African American Music Style

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There are numerous elements that connect slave-era African American music and early style blues. Three of the most predominant connections are shown in the simplicity of the composition, improvisation of sound, and use of emotion. Simplicity is a reoccurring theme throughout both styles. For example, in the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” clip, the chain-gangs would layer vocals on top of the simple, rhythmic, repetitive beat of hammers. This style is also seen in the song “John Henry”. Likewise, the blues sound is known for being built upon a simple 3-chords over 12-bar sequences. This sequence allows artists to easily improvise and allowed for convenient storytelling. The simple composition of these styles was also accompanied by meaningful …show more content…
Traditionally played by a solo artist, the blues style is fluid and impulsive and would focus on liberating oneself from the burdens of the ‘blues’ feeling. Lastly, slave-era music and blues share a utilization of emotion within their lyrics and vocals. For example, slave-era music would often give meaning to their songs by singing about their emotions such as loneliness. Likewise, later blues was meant to be focused around emotional release like “stomping” away the blues to exfoliate the ‘blues’ feeling. Country and classic blues may be similar enough to be considered in the same genre (blues) but there are stark differences such as origin and style which are where the changes emerge. Whereas, country-blues originated in the deep south near the Mississippi River Delta region on farms and plantations, classical-blues rose to prominence in a more stage-like setting through black vaudeville variety shows. As well, the contrast in musical style between classical and country blues is apparent. Classical blues traditionally had an ensemble cast who would play various instruments like trumpet, guitar, piano, etc. Furthermore, classical would often be vocalized by a female

R & B Music Style Analysis

The music could be define as a style of sounds prepared by instruments design for music along with voices, in order to give pleasure to audience listening to it. In today society, music is listened all over the place and it is influenced by different cultures, and economic organization. All those effects will give to the music different technique, styles, and rhythms. It is in this logic that we are going to explore the African music style (Makossa), Jazz, and R&B music style. The Makossa is known…

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African-American Influence On African American Music

INTRODUCTION African-Americans have had a notable influence on American music. Since the days the slave trade began African slaves brought over, to this New World, their customs and tradition of music. They used music to give themselves some sort of cultural and ethnical identity in the New World. They also brought a rich African heritage, including songs. Adapted to reflect the experiences of life of hard labor on plantations, these slave work songs, laments, and shouts of protest evolve into…

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Harlem Renaissance Influence

The Harlem Renaissance was an African-American cultural movement of the 1920s and 30s, centered in Harlem,New york that commemorated black traditions, voices and ways of life.Duke Ellington was an American composer, pianist and bandleader who composed thousands of scores over his 50-year career. He was a major figure in the history of jazz music and a huge contributor to the Harlem Renaissance with his creative musical style called "Swing". Swing was a new style of music that shifted the norm of typical…

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Essay on Ragtime and Blues Influence on Jazz

Parents of Jazz Jazz is a music genre that has complex characteristics and history of development and thus many musicians and scholars face troubles in defining what jazz is. In general, jazz is believed to have born in New Orleans. Jazz developed for the pleasure of the social dancers. According to the “Understanding Jazz: What Is Jazz?” of John F. Kennedy center for the Performing Arts, Jazz was created mainly by Afro-Americans, and had elements of European and Afro-American culture. Also, it emphasizes…

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African American Music Essay

African American music is a large recognized and acknowledged attribute to world culture by being created from unity from enslavement, and creativity. There are several different types of music genres that are under the umbrella term African American music. These types include blues, jazz, spirituals and gospel. They reflect the attitudes and concerns of both the performers and their culture at a specific time and place in history. Eddie Meadows explains that Ethnomusicologists espouse the generally…

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Jazz Ken Burns Essays

stream of African Americans that escaped to New Orleans from the segregation in the Mississippi Delta. With them, they brought the blues, which according to Gerald Early, an African American essayist and American culture critic, was an “aesthetic that freed them from the burden of minstrelsy.” The blues were a combination of spirituals, work songs, call and response, shouts only made possible because of the suffering of the blacks during their oppression as Alberta Hunter, an American blues singer…

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Research Paper On The Harlem Renaissance

Migration, which brought many African Americans into the urban areas of the U.S. This brought a variety of customs and culture, enriching society with arts, culture, etc. As a result, this created a new form of African American arts, which gained popularity mainly in the Harlem neighborhood. The Harlem Renaissance lasted for quite a long time, beginning from 1918 until the 1930s. Music such as jazz and blues had a major role during the Harlem Renaissance period. Most of its music is still listened today…

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Harlem Renaissance Research Paper

The Great Migration left millions of African Americans looking for a place to live, and a small neighborhood in New York seemed like just the place. Harlem is a neighborhood located in Upper Manhattan, New York City. A real estate crash in the early 20th century left many landlords looking to fill their homes. They looked toward the new rush of African Americans from the South, with no other options left. Seeing an area newly populated with their culture, Harlem soon became a hotspot for immigration…

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Swing Music History

Swing music is a style of music we can all recognize, based just off the way it makes us feel- uplifted, radiant, dancy, makes you want to ‘swing’ around, doesn’t it? Maybe dance with the girl/boy you were eyeing across the room? Worry not, none of us can help it. It is just what was intended, and we can only so much as help our human nature. Obviously, we all like to feel happy, but where did this wild music originate from that allowed for everyone to get down and not worry about a thing, and why…

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jazz dance Essay

dance reflect the diversity of American culture. Jazz dance mirrors the social history of the American people, reflecting ethnic influences, historic events, and cultural changes. Jazz dance has been greatly influenced by social dance and popular music. But, like so much that is “from America”, the history of jazz dance begins somewhere else. The origins of jazz music and dance are found in the rhythms and movements brought to America by African slaves. The style of African dance is earthy; low, knees…

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