1. Music Appreciation: The History of Rock
Chapter 2: The Blues

2. Rock music and it’s Roots
Rock developed from:
Country & Western
Jazz
Cajun Music
Broadway and Tin Pan Alley popular songs
Blues
Blues contributed the most to the development of rock music.

3. Five characteristics of the Blues
Call and response performance
Descending melodic line
Melody through the use of blue notes
Harmony in the chordal structure of the 12-bar blues progression
Rock inherited form in the strophic structure

4. Call and Response
Also known as antiphonal singing, came from the songs of slaves (pre-Civil War), field hands (post-Civil War) and prison work gangs.
A leader would start a melody (call) and others would repeat it back to him (response), either as a refrain or as the next line of the song.
This is also found in Gospel, Jazz, Country and Western, and Rock Music.

5. Descending Melodic Line
The melody of a blues song may have derived from a field holler.
Singer starts out singing loud and long and it falls in pitch from high notes to lower-pitched notes in the end, until the singer runs out of breath.
Most prominent means of communication from field to field following the Civil War.

6. Blue Notes
Blues melodies are full of slightly-altered pitches called blue notes.
Blue notes are slightly-altered notes that are even smaller than a half step.
Generally, the third and seventh notes are slightly lowered, but just a little.

7. Harmony
This has its roots in simple Anglo/Scottish/Irish church hymns.
Hymns were brought over by European settlers and learned by African slaves.

8. Form
The strophic song form of the blues is a series of verses in which the melody is repeated with new words. It was adapted from the Anglo/Scotch/Irish Folk Songs of the mid- to late-nineteenth century.
The narrative style of text was used in these songs, telling a story throughout the song and was also adapted into the Blues Song.

9. The 12-bar blues progression: I-I-I-I-IV-IV-I-I-V-V-I-I
Each verse is 12 bars long.
The twelve bars are arranged into three groups of four measures.
Verses are generally structured in an AAB rhyme scheme.
Each verse of the song is sung in the same pattern to the same melody and with the same harmonic accompaniment, resulting in a stophic song form.

10. Important words: Fill- an instrumental response to the sung call.
Turnaround- The dominant chord is played to set up the return of the tonic chord at the beginning of the next verse (12-bar blues)
Call and Response often occurs between:
The singer and the instrumental fills
The first line of the couplet (a) and the ending line (b)
The fills and the turnaround.

11. Blues Styles
Two types of Blues- rural (country) and urban (city) blues.
Rural blues developed in the 1920’s and 1930’s, primarily in the southeast (Georgia and the Carolinas), in the region known as the Mississippi Delta, and in the southwest (Kansas City, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, and Dallas)

12. Texas Rural Blues Single note melody Lyrics are more clear
Singing is often in a higher register
Guitar lines are not as thick in texture.
Guitar accompaniment is less percussive, more smooth.
More repeated melodic figures, or riffs, on the lower strings.
Most prominent musician was Blind Lemon Jefferson and he wrote Matchbox Blues.
Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were considered to be classic blues singers.
This eventually became the Texas Urban Blues.

13. Mississippi Delta Blues
Considered to have the strongest influence on the development of rock music.
Mississippi Delta Blues developed in a triangular area of land along the Mississippi River bordering the states of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee.
Heavy use of Slide Guitar.
Heavy, percussive picking style
Forlorn, wailing type of singing
Small melodic range
Intricate polyrhythms
Guitar fills are more chordal and rhythmic rather than single note melodies.
Robert Johnson is the most prominent musician in the Mississippi Delta Blues movement and he wrote Cross Road Blues. (Reportedly sold his soul to the Devil, pg. 27)
This eventually became the Chicago Urban Blues

14. Urban Blues
Developed in the late 1930’s in big cities such as NYC, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas and Kansas City and remained popular into the 1940’s and 1950’s. Chicago is most-often associated with urban blues. The migration of African-American’s to the north for industrial jobs and the development of the electric guitar in the 1930’s led to this movement.

15. Urban Blues Style Male singer accompanied by a small group
Instrumentation was electric guitars, acoustic bass, drums, piano and harmonica. Sometimes a horn section and in Chicago blues, the harmonica and guitar are the principal soloists.
Volume was very loud due to electronics and amplification.
Music was more regularly metered
12-bar blues used exclusively.

16. Texas Urban Blues Represented by Aaron “T-Bone” Walker.
Extremely popular style of African-American music in the years after WW2 and is closely related to jazz styles of the same time.
Similar to Texas rural blues except urban had a full-sized band that backs up the solo vocalist and the guitar is amplified.
T-Bone Walker brought the electric guitar into prominence in the typically piano-based Texas Blues. He wrote Call It Stormy Monday Blues.

17. Chicago Urban Blues Similar to Chicago Blues and Delta blues by the:
Frequent use of slide guitar
Bent notes
Intricate rhythmic patterns and polyrhythms
Double-stopped strings.
Prominent performer is Muddy Waters and he wrote Blow Wind Blow

18. Boogie Woogie Also known as Honky Tonk
A percussive piano blues style that developed in the late 1920’s and remained popular well into the 1940’s, dying out after WW2.
Meade “Lux” Lewis wrote Honky Tonk Train Blues
Principal feature is a repeated, or ostinato, bass line that is usually played in a fast, eight-pulses to a measure feel. More often, the bass rhythm is played in a bouncy, long note/short note rhythm called a barrelhouse rhythm. Also features a walking bass line.