Where does Blues Music come from?
Blues came out of the cotton fields of the antebellum plantations. The African-American slaves would pass the time in field chants. Sometimes these chants were also used to pass along information in a type of code that their overseers could not understand. One person would call or sing out a line and the others would sing or call it back. Then both would would call out a third different line that would serve to complete the verse. As far as can be told, this was the earliest used of the call and response style know as AAB. The first caller would call out a line(A). The line would be repeated or the “response” and and the all would conclude with the last line (B). The AAB sturcture is the basis of much of the early 23-bqr5 blues.
The early spiritual music and hymns were derived from white hymns and blended together to form a sistinct style but the African influences made the blues distinct in several ways. The blues relied more on inprovisation both vocally and instrumentally. The Blues rhythm was considered to be more important than the harmony and tone and pitch was used to express feelings. Muddy Waters carried this forward. Whenever he wished to express deep emotion in his songs, his voice became flat as opposed to the exact melody. A lot of the blues lyrics make use of the call and response style. The Blues use instruments that have the ability to take the call and respnse style to another level but implying the call and response style by being able to somewhat mimic the human voice. The player then would use the instrument to express intense emotion. Some of these instruments are harmonica, guitar and slide guitar.
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