket (also called a washtub bass).
> Lyrical texts based on stories and associative logic
> Alternating spoken and sung passages.
> Flexible forms: “free” or “open” forms (with no determined sections), or chord changes that resemble verse/chorus or the 12-bar blues,
> A talking instrumental ideal: talking instruments (like “talking “drums—drums played to resemble speech sounds) is an African survival. The diddley bow has a “talking instrumental ideal” with sounds that have timbral variation, much like the sounds of speech. The talking instrumental ideal in blues playing comes from slide guitar, and of course, call-and-response patterns between singing and guitar playing.
> Songs assembled from a shared pool of resources: musicians would “sample,” meaning that they would combine different songs, take short excerpts from songs and insert them into new ones, or mimic non-musical sounds such as playing the guitar to sound like a train.
Who was Robert Johnson?
Robert Johnson played at juke joints, but wasn’t recorded until the mid-1930s. He is retroactively more popular than other rural bluesmen for a compilation of a records issued by Columbia (major record label) in 1961 called King of the Delta Blues Singers. The album was important for many blues revival and blues rock groups of the 1960s.
First, he made the guitar more central to blues playing. Previously, the guitar was used for entertaining, and accompanying singing and stories for rural bluesmen. The myth about Johnson was that he sold his soul to the devil to become a famous guitar player (to be a virtuoso guitarist). So, this is one example of how the guitar gained more prominence in the blues tradition.
The second thing we will hear in Johnson’s recordings is how flexible forms of the rural blues were similar—but not the same—as the 12-bar blues.
How does Urban blues break from rural blues?
There is the same main “riff” and similar lyrics. The urban blues has a clearer structure. There are clear sections 4-bar phrases, and all bars have 4 beats. One reason for the change is simply a style change. Another reason is more practical: when playing in a band, everyone needs to play together. Having a flexible form at the whims of the lead performer just wouldn’t work.
The industry had two important parts for popularizing the urban blues. What were they?
The first was Chess Records. This was an independent (minor) record label in Chicago. It focused on recording African American music, including jazz, gospel, the blues, and Rhythm & Blues. It gained fame from its “Chicago Blues” recordings, a subset of the general urban blues style.
Another important development in the music industry was WDIA radio out of Memphis It was the first radio for all African American music. It started in 1948 as a small regional station broadcasting at 250 Watts In 1954, it was given a licence for a 50,000 Watt broadcast, delivering African American music to more than 30 states.
What are the traits of the urban blues?
> Electric instruments.
More instruments (such as horns, bass, drums, piano or organ).
An increase in volume and density (due to more instruments).
Instrumental specialization: vocals, a rhythm section of guitar, bass, drums and organ, and a front line of guitar, harp, and horns.
Clearly defined song forms (like the 12-bar blues).
Clear diction (a singing style to hear words more clearly).
Unified song themes (songs having common themes of, for example, love, sex, or hard living conditions).
What was jump blues?
Rhythm & Blues was a genre that grew out of big band jazz. Economic conditions around World War II made it difficult for big bands to tour, and having a band of 18 to 25 members was just too costly. Many bands stripped down into 4 to 8 people and used the blues as the main repertoire.
The urban blues style was called jump blues, a subset of R&B, and incorporated many urban blues features with instrumentation from jazz: piano is the main front-line instrument (not the guitar), and the saxophone as a solo instrument (providing the response in the call-and-response patterns, and as a solo instrument).
The saxes honked blues riffs based on the blues scale. The vocalists were loud. Together, they were called “honkers and shouters.”
What meaning did jump blues take?
jump blues also took on a macho, sexual meaning. The lyrics were sexual, and quite explicit (especially for young adults).
Musically, the African American singer was exotic—the deep shouting voice became a musical signifier of sexuality.
The saxophone—associated with black music of the 1940s—was also exotic, and considered sexual.
This interpretation was common among black and white audiences. For white audiences, especially parents, black sexuality was explicit for their young girls and boys.
