West African Music Instruments
There are a number of competing entities that want to take credit for the origins of the slide used in guitar playing. The Hawaiian influence can not be denied. But it is known that in West Africa a string attached to a gourd was played with a bow and the pitch changed by sliding a bone on the string.
The Slide For Guitar Playing
The west African traditional music brought to America with the slaves combined with the slide for guitar playing created a haunting sound that increased the popularity of the guitar. A prerequiset of the slide was an American version of the West African bow called the jitterbug. This was used by negro slaves in the early 1900's in what would be an early version of blues. When
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the string was plucked a slide, possibly bone, slid along a single string. The sound could be similar to the human voice and caused a haunting sound. The Guitar Is Cheaper And More Portable Than The Piano The guitar was becoming more popular in the early 1900's because of cost and portability. It could be mail ordered and was a way for those living in rural areas to get a musical instrument. With the African experience of the jitterbug it was a natural progression for useing knives, bone or glass to change pitch on the strings of a guitar. The Hawaiian Influence The guitar was becoming more common and very important in the development of "roots Music." A Hawaiian musician by the name of Joseph Kekeku made a slide guitar recording.
It was popular in the states and added to the popularity of the Negro slide blues style. The music spread and caused manufacturers to increase production of guitars. National, Gibson and Rickenbacker were producing resonators. The Hawaiian lap steel was becoming more popular than the Spanish-style guitars. The Hawaiian influence began to spread into all types of folk music. Blues, mountain hillbilly and country with a dobro style all added slide into their repertoire.
The Development Of Slide Guitar
Although differing cultures like to lay claim to inventing slide guitar it developed by a cross section of nationalities. The American melting pot helped the development as it did with all the roots to major genres of music. The development of slide led to the likes of Robert Johnson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House and many more. Slide guitar is an American phenomena just like Rock and Roll, Jazz, Cajun, Motown, Bluegrass, Country Western and Swing.
Top Slide Guitar Players
.Muddy Waters
. Bonnie Rate
. Robert Johnson
. Johnny
Winter . Son House . Mississippi Fred McDowell [caption id="attachment_5011" align="alignright" width="150"] Playing Slide Guitar[/caption] . Roy Rodgers ( not the cowboy ) . Rory Block . Elmore James . Ry Cooder . Blind Willey McTell . Joe Walsh . Lead Belly . Eric Clapton . John Fehey . Leo Kottke There are many more. Most of these players can be found on youtube. Leo Kottke and Ry Cooder are two that influenced me into playing slide. Please check my What is slide guitar page.
The African empires, kingdoms, and cities had many achievements before the arrival of the Europeans. Some of these achievements had influences many other places in the world. Three major achievements were the trading systems, their military forces and strengths of its people, and the wealth and success.
It is believed that the Irish brought to the region the fiddle and the pipes. It is believed that the first stringed instrument, the dulcimer was brought by the Germans, Norwegians, Swedish and French. The dulcimer became known as the 1“Hog Fiddle” or “Music Box”.
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, more commonly known as Jelly Roll Morton, was born to a creole family in a poor neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. Morton lived with several family members in different areas of New Orleans, exposing him to different musical worlds including European and classical music, dance music, and the blues (Gushee, 394). Morton tried to play several different instruments including the guitar; however, unsatisfied with the teachers’ lack of training, he decided to teach himself how to play instruments without formal training (Lomax, 8). ...
The pioneers of the blues normally used guitars to play their music. Blues music is currently accompanied by both traditional instruments and pre-designed digital sounds unlike in the past. This has be...
Commonly referred to as the “King of the Surf Guitar”, Dick Dale brought about the genre now known as “Surf Rock” with his fierce brand of guitar playing which took the ears of many by surprise. Dale was instrumental in the use of high powered guitar amplifiers, reverberation as an effect and also the rise of heavy metal.
Throughout the semester, various styles of music and the aspects of culture associated with these styles have been analyzed. Musical elements such as dynamics, texture, form, timbre, melody, instruments, etc., have been used to thoroughly explore each kind of music from different areas of the world, with an emphasis in music from Africa, India and Indonesia. These aspects of music go far beyond just music itself. Culture also plays a huge role in music and the accompanying musical elements. Each country and culture has a different style and distinctiveness that add to what makes the music of that certain culture unique. Music in Africa may differ dramatically from music in Indonesia or India not only due to those certain elements but also due to how it is interpreted by people and what it represents for those people. In addition to this, what one may consider music in one culture may not be music to another. These differences have been made apparent in the several demonstrations that we have been exposed to in class.
Towards the end of the 19th century, music brought over to the states by African slaves began to develop. Work songs, chants and shouts were the beginnings of the earliest form of blues: Delta blues. Delta blues was so called after the Mississippi Delta, where the towns and plantations that the original blues men and women worked were located. “The guitar and the harmonica were the primary tool of the Delta bluesman, mostly due to the ease of carrying them around, and many of the musicians of the Early Blues era (1910-1950) were sharecroppers, or worked on one of the many plantations that were located across the Mississippi Delta.” (Gordon, 2014) As well as guitar and harmonica, homemade instruments such as the diddley bow were very common amongst Delt...
