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Comparing Blues And Gospel

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Blues and Gospel are two of the founding styles of music created in the United States. It was in the late 19th and early 20th century when these two forms of music became known. They both express emotion and tribulations that people have been through. There is no type of music similar to these two genres. They both have a religious origin, and share the same rhythms and enunciation styles.
What do you feel when you hear the word “Blues”? Many people believe that the blues is all about sadness, depression, and feeling down. In fact, that is true. Blues music originated during the slavery years in North Mississippi. Its roots came from various forms of African American slave songs, such as work songs, spirituals, field hollers, love, hope, country string ballads, and many other things. In these songs, the people would express their pain by singing about what they’re feeling; singing about the hardness of their work, how poor they are, and how they will never see their family again. Many of the songs were spiritual and religious. The blues is often played by traveling solo musicians on acoustic guitars, harmonicas, pianos, and many other instruments. Blues music has a different timbre and sound than other styles of music. AAB which is called “12 Bar Blues” is the most common blues song form. It’s a lyrical pattern which the first sung line is repeated as the second one, then the third line is different. …show more content…

(James)

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Understanding the 12 Bar Blues . Retrieved from PBS : http://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essays12bar.html Johnson, R. (1936). Crossroad Blues [Recorded by R. Johnson]. San Antonio, Texas , US. Miller,

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Blues music was a way for Still to express exactly what he wanted to say as an artist, getting a compromise out of his music. “Darker America” was his last entry into the International Composer’s Guild, however it was one that would be well known by the end. It explored themes of hope and sorrow, combining the idioms of his culture with the modern chromatics that were well known in the music

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The title “Sonny Blues” can be interpreted as Sonny’s trouble or Sonny’s pain. Some people use hobbies or alcohol to deal with pain, Sonny used his music and heroin to escape the darkness in Harlem. In 1957, Harlem was known for poverty. Black men that were born and raised in Harlem during

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As a matter of fact, the storyteller does not appreciate Sonny's motivations to play jazz music until the evening he socially joins Sonny to his stage show at a nightclub. Sitting in a dark corner at the nightclub, the storyteller listens to his brother play, considering the reminder of Sonny's friend, Creole, of what the Blues are about, "The tale, of the blues, how we live, and how we are delighted, how we suffer... and how we triumph... must be heard... it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." (Baldwin 139). For the narrator, he perceives that the Blues is the manifestation for Sonny's emotions, especially his suffering, because, as Creole would say, music is the only light in the

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Richard states, “… blues are considered to be a reflection of and a release from the suffering that has been endured…” (Albert). In this quote, he explains that music gives Sonny the power to express his daily struggle. In which helps Sonny release all his troubles. In the article, "James Baldwin's Vision of Otherness in 'Sonny's Blues' and Giovanni's Room," Bieganowski, hits the target on the topic of how the two brothers bonded through music.

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Sonny’s Blues is based in Harlem in the 1950’s during the Harlem Renaissance. This was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural center in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. The period is considered a golden age in African American culture, making literature, music, stage performance and art. In "Sonny's Blues," James Baldwin portrays Sonny's redemption from rock bottom in Harlem in the 1950's using vivid imagery

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From the very beginning of the tale, the sorrow is palpable through the unnamed narrator 's discovery of Sonny 's incarceration, and moreover through the atmosphere created by Mr. Baldwin. The most prominent message that can be deciphered and recognized in Sonny 's Blues is that the sadness and sorrow that one experiences in their life can bring about many obstacles but it can be countered and used for something greater by a search for understanding and acceptance. James Baldwin establishes this implication through the use of his characters; the narrator, Sonny, and the singer seen on the street. All these characters experience sorrow and sadness in their

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There are many ways that symbolism is used to show things that are unique to each story that James Baldwin writes including “Sonny’s Blues”. The main symbolism surround music. One thing that it symbolizes is hope. Music gives Sonny hope that he can travel away from Harlem and those who doubt what he can do using blues music and his piano skills. This is not just used as symbolism in the story, but in what was really happening during this time.

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Sonny's Blues was written in 1957, 37 years after the roaring twenties had come to an end. Long after the great Migration, where millions of blacks moved to northern cities to escape Jim Crow, and embrace the new found possibilities offered. During this period African-Americans in New York, collectively gathered in Harlem mainly, it was usually alluded to as the black capital. There blacks shared culturally and also, influenced music greatly. This is also where the "new negro" persona was crafted, blacks were no longer going to be referred to as someone's mammies or boy.

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The brothers represent not only Baldwin himself, but their entire culture as well. Moreover, the blues express the battles, the condition and the rage that comes with being a black man in American society (Fares 72). The blues are a mutual understanding of suffering between every single person in the community; they are symbolic of the love that lets them bear the weight of the world in their shoulders with confidence because they know they are not alone. Baldwin wrote “Sonny’s Blues” to show that only an individual holds the power to accept their own suffering, and only when they come to terms with their pain, will they begin to understand the pain of those before them like the narrator did during his epiphany. In unison, they will set a framework for the generations that follow as they try to find a solution to their overall role in

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The Chicago blues is a subgenre of blues music local to Chicago, Illinois.  It 's foundation is revolved around the sound of the electric guitar and its enhancer. In this paper, I will investigate what made is the essentialness of Chicago blues and what prompt to production of this subgenre in the city of Chicago and it 's legacy in the present setting. The blues initially started to show up close to the end of the 1800s after the Emancipation Proclamation.

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Blues and bluegrass are some of the most common of these subgenres (Peterson, 1997). Country Blues usually have a mood of mourning the harsh times in life. Bluegrass is a mixture of country music from Kentucky and Tennessee, and has jazz influences from Southern areas like New Orleans, Louisiana. When you mix the two together, you have this upbeat tune with improvisation that usually contains banjos, or mandolins and drums. Bill Monroe introduced the subgenre of Bluegrass Country in the late forties early fifties in America.

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Blues music as a genre and form was developed by African Americans in the south of the United States at the end of the 19th century. The genre has origins in many cultures such as in African music, African-American work songs and European-American folk music. Blues music incorporates field hollers, shouts, chants, etc. The blues form, found in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, and also the twelve-bar blues structure, which is the most common feature. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times.

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In this case repetition is used to regularly insinuate a sense of desperation and isolation. In addition to this, the first two lines of the stanza rhyme. Blues music was created and first sung by the African slaves who would sing to convey their hardship and isolation from others. Blues music to the African slaves was a strategy to explain their feelings and help them cope with their suffering.

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