BluesTrotter.com

It’s a little bit complicated to describe the blues music as the theory about it is very broad. I only deliver to the user of this website a significant step as the basic step and of this genre. With this basis you will be very easy to hear the tone of the blues musicians of the world and the tone of what they play.

Then why I should love the Blues?
Because many of the hit show this genre eg Red House, Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix). Yes I mind most of the Top 100 guitar virtuoso almost 80% came from the kind of their blues. Or average them came from Western and seems identical with the western and the blues while turunannya from Europe to play Classic. And I think the big difference is the music on American music (blues-pentatonic) and the European Music (classical-diatonic) is certainly the penjabaran more. Because this site penjabaran the blues will be up to the scale-scale that must be understood if you want to play blues. Blues can be easy to rock n roll, rockabilly to jazz also because there Modes.

Method in the Study of Blues
I can’t speak much the same theory but the practice directly. If necessary, please search and read in other places. Learn music like learning a language. For example, grammar and vocabulary. The more vocabulary the more that can be spoken. So just follow the examples of practical and theoretical basis are presented not so long then you will be able to play the tone. Because the blues nadanya it-only that the other musicians to play tone-legitimate and legitimate course many top blues musicians are influenced or affected by others. Just call one of srv affected by T-Bone Walker or Eric Clapton to play Robert Johnson. Or Chuck Berry almost rhytm blues influence in general.

The Emergence of the Blues
The blues was first sung by men at leisure and was called the folk blues. W.C. Handy, a composer, musician, and bandleader of the Mahara Minstrels, came across the blues in a Tutwiler, Mississippi train station in 1903. According to Handy, while he was waiting for the train he heard the unforgettable sound of a man running a knife against the strings of his guitar while he sang, “Goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog.” Handy was struck by the music, and never forgot it. Not long after, in 1912 Handy published “Memphis Blues,” making him the third person in a few months to publish a song with the name “blues.”

The first recording of the blues was in 1895. George W. Johnson’s “Laughing Song” was the first blues song recorded. Thereafter, blues songs began to appear in music rolls. The 1906 series of Music for the Aedian Grand, listed one blues title among the forty-nine music rolls.

The Rising Popularity of the Blues
As folk singers migrated north in the early 20th century, they brought the blues with them. Joining them from New Orleans were “black-butt” pianists who played in honky-tonks; Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas gave way to the “Fast Western” pianists who sang as they played, imitating the sounds of southern guitarists. Country singers joined the New Orleans and “Fast Western” pianists’ migration, and brought their style to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York, where the classic blues singers united with these musicians and introduced their blues style in clubs, theaters, and dance halls. Classic blues singers brought a professional quality to it, and constructed the foundation for the classic blues.

The Classic Blues Era
The classic blues style, the style that was popularized by female singers, was popular among newly arrived blacks in the cities. The migration of many blacks to the cities gave them a new freedom from the church and community that had not been experienced in rural areas. Blacks demanded entertainment, and black theaters, dance halls, and clubs were opened. Women stopped singing in their churches and schools, and began to perform in theaters, clubs, dance halls, and vaudeville shows.

The blues entered the forefront in 1920, when Mamie Smith’s recording of “Crazy Blues” became popular and opened the doors to other classic blues singers. The record was priced at one dollar and sold 75,000 copies the first month of release.

The market for the recorded blues was almost entirely black during the 1920s and 1930s, and the records became known as “race records.” Record companies advertised exclusively to blacks and only black stores sold the records. As a result of Smith’s success, record companies seized the opportunity to make a profit in the new market. Companies searched for talented blues artists; classic blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, and Ethel Waters became popular blues artists.

The Rise of the Country Blues
The popularity of the classic blues, however, began to decline. At the same time, male blues singers were on the rise. Record companies, such as Columbia, Paramount, and Okeh, made field trips into the South in search of talented blues singers. Record representatives recorded artists either with their mobile recording unit or arranged for them to travel north to Chicago or New York to record.

The rise of the country blues was marked by the recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson in early 1926. It was his May release of “Long Lonesome Blues” that set the stage for a new era of the blues. This time it was marked by male singers, including Blind Willie McTell, Barbecue Bob, and Charley Patton.

The Blues Hiatus & Its Revival
When the Depression hit the U.S. in 1929, many blues singers found it difficult to make a living. Record sales slumped and record companies tapered back on recording the blues. Nevertheless, the early blues was instrumental in influencing later blues singers like Muddy Waters. During the 1960s, white musicians from the U.S. and England discovered the old recordings of the early bluesmen and this lead the way to a blues revival. Today, the blues is recognized for its influence on other genres of music, such as rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and rap.

B.B. King by Encyclopedia Britannica
(Born September 16, 1925, Itta Bena, near Indianola, Mississippi, U.S.)

American guitarist and singer who was a principal figure in the development of blues and from whose style leading popular musicians drew inspiration.

King was reared in the Mississippi delta, and gospel music in church was the earliest influence on his singing. To his own impassioned vocal calls, King played lyrical single-string guitar responses with a distinctive vibrato; his guitar style was influenced by T-Bone Walker, by delta blues players (including his cousin Bukka White), and by such jazz guitarists as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. He worked for a time as a disk jockey in Memphis, Tennessee, where he acquired the name B.B. (for Blues Boy) King. In 1951 he made a hit record of “Three O’Clock Blues,” which led to virtually continuous tours of clubs and theatres throughout the country. He often played 300 or more one-night stands a year with his 13-piece band. A long succession of hits, including “Every Day I Have the Blues,” “Sweet Sixteen,” and “The Thrill Is Gone,” enhanced his popularity. By the late 1960s rock guitarists acknowledged his influence and priority; they introduced King and his guitar, Lucille, to a broader white public, who until then had heard blues chiefly in derivative versions. King’s autobiography, Blues All Around Me, written with David Ritz, was published in 1996.

Because of its personalized form, the popularity of blues music among blacks marked a unique period in the history of secular African American song. Prior to the emergence of the blues sometime in the 1890s, solo music was atypical. Such individualized song had never been the main ingredient of black music. Prior songs consisted of field hollers, which served as a means of communication among plantation workers, and work songs, which were used by slaves to keep time with a task. While field hollers and work songs had elements of personalized song, they had never truly developed as solo songs.

Despite the blues uniqueness from hollers and songs, it was forged from the same musical repertory and traditions. The call and response form of expression remained, but instead of incorporating a response from another participant, the blues singer responded to himself or herself. Thus, it was not created from a new type of music, but from a new perception about oneself.

Blues music reflected the new status of blacks. Slaves newly acquired freedom, Booker T. Washington’s teachings, and the Horatio Alger model, which asserted that the individual molds his own destiny, influenced this form of personalized music. According to historian Lawrence Levine, “there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington’s teachings, and the rise of the blues. Psychologically, socially, and economically, Negroes were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did.” (Levine, Lawrence W., Black Culture and Black Consciousness) As a consequence, it was the emphasis on the individual that influenced the blues personalized form of song.