Two Types Of Altered Scales

In two different cases, relatively close together in the music, he uses a secondary dominant to embellish the regularity of the effect.   However, in these two different cases, the chords shift slightly, as shown in measures 52 and 55, pictured below.

Blues is one of the most captivating genres of music. The genre was originated in the late 1800’s as a method used by African American slaves to express the circumstances as well as to put emphasis on their feelings and emotions. In order to create these feelings in this music, blues artists incorporate many of the same techniques used to write poetry. One of the most easily identifiable songs in which it is easy to see the relation between poetic elements and blues music is the song “Empty Bed Blues” by Bessie Smith.

This week we learned about many genres of music, some similar some different. The two genres I want to compare and contrast are Rock and Blues. When you hear rock music, you picture electric guitars, amplified sounds, and complex styles of play. But if you take a deeper look you would probably be surprised to learn that rock would not even have existed without simple 12-bar forms, antiphonal textures, or “walking bass lines” used in much blues music. Though Rock and Blues are distinctly different they have a lot of similarities that most likely go unnoticed. Rock and Blues were developed at almost the same exact time around the late 19th century. Blues originated from African American folk music and like Blues, rock music style can also be

Looking back at the history of Blues music, one can see the influence of the African-American community, tradition, and culture very apparent in it. The Blues music genre came into being from the songs

“When first entering in America, British folk music was distinguished by three-chord tunes, sparse instrumentation (with some fiddlers), mostly male performers, improvisation, the singers’ sporadic shouts (Scottish “yips”), Christian themes served up in hundreds of hymns, and a secular collection of songs that told stories, generally about love and lost love, using metaphor and symbol to tell those stories” (Allen 101). By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British music changed and became Americanized. Vocal harmonizing slowly evolved, and fiddlers were accompanied by those who played banjo, an African American opening. “Tambourines and “bones” (tapping out rhythms using pork rib bones) were a minstrel show contribution” (Allen 102). When African Americans were forced into slavery and brought to North America in the 1600s, they brought their own musical traditions and sounds. Slaves who were on the Mississippi River Valley delta soil developed what will later be introduced as blues music. On the plantations, slaves greatly changed British American hymn singing. They took non-religious British American songs and turned it into their own forms of music that followed their culture and taste of music. Blues emerged in the early twentieth century at the same time country music became settled from its folk roots. Blues music talked about the indifferences African American slaves were going through at that time. “The blues voiced human

Different from other forms of music, blues was only recorded by memory and passed down through generations through live performances. The blues began in the North Mississippi Delta post Civil War times. It was heavily influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups. This eventually developed into music that was set up in a call-and- response way so that the singer would sing a line and he would then respond with his guitar.

“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

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

When listening to Blues Bikini by Dexter Gordon, I realized that it was in AABA form; with the “A” sections in all twelve bar blues, and the “B” section in an eight bar contrasting phrase. Being this song is forty-four bars long it is a challenge to improvise. The solo in this song has different aspects that display melodic improvisation, such as playing chromatic notes and playing some phrases faster than others. Although, Gordon was strongly influenced by Lester Young, he used a tone that was deep and dark instead of using a tone like Young’s which was light and hollow.

Blues is a music genre originating in Africa .This genre emerged with the introduction of African people as slaves to America's south. Slaves were employed in poor conditions in the cotton fields before the Civil War. Making music meant avoiding the pain for them. People think Blues music is slow and smooth because the lyrics of the Blues music always includes depression, loneliness and anger.

On the other hand, Blues were basically from work songs of African Americans slaves at the time. “It is a native American music, the product of the black man in this country, or, to put it more exactly the way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives”(pp.17), said Jones and Baraka. In Jazz – A History, Frank Tirro wisely analyzes and explains the relationship between the unique background and

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.

“Walkin”, was a swaggering blues piece informed by the extended harmonies of bebop was a shift from cool jazz and announced the arrival of hard bop (Sales, 1992:171). Hard bop was the evolvement and development from bop during the 1950s and 1960s, often regarded as a reaction to the restraint and intellectualism of cool jazz (Kingman, 1990:389).

Nowadays the blues revolve around the meaning of sadness but doesn’t have a true message of fighting for survival or deprivation of freedom. In the process of searching for the modern day blues, it was discovered that the music is compiled by mostly Caucasian artist compared to the past where it was conceived by blacks to prompt their practices and beliefs.

The early vernacular traditions didn’t only consist of religious, spiritual, and sacred practices, but there were secular forms of acts that existed in their lives. The early African Americans composed many superb narrative rhymes that really influenced the culture today. They could also be known as poets, and these writers created a foundation for the modern day artists. The different stories and tales that these passages were describing, had a strong impact on the blues, which is a part of the secular songs. Rap, a modern day form of rhyming music, has been influence greatly by the earlier secular songs and stories that the African Americans practiced. These songs started out as humor for the African Americans, and then sporadically evolved into sex, violence, and drugs over the past century. The children’s games song also has special meaning to them when they are used. The little messages that are implanted in these songs really try to impact a message to the listener. The different songs also portrayed the ongoing violence and abuse that is present in the American society. The hardworking slaves also had a series of songs that they sang, in order to express their hardships and perseverance in the work