What is the blues? musical styles. blues music

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Blues is a direction in music that originated in the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, it became very popular and is still winning the hearts of listeners. Blues is music that mixes African American musical styles such as work song, spirituals and cholera.

What is the blues?

This translates from English as "sorrow". The size of blues works is mainly 4/4, although an eighth triplet with a pause (shuffle) is often used. The pace can be arbitrary, but most often it is slow. Blues belongs to the improvisational genres of music, that is, the composition already has some kind of basis, which is played up by solo instruments, as if conducting a dialogue with each other, arguing, competing.

The most common form of compositions is a period of 12 or 16 bars. The musical compositions of this genre have a characteristic feature - the use of lower steps - 3, 5 and 7 in natural major. This is the blues scale. The themes of the works are different, but for the most part it is unrequited love, hard overwork and the bitter bondage of slaves. Under the influenceblues originated such musical styles as pop, jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, soul and others.

The birth of the genre

In order to get a complete picture of what the blues is, you need to figure out where it originates from. This musical form originated in ancient times, when Africans were used as slaves, worked on plantations, and did the dirtiest work. They reflected all the hardships of their lives in working songs, originating in ethnic African music. Slaves sang during work and in their free time. Gradually, such songs were improved, and at some point the blues style was born from them. It is difficult to say with certainty exactly when this happened. The Mississippi Delta is considered to be the birthplace of the blues. Most of the performers of such a repertoire were slaves all their lives, and after the abolition of slavery, they worked in low-paid jobs, where they also did the dirtiest work, some became vagabonds or were interrupted by rare odd jobs. Some people managed to get jobs in some small eateries as singers and musicians, but they were paid little or even paid off with food.

Types of blues

There are more than 10 varieties of this musical direction, the brightest of which are urban blues, rhythm and blues and blues-rock.

Urban blues (original, very first) appeared after the American Civil War in the 1870s. It was invented by African Americans who began to move to live in cities. This direction remains in America forpeak popularity so far. Previously, the blues was performed exclusively by men, but over time, women began to perform it.

Rhythm and blues appeared and became popular during the Second World War. The leading performers who worked in this style among the first were Joe Turnet and Jimmy Rushing. At that time there was a change in the performance of the blues. New tools have appeared. To perform the blues, they began to use electric guitars, electric organs, bass guitars, microphones appeared, which began to amplify the voices of vocalists, and drums. Thanks to all this, an ensemble of four people got the opportunity to sound louder and more powerful than a whole big band of 18 people. Some of the most famous rhythm and blues performers are Chuck Bury, BB King and others. They modernized the blues even more, adding jazz rhythms and boogie-woogie style to it, gradually taking it away from the original folk version.

Blues-rock is an English direction, according to the official version, Jimi Hendrix became its ancestor. This style is characterized by a very loud and aggressive sound of electric guitars, drive, power, a huge number of speakers, and, of course, improvisation. Nowadays, this direction is no longer so popular, and there are not so many performers who play exactly blues-rock.

In Russia

Russian listeners learned about blues music around the late 60s - early 70s of the 20th century. Acquaintance with this musical style among the Soviet people came through such performers as Led Zeppelin, Johnny Winterand others. His own blues group appeared in the USSR in 1969, it was called "Successful Acquisition", the leader was Alexei Belov. In the 80s of the 20th century, the number of fans of this direction in music increased, and there were much more performers! After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians' access to this kind of music expanded, a large number of albums appeared on sale, clubs opened, festivals began to be held.

Modern blues artists

In our country today there are such blues groups and solo artists as:

• Cradle Rock;
• "Zoo";
• Yuri Naumov;
• "Lyapin Blues";
• "Zero";
• Ravonts;
• Stainless Blues Band;
• "Still Pool";
• Apache Blues.

World Blues Stars:

• Peter Noveli;
• Joe Bonamassa;
• Candy Kane;
• Suzan Tedeschi;
• Ken Saydak;
• Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears;
• Big Maybelle.

How to learn to play the blues on the piano

Surely there are music lovers who are interested in the question of how to play the blues. Of course, to begin with, you need a basic knowledge of the instrument and knowledge of solfeggio. First of all, you should understand that the main thing here is improvisation. To be able to play blues improvisations, it is necessary to master the form and harmony of the blues. First of all, you need to master the simplest mode - it is built on the basis of the minor pentatonic scale, you need to add the 5th reduced to itstep. That is, a small minor seventh chord is built, the 5th step is lowered and a blues pentatonic scale is obtained. There are various video tutorials with exercises that will help you achieve your goal. You can also find backing tracks recorded in various keys, which can be used as a basis for improvisations. Then you can move on to mastering the major pentatonic scale.

You can dance the blues

What is the blues in dancing? This is one of the most stylish modern trends. Blues dance is beautiful and harmonious. Previously, it was danced exclusively to blues accompaniment. Now everything has changed. It is already performed to any slow tunes that are similar in rhythm to the blues, for example, R'n'B.

What is blues dance? This is brightness, beauty, romance, elegance, attractiveness. And although it is performed slowly, it will certainly give the dancers a charge of vivacity, positive energy and help to gain self-confidence. This is a pair dance, where the partner and the partner perform movements that are opposite to each other. Basic pas are slow, long steps on straightened knees, which alternate with short side steps, accompanied by kicks with the free leg near the supporting leg and performed with relaxed knees.

How blues music affects a person

Scientists have long been studying how a particular musical direction affects the human body and his psyche. According toresearchers, blues music, just like classical music, is best able to help cope with depression, bad mood, allows you to relax, give rest to the body and soul. It promotes liberation from bad thoughts. But there will be a positive effect only if the blues music is liked by the person who decided to listen to it in order to cheer himself up. If it is not to your liking, then the positive dynamics will be insignificant. Or not at all.