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Art Form

Blues

Musical Forms

Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s.

Facts
Medium
Music genre and musical form, chiefly vocal and instrumental. 1
Signature Technique
The twelve-bar blues chord progression, built on the call-and-response pattern and the blues scale, with flattened blue notes. 1
Place of Origin
Deep South of the United States, among African Americans, around the 1860s. 1
Notable Example
Saint Louis Blues (1914), one of the earliest published blues songs to fix the AAB lyric pattern. 1
Connections

Associated With

Folk Music, Art Forms

Blues and Folk Music are closely related roots-music traditions, both emerging from oral, community-based vernacular practice rather than formal composition.

Folk Music, Art Forms

Influenced

Jazz, Movements

Blues, the African American vernacular tradition rooted in the Mississippi Delta and the rural South, directly shaped the harmonic language and improvisatory practice of early Jazz.

Sources
1. Blues (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • lead section, Blues
    Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s.
  • Lyrics section, Blues
    This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as "Dallas Blues" (1912) and "Saint Louis Blues" (1914).
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