The Blues Music And Slavery The Blues Music was about The Slave Trade. Thousands of African-Americans were involved in The Slave Trade during the 18 th -19 th centuries. Life was made unbearable for them, they couldn’t get a say or decide anything anymore, nor their fate. The slaves left their home country, Africa and travelled to the West Indies(America). Due to the long journey on the ships, many slaves died and those who survived were auctioned and put to work on farms when they got to their destination. On the ships, they were chained together so they couldn’t get away and were whipped and beaten due to behaviour; this was the harsh reality of The Slave Trade. Children were separated from parents and family and husbands from wives. The majority of those sold into slavery were destined to work on plantations in the Caribbean and America, where huge areas of the American continent had been colonized by European countries. These plantations produced products such as sugar or tobacco, meant for consumption back in Europe. Their fate rested in the hands of the auctioneers. Saadia 8H2

Why Did Music Play Such A Big Part In The Slaves Lives? Music played a large amount of importance in the lives of the African-American slaves. To them, it was a way of expressing unhappiness and any other feeling or emotions they needed to express. They made songs for healing the sick and lullabies to calm the babies down or send them to sleep. Another way of looking at The Blues Music was a way of rampaging a rebellion. Instruments: Some of the instruments they played were the fiddle, the drums, jaw bones of animals which were turned into percussion instruments by being scraped with keys or metal objects. Shakers, anklets, tambourines, scrapers and bones of cattle. The most popular instrument was the drums, they were played using a stick or by hand. They also had what was called an offbeat rhythm; this was made by anklets being stamped in time with the music, creating a jingle. Under the guise of innocent dancing, African- Americans were able to parody White dance styles even in the presence of those they were mocking, using Whites’ blinding racism to play them for the fool.

The Chords The 12-bar blues or blues changes is one of the most bulging chord progressions in popular music. All or some of the notes of the scale can be used for the musical techniques, also for improvisation. The easiest way to find note ‘C’ on a keyboard is to find the two black notes, and the white note to the left is ‘C’. The chords of the 12 Bar Blues are: The Arpeggio Chords(Broken Chords) – CEGA, FACD and GBDE The Melody Line: C3, D and G The Scale – C3, D#, F, F#, G, A# and C4

Freedom VS. Slavery Freedom was worse than slavery for many slaves because in The Slave Trade, they were whipped and abused but at least they had shelter, a job and food – even if it was little. Whereas if they were set free they would have had to deal with the verbal abuse, physical abuse, struggle for food, shelter and unemployment. In the 18 th -19 th centuries, people were allowed to do anything they wanted, due to the lack of laws and protection from police forces. Black people were treated as the ‘lower status’ and white people were the ‘upper status’. There was no equability for black people during these centuries. Freedom: Slavery was known as a ‘necessary evil’ but on January the 1st 1863 some slaves were set free. In December of 1865 Abraham Lincoln gave a speech which freed all slaves in the United States. Some slaves could also buy their freedom if they were lucky to receive some money from their slave master but this was very rare.