Blues

blues: see jazz.

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blues

Secular musical form incorporating a repeating harmonic structure with melodic emphasis on the flatted or “blue” third and seventh notes of the scale. The specific origins of the blues are not known, but elements of the music of former slaves include the call-and-response pattern and syncopated rhythms of spirituals and work songs. The codification of the structure of the blues occurred in the early 20th century, most commonly as a 12-bar phrase using the chords of the first, fourth, and fifth degrees of the major scale. Its origins as a primarily vocal form induced instrumental performers to imitate the human voice with “bent” notes. Lyric stanzas are usually in three lines, the words of the second generally repeating those of the first. The elaboration of the rural blues from Texas and the Mississippi delta established both lyric and instrumental traditions, often featuring speech-like inflection and guitar accompaniment. The bandleader W.C. Handy's compositions brought blues elements to the popular music of the first decades of the century. The first blues recordings, in the early 1920s, featured singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith using jazz accompanists; their style would become known as classic blues. The highly personal interpretations and improvisation of the blues, combined with elements of its structure and inflection, served as the foundation for jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music.

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blues

melancholy, bittersweet music born among American Negroes. [Am. Music: Scholes, 113]

See : Melancholy

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Blues

(English; abbreviation of “blue devils”—despondency, melancholy, sadness), solo lyrical song of American Negroes from the banks of the Mississippi.

The blues have been known since the late 19th century; they usually embody a lament for lost happiness. Themes of social protest began to appear in the blues early in the 20th century. To a large degree, the musical features of the blues were inherited from the music of the African peoples: syncopation (dislocation of rhythmic stresses), sliding, unfixed diminution of the modal scale (so-called blues modulations), and improvisation of execution (particularly in instrumental interludes). The form of the blues consists of variations.

The blues were initially performed to banjo accompaniment, and later, to guitars. The song St. Louis Blues (1914) by the Negro professional musician W. Handy began the broad spread of the blues in the Negro sections of cities. A number of the features of the blues were adopted by jazz music of the variety stage (estrada); in jazz music, the blues developed as instrumental dance pieces. The musical form and genre features of the blues have been utilized by many 20th-century composers—for example, G. Gershwin in the USA, M. Ravel in France, and E. Csenec in Austria.

S. P. PANKRATOV