Proto-Blues – Hey guys! Let’s talk about the time the first Blues-like music was born. As we have seen, after the Civil War, living conditions changed for former slaves, as they started to work as sharecroppers in smaller isolated farms. In the South, social conditions repressed group music-making, and encouraged in the increase in solo musicians. Some of them started playing the acoustic guitar, at first imitating the contemporary popular music, such as Anglo-Scottish ballads, Country Reels and other European Country folklore with conventional harmonic progressions.
These songsters were performing for blacks and whites alike. At that time, both races employed material from a “common stock”, that is, adaptable tunes that had no racial connotation, although there were also songs associated with just one race rather than the other. Musicians of each race borrowed music ideas freely from each other. At the end of that century the first generation of Blues artists was born. So, how were the Blues developed in the turn of the 20th century? Unfortunately, the exact mechanisms that played a part in that to happen, elude us.
Proto-Blues Development
However we can safely assume that Blues slowly evolved from a proto-Blues style that was born at least a decade before. Over the years musicologists have formed some hypotheses on how this proto-Blues style was developed. At first, proto-Blues were likely based on a continuous bourdon-like tonal center. That style didn’t eclipse and can be found in many songs of bluesmen such as Charley Patton, Robert Wilkins, Barbecue Bob, Lead belly, John Lee Hooker etc. This development should be expected since it seems natural for them to sing the modal Hollers and Work songs over a drone.
By the end of the century some musicians might had detected or imagined a chord progression in these melodies and deviated these tunes from the drone sound. But, it could also be the other way around. Maybe some younger African American songsters, began to introduce the “blues” tonality of Field Hollers, Work songs, Spirituals and other former-slave folklore, into the popular, guitar-accompanied music of their time. Or maybe both mutations were happening at the same time. Anyway, it seems that both European and African traditions influenced the development of the Blues.
European Influences
Let’s see some European influences first. That’s many things affect on first time proto-blues and now let we see how mny of tehm whom infuences proto-blues.
Instrument
Bluesmen used mainly the acoustic guitar to accompany themselves, a European instrument introduced in its modern form in the 1850s. Banjo, fiddle and later piano, were also used.
Modified Harmonic Sequences
Even if the chords in Blues do not necessarily have a functional role, as in European tradition, blacks used the familiar to them I, IV and V chords.
Strophic Form
Blues are strophic in form, meaning, every verse is sung to the same music. Early examples of Blues had the “one line – 4 times repeated” form or “one line – 3 times repeated & 1 final single line” form.
Rhyme
Rhyme was introduced to America through European music and poems. Now let’s see some African characteristics in the Blues.
Call & Response
The “Call & Response” characteristic of African American music passed on to the Blues, but in this case the chorus was replaced by the guitar for the “Response” part.
Scales
The pentatonic base of the Blues is probably derived from a tribal or Nigritic tradition, that survived and evolved through the Hollers and Work songs during slavery. Pentatonic scales were also common in Scottish and Irish folk songs but Blues scales differ due to their characteristic microtonal nature. It seems that the Blues scales comprise features of both African and European music scales.
Techniques
For example, the use of slide in the Blues most likely came from the sliding technique of Diddley Bow, which derives from African monochord zithers.
Singing Style
The tradition of melisma, wavy intonation and declamatory voice production in the Blues is associated with the Sahel region of Africa, a region long beset with a dominant Muslim influence. This tradition also survived and evolved through the Hollers and Work songs and later passed on to the Blues. Of course this music style didn’t just emerge simultaneously all over the South. Most likely, this music, that later would be called Delta Blues, began to be played locally, before it became popular and spread out. As ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik put it:
“Sometimes a minority culture makes a breakthrough and then becomes the majority culture”
Ok guys that’s all for today. In the next article we will talk about “Ragtime and Jazz”, so stay connected.
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