What Role Does Blues Play In Today's Music

1711 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What type of music was the root of blues

Blues has played an extreme role in todays’ music. The music genre of blues, helps us express ourselves in which you can feel it from the ubiquitous in the jazz to the blues scale and the specific chord progressions. To start off, the blues is musically originated by African Americans in the deep South of the United States. Growing up in a southern household, I was used to listening to a variety music, but blues was always most listened to. Every time I listen to blues, the lyrics often deal with personal adversity, and it goes far beyond pity. The blues is also about saying what you feel the moment expressing yourself without even caring what others think which is kind of like modern day rap. In American history, the blues all started on Southern …show more content…

Like mentioned before, blues did evolve around early jazz in which it from bands and gospel choirs. Also, when the bands of country blues moved around to different cities, it took on very different characteristics. Blues started spreading everywhere, are there were different kinds of blues in which many people inhabited. There was Memphis blues, St. Louis blues, and the Louisiana blues, in which many people took on different styles of the blues. This shows that the style of blues had peregrinated to all over the United …show more content…

Along with the blues, R&B has soul in which is shown to express the artist deep feelings and emotions. The genre truly transmits as much emotion within the music. For example, another group that includes the blues in their song is the Black street, “No Diggity”. As well as the famous legend Erykah Badu in which you can feel her feelings and her emotions throughout all of her music. This soul music was a combination of R&B and gospel music that began around the 1950s. Soul was spreaded throughout the nation in which a lot many people of races took on such as, Aretha Franklin, Sonny & Cher, Teena Marie, as well as Otis Redding. Soul music is defined as a something powerful and it was a mainstream black pop in American music. Soul music had a meaningful impact in which you can feel where its coming from. Soul music had grown and changed, and it kept up with time. Like the blues, soul music originated from the South from the African American community in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Many artists of the period, refined the era. In soul music, most of it was spirit oriented as far as involving but when the genre got older they removed the gospel message but keeping the same musical techniques, feelings, and

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Walking Blues Vs Kentucky

    579 Words  | 2 Pages

    As time progressed, music had to continue to evolve to keep up with the ever-changing styles. Blues slowly began to morph into Rock and Roll to engage people of a new era. While many changes occurred in creating Rock and Roll, it continued to carry undertones of the Blues. This can be heard while comparing Son House’s, “Walking Blues” and Elvis Presley’s, “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” These two songs show many similarities, while also having their own identities.

    Read More

  • R & B Research Paper

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    Soul music was developed in the late 1950s from African American church music called Gospel music. After slavery ended in1865, African American were not welcomed in the church of White Americans, so they built their own churches and sang Christian songs with African American vocal styles and rhythm. As the civil rights movement, staged bigger and bigger demonstrations and increase in African American pride “Soul music” became more than party music for young blacks: it became a rallying flag for the Black nationalist movement. Soul music was born thanks to the innovations of continuous post-war musicians who essentially turned Gospel music into a secular form of

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Music In Sonny's Blues

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    Perhaps the blues was representation of optimism and faith for the entire city of Harlem and all of African-American descent. Music is portrayed fluently and abundantly throughout the entire story of “Sonny’s Blues”. Despite the fact that Sonny frequently plays the piano, there is always a juke box playing, the “humming an old church song”, a “jangling beat of a tambourine”, a tune being whistled, or a revival meeting with the singing of religious words (Baldwin 293-307). The repetition of music in the short story is a realistic portrayal of how regular the blues, musically and emotionally, was present in an African-American’s life during the era of racial discrimination. Flibbert explains that the rooted, burdensome emotion felt by African Americans is difficult to put to words, other than describing it as the blues. He best defines the blues as “a mental and emotional state arising from recognition of limitation imposed-in the case of African-Americans-by racial barriers to the community” (Flibbert). Though a definite definition exists, the blues cannot simply be construed. To cope with this unexplainable feeling of blue, the African-American folk genre of jazz music was created. Finally, the blues was something African-Americans owned and that the white man could not strip them of. Though music appears to show up at the most troublesome times in “Sonny’s Blues”, it brings along “a glimmer of life within the

    Read More

  • Themes Of Sonny's Blues

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    For the author, the blues are more universal than a specific type of music. The narrator describes that the blues are "the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph." With this quote, the story "Sonny's Blues" is actually a blues piece: it starts with the suffering that the two brothers face, continues with their developing communion, and ends with brotherly love and triumphs over loneliness and suffering. The story "Sonny's Blues" is like Sonny's actual music, because it tries to bring people together and, through that link of grace and understanding, to relieve suffering. The author is not playing the blues but actually putting it down in writing. The title "Sonny's Blues" doesn’t describe the music Sonny plays but it tells Sonny's story of suffering and overcoming his obstacles, through his music.