It should be brief but comprehensive, as it may also be the introduction of the music to teachers as a study guide before or after an in-school presentation, or they may include this information in a history of social studies discussion if a program presentation is not possible. Bluegrass Music: The Roots. The street balladry of the people who began migrating to America in the early 1600s is considered to be the roots of traditional American music. As the early Jamestown settlers began to spread out into the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Virginias, they composed new songs about day to day experiences in the new land. Since most of these people lived in rural areas, the songs reflected life on the farm or in the hills and this type of music was called "mountain music" or "country music." The invention of the phonograph and the onset of the radio in the early 1900s brought this old-time music out of the rural Southern mountains to people all over the United States.
When country music bean in America, there were no professional musicians. The typical musician sang only to entertain himself, his family, or at local events. At first, most country music was sung unaided or played on a lone fiddle or banjo. At the turn of the century, Sears, Roebuck & Co. began advertising affordable guitars in its nationally available catalogs, as well as sheet music and songbooks. The mandolin also became available and soon string bands were being formed with different combinations of instruments.
On November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington a later-to-be-known legend was born as James Marshall. This future guitar master went by the name of Jimi, Jimi Hendrix. His childhood was not very fortunate, however, he did indulge himself in one particular way: Jimi loved to play the guitar. Jimi could never afford to take lessons so he taught himself. At first he played an old acoustic guitar, and later a cheap Silvertone electric. Both of these guitars were both strung for a lefty on a right-handed guitar, one of the defining Hendrix traits. Jimi would have preferred to play a guitar that was made for lefty's but his parents wouldn't pay the extra money because they were extremely poor.
His stage presence was far superior to any other performer of rock and roll during that time era. One of the things that Hendrix was know for was being a left-handed guitar player, however, played a right-handed guitar that was strung for a lefty. This made the guitar react and sound completely different than a normal guitar would sound. He favored high volume and gain through overdriven amplifiers and was instrumental in utilizing guitar amplifier feedback. According to Holly George-Warren of the Rolling Stones, "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began." His advanced use and creativity of the guitar led to a wah-wah effect which would eventually chang the way rock and roll would be played forever. When he was performing on stage he would set his amplifiers on max, later known as the Hendrix setting. Another trademark of Hendrix was his unique ability to be one of a kind on stage and truly express himself. While playing he would perform stunts such as playing the guitar behind his back, under his legs, and even with his teeth. His performances were nonetheless unforgettable especially when he set his guitar on fire and afterward smashed it during the Monterey Pop Festival. An iconic picture of Jimmi Hendrix on his knees with his hands raised high and his guitar burning on the floor in front of him would symbolize rock and roll in the years to come. His magnificent and odd way of playing would be something the people loved and envied. Hendrix would set the bar for future rock and rollers with his outstanding and innovative performances on
The blues, a uniquely American art form, was born on the dusty street corners of the Deep South in the late 1800s. An evolution of West African music brought to the United States by slaves, created the blues which was a way for black people in the south to express their hardships, heartbreaks, religion, passion, and politics that they experienced in their day-to-day lives. The majority of blues songs were never written down, let alone recorded, but instead, were passed on from one musician to another and played on a variety of instruments including a number of stringed instruments, harmonicas, and horns. Once blues songs began to be officially recorded in the 1920s, the most frequently found instruments were guitars and pianos. However, the basic 12-bar style and three.-chord progression have remained the same throughout the years and continue to be key components of the blues.
Widely recognized as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 20th century, Jimi Hendrix pioneered the explosive possibilities of the electric guitar. Hendrix's innovative style of combining fuzz, feedback and controlled distortion created a new musical form. Because he was unable to read or write music, it is nothing short of remarkable that Jimi Hendrix's meteoric rise in the music took place in just four short years. His musical language continues to influence a host of modern musicians, from George Clinton to Miles Davis, and Steve Vai to Jonny Lang.
Music before the 20th century was very different when compared to the music of the 21st Century. There were distinctive occasions for each type of African music. West African music, the African Diaspora, and the music of the Colonies each had different musical instruments.
The Genesis of Modern Western Instruments Tracing Back to the Development of African Instruments The statement the genesis of modern western instruments can be traced back to the development of African instruments basically indicates that the origins of the music we use today come from the developments from Africa. To look at this statement briefly one may say that it is a very untrue statement. Even when studied briefly one will still say that it is very untrue. But when studied in detail, the continent of Africa was responsible for the development of the simple categories of the aerophones, membranophones and the chordophones. Music is such an important part of African life and always has been therefore the people used whatever they could to make their music.