MUSIC 26AC Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Forked Deer River, Chord Progression, B.B. King
Blues September ,
• Historical overview: Reconstruction
o African American forms were shaped by the music industry after the end of slavery
• Musical features of blues
o Came about during the Reconstruction
o Roots in the rural slave plantation and transformed into a more urban/commercial music
• Major early blues
• Pre-Civil War African American bands
o String, jug, brass ensembles/bands
o Non-religious music for social occasions, gatherings
▪ Occurs at the same time as the spirituals music in African American music
o Important links to social dances
o Hybrid forms: employed European song forms and instruments (strings, horns) and African
elements (banjo, complex rhythms, percussiveness)
▪ Developed music in the early 20th century that we now point to certain bodies of
work (ie: jazs, blues)
o Slaves would play for themselves or their slave masters
• K.C. Moan
o Jug: provides the bass notes to a song
• Forked Deer: Southern string band that was led by a fiddler
o Interracial band with white collaboration
o Does’t soud like or associate with African American music
• Pre-Civil War African American bands
o Hybrid instrumentation: mix of European and African instruments and musical forms
o Much of repertoire shared by blacks and white musicians – lots of racial interaction in the
creation of music
o A lot of musical variety
▪ Begiigs of attahet to Blak soud/usi
• Reconstruction (post-1865)
o Slaves freed and enter work economy = economic restructuring
▪ Huge number of Black wage laborers looking for work
▪ Many people structured their businesses around free labor
▪ A lot of new local laws put into place that misjudged Black men to jail (ie: sitting on
the side of the road) → makes Blacks not completely free
o Backlash from working whites who compete for same jobs
o Increased violence and poverty for blacks (ie: lynching)
▪ Blacks have a hard time accessing work and not offered the same opportunities
o Greater policing of racial barriers - Jim Crow and antimiscegenation laws
▪ Early music industry draws racial lines despite the musical collaborations = blues are
associated with Blacks
• Musical features of blues
o Vocal and/or instrumental
▪ Emotional resonance: expresses voice of newly freed slaves
▪ Bleak outlook
o Blues scale
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