    Read More

  • Birth Of Blues Essay

    3363 Words  | 7 Pages

    Musicologists have dated the ‘birth’ of blues to be around 1890 as a West African tradition involving blue indigo in which mourners at ceremonies would wear blue dyed attires to resemble their suffering . Although, blues derived from times of slavery, the Prohibition Era (1920’s), World War Two (1939-1945), and during the Vietnam War (predominantly 1960’s to 1970’s), it has been a continuously evolved form of music in America, in which the similarities have always remained; melancholy and protest.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Blame It On The Blues By Angela Davis

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blues music emerged as an African American music genre derived from spiritual and work songs at the end of the 19th century and became increasingly popular across cultures in America. The Blues is the parent to modern day genre’s like jazz, rhythm and blue and even rock and roll, it uses a call-and-response pattern. While Blues songs frequently expressed individual emotions and problems, such as lost love, they were also used to express despair at social injustice. Even though Blues singing was started by men, it became increasing popular among women, creating one of the first feminist movements. Ma Rainey, a pioneer in women’s

    Read More

  • Soul Music Research Paper

    564 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blue Eyed Soul is R&B and Soul music performed by white artists. Particularly sung by British singers like Amy Winehouse who were influenced by Stax and Motown. Psychedelic Soul music, sometimes referred to as Black Rock, was created in the 1960’s which later transformed into Funk.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Ragtime In The Emergence Of Jazz

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    One similarity is the fact that both ragtime and blues were originally played by African Americans, and surfaced in areas with great ethno-diversity. Moreover, both are attributed to being crucial in the rising of jazz, however many say that ragtime’s impact was much more substantial compared to that of the blues. In Ted Giova’s book The History of Jazz he states how “ragtime music rivals the blues in importance---and perhaps surpasses it in influence---as a predecessor to early jazz. Indeed, in the early days of New Orleans jazz, the line between ragtime and jazz was so fine that the two terms were often used interchangeably” (20) Meaning, that although both musical genres contained their own significance, ragtime’s outweighed that of the blues and by 1914 ragtime was Americas most popular music. Unlike ragtime, blues included hardly any syncopation and was known for its improvisation. This improvisation was a large part of the blues and often it was the leader would take the first solo, then after the chorus was winding down the soloist would commonly turn to someone in the band and nod at them implying that it is their turn, with usually the last improviser being the bass player. Blues songs also were known for their way of expressing emotions, both negative and positive, while on the other hand one would usually listen to ragtime more commonly if they wanted to feel the peppier, syncopated, tone of ragtime. This is probably the result of the fact that blues songs tended to be at a slower pace, specifically the 12-bar blues in the AABA form with 3 chord patters, while ragtime consisted of its ragged syncopated rhythm. Moreover, the early stages of blues did not rely on any instruments, but solely the vocals of an individual along

    Read More

  • R And B Music Essay

    627 Words  | 2 Pages

    What are some types of Rand B music that stands out in the world? In this essay I would be discussing three types of Rand B music; rhythm and blues, contemporary r and b, and r and b soul. Rhythm and blues regularly abbreviated as R&B, is a classification of popular African American music that started in the 1940s. Music can sooth the soul if one listens to different kinds of R&B music. In this essay, I would like to discuss the different categories of R&B music. There are many types of music in the world however, the one that stands out in everyone's brain is the sound of rhythm and blues. It has been around for a very long time. It has taught individuals interest around the globe. Rhythm and blues began in the late 1940s by slaves in the south which brought about new music, designed, and move styles.

    Read More

  • American Music at the Turn of the 20th Century

    2093 Words  | 5 Pages

    When exploring Jazz music, it is essential to explore its roots in Blues Music. Derived from the regional traditions of the south and ethnic traditions surrounding the slaving culture of the 1800s, Blues music can be traced back to the Mississippi Delta plantations and industries that demanded heavy manual labour for Blacks (Crawford, 2001b, 557). The blues inspired jazz at the end of the nineteenth century and i...

    Read More

  • The Roots Of Blues Music

    434 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Blues started in the late 1800's in levee camps or plantations in places like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were many African Americans lived. The blues of that time was called country blues. It was a mixture of African music, field hollers, work songs, religious music, and ragtime.

    Read More

  • Similarities of hip-hop and the blues

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    For Stanley, the blues tell the stories of the African-American community. Some of the stories talk about the harshness of their lives, but they also talk about the good times they had. [People] play the blues to get rid of the blues not to get them." (Lamb, 1). When people play or even listen to the blues, they are letting all of their worries go. They are not worrying about their job, the bills, or their kids. They are just trying to enjoy the moment when the blues are playing. The blues are some people's release from the stresses of their lives.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Western Music After Rock And Roll

    485 Words  | 1 Pages

    It also has more instruments involved such as the piano keys and drums. It became popular by black musicians and was intended for black audiences. It was music that meant something to these segregated people and lifted them up when they were down. Some would claim that the Blues not only influenced the colored, but also corrupted the white youth making them segregate against them in the early to late 1950s. That is when jazz and started out with some great Blues singers who did not partake in racial issues and just wanted to create music.

    Read More

  • Black Music: The Evolution Of Black Culture

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gospel had evolved into Jazz, which had slower beats, and the made the surroundings, the mood feel more ‘soothing’. Country then came about, the origins originating from Blues and Folk music. That style expressed work in both the white and the black classes. Rock and Roll sprouted, and Pop and Soul, bringing a whole new sound in the music industry. Reggae was a style of music that would express politics and religion… mainly. The most recent type of music today is hip hop and rap, which would provide storytelling, in a different type of manner. Many of the music now originated from these genres, and there is now a month dedicated to Black music, which celebrates the “African-American musical influences that comprise an important part of our nation's treasured cultural heritage” (Celebrating Black Music

    Read More

  • The 20th Century

    1855 Words  | 4 Pages

    The music of the blues expresses feelings of oppression and sadness. It contained elements from the African American tradition like syncopated rhythms, growls, slides, and blue notes. There were two major kinds of blues, the Delta and Classic blues. The Delta Blues had more of the older style and traditions in it. They were usually performed by African-American males playing guitar.

    Read More

More about What Role Does Blues Play In Today's Music

Open Document