The Ragtime And The Blues

Black folk traditions like spirituals and “ragged music” evolve into the blues, ragtime, and jazz.

The most obvious similarities between modern art and modern music from their Victorian counterparts was the large shift in subject matter. In art, the movement away from Ancient Greek and Roman influences to a focus on nitty-gritty dirty, poor Americans was enormous. The old portrait and nature based art reflected in the work of Victorian idealists conflicted with the abstract, vivid, eccentric works of the Modernists. Similarly, in modern Ragtime music, the new focus on adultery, sex, and sins also reflected the new naughty America. Both music and art began to focus on what was happening in America and what the younger generation felt, versus the old European influenced way that society was “supposed” to be. Another key similarity between the evolvement of music and art can be viewed by the change of techniques. From the use of hard brush-strokes to the jumbling of different shapes and colors, to a focus on societal imperfections, art again began to go again the Idealist norm and paint that which was truly there, not what was idolized. Similarly, the percussion-heavy, syncopated beats, and “blackness” of Ragtime music illustrated a huge change of heart. This music showed the eagerness of youth to truly take what they could from the new technological world. The modernization of both music and art was largely

The roots of modern american rock and roll music, are firmly planted in Africa. As the native Africans were torn apart from their family’s and brought to the new world their lives were immediately and drastically changed forever. Finding themselves immersed in a completely new environment with a foreign culture, they thankfully persevered and carried on with their own traditions and most importantly to this paper, musical ones. Most American slaves originated from Western and Central Africa. The West Africans carried a musical tradition rich with long melody lines, complicated rhythms (poly rhythmics) and stringed instruments CITATION. The West Africans music was also strongly integrated into their everyday lives. Songs were preformed for religious ceremonies and dances and music was often a

Thus the similarity between ragtime and blues is significant but there are numerous differences between the two music styles. First, their origin was different. Even though they both had African influence as mentioned, ragtime was more strongly influenced by European music style, and blues was heavily African music style. According to Durk Sutro in his book Jazz for Dummies, “Ragtime was European-influenced, in the sense that it was composed, not improvised, and featured carefully crafted melodies and harmonies…ragtime could sound concisely European” (ch.5). Although European-influenced, there is some African influence such as rhythm and African banjo music as mentioned during the lecture. Ragtime rhythm was “the rhythms of the black dancers who used their heels to make drum sounds, or to that of the black church singers who could vary the rhythms of a Christian hymn so much that a white Christian could not even recognize it”(Tirro, pp.37).

Ragtime American culture involves myriads of customs and traditions inherent exclusively to the USA. Except for religion, clothes, behavior, beliefs, or food, which define culture as a unique phenomenon, music enormously contributes to its existence in any period of the nation’s development. Early American music is famous for a distinctive genre popular during the mid-1890s, called ragtime, notable for its special syncopation and composers. Ragtime used to be a solely American style of musical works composed of three or four strikingly different sections, in other words, strains, one of which was 16 or 32 measures in length. Due to an astonishing syncopation, namely replacement of the beat from its regular course of meter, ragtime compositions became both threatening and thrilling to the American youngsters.

Jazz is the world - famous music genre that originated from the African - American communities that existed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the town of New Orleans, United States. The genre of jazz has many subgenres which have evolved over time to give us current modern day jazz. The two jazz genres which will be compared and contrasted in this essay will be the two subgenres; Bebop, and Ragtime Jazz, which differ but at the same time have some similarities.

First of all, ragtime and the blues are similar in that they both originated in the United States. In fact, they were created in the United States, and had not

Rhythm and blues, also known today as “R & B”, has been one of the most influential genres of music within the African American Culture, and has evolved over many decades in style and sound. Emerging in the late 1940's rhythm and blues, sometimes called jump blues, became dominant black popular music during and after WWII. Rhythm and blues artists often sung about love, relationships, life troubles, and sometimes focused on segregation and race struggles. Rhythm and blues helped embody what was unique about black American culture and validate it as something distinctive and valuable.

One cannot speak about music especially in America with referencing Jazz or the Blues. The two genres of music are synonymous with the American music scene originating from Southern America. Their similar point of origin has caused much confusion in distinguishing the two mainly due to the way today’s artists’ music crossover. Both Jazz and Blues, are two independent genres that formed concurrently in the 20th century and were produced at the same time.

The Ragtime is a musical era that we sort of consider that a starting about 1875 and extending to 1918 when the term Jazz become more prominent in American popular music, but for that twenty years that would be the Rock and Roll over the day. Ragtime music was the essence of popular music and it was considered what America had to offer to world music. There was something very special about Ragtime music. It was different from everything that had preceded and that almost every all kinds of music that have been played before. Basically, we’re on the beat and didn’t have that essence of syncopation that was at the heart of Ragtime music.

“For some this has been, at least partially, a nostalgic trip to the “simplistic and charm” of the past(...)ragtime’s direct melodic and harmonic message, its irresistible, foot-tapping, rhythmic impulse.” (Berlin) Ragtime was the type of music that was intended to evoke happiness and joy using instruments like piano, guitar, and drums. Through the genre of Ragtime, many popular dances of the late 1900s became prominent like the “cake walk”, “ragtime marches”, “two-steps”, and many more. (Berlin) One of the most prominent characteristics of Ragtime is the fact that it has syncopation which was fairly new at the time. Syncopation is the emphasis of notes that are played in the off beats. Irving Berlin describes the relationship between syncopation and ragtime as

Ragtime was a very influential part of the development of jazz. Ragtime became very popular in the late 1800’s. Ragtime’s distinct style set it apart from the other genres. Syncopation is what defines this art form. This is when the loud accents fall in between the beats. Anything that is syncopated is basically ragtime. One of the most important ragtime composers was Scott Joplin. Like all great artists, Joplin did not restrict himself to this favored art form. Both before the advent of ragtime and after, Joplin composed marches and waltzes, including the syncopated waltzes. There's more to ragtime than syncopation, while some very good ragtime is not of the classic form. But the lines are often blurred. Ragtime's influence on other

Music and dancing was also another influence that occurred during this time period. Jazz and the Blues were the most common and well-known types of music, which could have sometimes been involved in the types of dancing that happened in the Roaring 20s. The type of music that we call jazz was a great turning point between the whites and the African Americans who were segregated. It lessened the amount of segregation between the two races and brought people of all races together no matter what color they were. The music helped people that were in need of jobs and the main places that were affected were New York and Chicago. An important figure in the history of jazz was Louis Armstrong who played the trumpet and cornet to play his music. Along with jazz, the blues was a type of music that was inspired by the African Americans of that time. The African Americans that started the blues were in churches or either in hollers working in the fields. They would sing these songs as they worked hard on the long days on the farm. The blues first started from the African Americans located in the Mississippi Delta.

Thesis: Although Jazz music was first introduced over 80 years ago, the genre still influences artists and the new music they make to this day.

The relation between Blues and Jazz music can be discovered if we look closely and scrutinize the origins of both the music genres. How one developed can be found out from the roots of the other as both the separate genres use similar sound patterns. Both of these genres belong to a different decade/era however, are closely linked to one another. In this essay I will deliver a brief history of both Blues and Jazz, their similarities, and also discuss how the advancement of technology has affected the way we hear both these genres of music.