Posts Tagged african american slaves

Gospel Music Around World

Gospel music basically has its origins in the African American slaves who brought their African musical traditions to America and fused these traditions with the old Christian hymns. Several of these techniques, including the blue note and syncopation make gospel music around world distinct from other kinds of music around today. Gospel songs that arose from the African American fusion of Christian hymns and African musical tradition began to achieve more exposure in the 1920s with the emergence of churches known as Sanctified or Holiness churches. Traveling preachers brought these kinds of music along with them wherever they went. Among the most popular was Thomas Dorsey who was most responsible for popularizing gospel music in the 30s.

These days, gospel music around world is still reaching out and the spreading to Christian denominations. The original gospel music developed by African Americans has evolved as they have been spread to other parts of the world.

There are many types of gospel music around world that arose from the original gospel genre. These are urban contemporary gospel, gospel blues, southerner gospel, progressive southern gospel, Christian country music, bluegrass, and Celtic.

Urban Contemporary gospel is the subgenre of gospel music that is most identified with the black heritage of gospel music and is still marketed today as black gospel.  Blues is a form of gospel singing with  a blues influence and a lot of guitar, while southern gospel is characterized by the all male quartet and with songs that talk about the hardships in life and how God helps people overcome these hardships. Progressive Southern gospel music is an offshoot of Southern gospel.

Christian Country music is the subgenre of gospel music that does not have its origins in the African American culture but is a major component of gospel music nonetheless. Christian country music has developed into a more mainstream and contemporary form of musical worship, although it has come under criticism for being too liberal and too main stream and losing the religious messages that gospel music was intended to spread. Bluegrass gospel is county Christian music more prevalent in the mountains of America. Celtic music is the kind of gospel music that thrives in such countries as Ireland. A popular proponent of Celtic gospel music is the Dublin Gospel choir.

Blurring the Lines Between Gospel and Contemporary Music

In most countries, there remains a distinction between church and religious music. With the popularity of Christian contemporary music, more and more artists are dabbling between the two, embracing both religious and secular forms of music. There are some subgenres of gospel music around world, however, that have remained steadfast in the overt quality of their worship in their music, very much unlike contemporary Christian music, which more often than not contained double entendres in its lyrics, which means that the song can be applied to both religious and secular contexts. Southern gospel songs in particular have remained  overt in the Christian messages of its lyrics despite the infusion of bluegrass and jazz influences.

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Find Out How to Play the 12 Bar Blues Guitar – Playing 12 Bar Guitar

Playing the blues, music is something that many guitarists aspire to do. Some it comes to easily whereas others find it more difficult. Another thing about the blues music is you either love it or hate it. By the looks of how popular it is, one would have to say that those who hate it are in the minority.

One of the greatest if not the greatest blues singers was B.B.King. Many novices to the guitar marvel at how well he plays them and just how it’s done. To do so you need to learn the 12 bar blues. Don’t give up yet with some perseverance and practice you will master the blues as well.

Have you ever been listening to the blues and just know it reminds you of something? Well it may well do so if you remember the African American slaves from down south. It stems from their local traditions of how they would call out and respond to each other. The majority of blues songs is simply based on this and mimics those sounds. It is the progressive scale.

If you have been following the history of blues music then you have heard the name W.C.Handy. By using the 12 bar blues he was able to produce the very first certifiable blue hit. This is going back some years naturally, since blues has been around for a long time. We’re talking back to the introduction of the “St. Louis Blues” back in 1914.

Interestingly enough at that time the blues wasn’t all that well received it was just ok in the opinion of most. It slowly caught on and almost seemed to have an infectious affect to it.It didn’t matter what the ethnic group was it was being accepted. It really was the African American artist that brought the blues to the forefront. Artists such as Billie Holiday played a big part in this roll. By this time, it was well in the 1930′s. As the 20th century grew to a close, B.B.King added a unique touch to the Blues. Being a lead guitar player, he would bring a different touch to the music with his 12 bars blues techniques. From this point on there was no looking back or cooling off for the blues. It has just continued to grow into popularity, as it is known today.

It revolutionized the aspects of guitar playing. The 12 bars blues is now a commonplace and basic way of the guitar. Anyone aspiring to be good guitar player must learn the essential cord progression.

One of the best ways to learn this technique is through iVideosongs. Here is where you will start the beginning of learning the 12 bar blues, and then by taking what you learn here and making it a practice you will soon be surprised and pleased at how adept you will become.

It just seems to be natural to begin to learn how to play the 12 bar blues the moment one becomes serious about learning to play the guitar. Perhaps because rock includes the 12 bar blues this is the reason.

The first thing you are going to learn is that in order to learn the blues you are going to learn three bars that follow each other in succession.

The first measure is learning how to play a chord. If you are familiar with Presley’s some Hound Dog then you already know what a cord is. Don’t even think about moving onto the next step until you have this one down perfectly.

Now moving onto the second measure does not mean you will not be continuing in the 4/4 time meaning each quarter measure is one beat. The difference here is that in the first measure you were playing in “A” now you will be playing in “D” chord. Once again, become really familiar and comfortable at this measure then get ready to move onto the third and final measure.

Finally, you are here on your last measure and guess what? It’s no different from your first two except now you are going to be playing in “E” chord. That really wasn’t so hard was it? Now it means hours of practice and application to really master these 3 measures to make up the 12 bar blues.

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