A Guide Through the Culture of the Blues
Sloan Edward Williams III
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Day One: Introduction for the week.
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Teachers pass out the lesson worksheets and draw the figure below on the board:
(figure available in print form)
Explain to the class over the next week we shall be observing or tracing the origins of how the blues rhythm can be understood from the study of one West African Bell pattern. There are a few concepts that have also contributed the blues by traditional western music. Before we get to musical European influences let us look at a few historical facts of the Blacks in America during the 1700’s and the 1800’s. At first as slaves, Black people in America were not permitted by law to read or to learn how to read, to meet in large groups to worship God, were not allowed to have or make drums (because drums might be used as a communication tool), or use their native languages. What did survive Middle Passage in terms of music traditions were the African melodies based on the pentatonic Scales (like those found on the “Marimba” which became the “Early Spirituals” which shared the same pentatonic Scales), and the rhythms and musical forms that were formed by the lead drums “Call and Response”. The work songs that evolved, the spirituals, became the foundation of 12 Bar structure of the Blues. The work sheets that were passed out to you contain materials that we will be using such as important musical concepts, musical terms, some scientific thoughts and ideas, as well as key vocabulary words and home journals (which have space for your own comments and additional homework work space).
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Day One: “Today we are going to look at “the Work Song”, “the Spiritual” and its connection to the pentatonic scales. Have students read this passage {In Their Own Words} Vol. 1, From Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup, 1853, (taken from 1930’s fieldworkers of the Federal Writers’ Project):