Style blues: the original history of the blues, delta blues and spiritual. Spirituals

Like jazz, spirituals and gospel come from America. Both of these genres embody a highly spiritual creative expression through choral singing, a combination of different voices, heightened emotional performance and soulful lyrics, invariably dedicated to God. This energetically strong music conquered the whole world and for many performers it became an excellent vocal school from an early age.

Spirituals and gospel: the origins

Spirituals- the oldest direction in music, Christian songs, which were created by African slaves in the United States in the early seventeenth century. In those difficult times for the dark-skinned people, they were enslaved and turned into forced laborers. It is not surprising that creativity helped the slaves to maintain their own morale, and to endure life's hardships and hardships by turning to the Lord. Initially, spirituals was a kind of speech-prayer, which was pronounced at a Christian service in local churches, then it began to be performed with the help of several voices, from which entire choirs were formed.

African American sacred music, the so-called spiritual music, is one of the largest and most significant forms of American folk song. This genre is still the mainstay, especially in small Baptist churches in the American South.

Spirituals inspired an increasing number of believers and developed, thanks to which there was gospel- a new musical genre of Christian music. The creation, performance, meaning, and even definition of this music varies across cultures and social contexts. Gospel appeared for many purposes, including for aesthetic pleasure, the expression of religious or ceremonial ideas. Gospel music is usually dominated by vocals (often with pronounced harmonies) and lyrics with Christian themes. Most churches built the rhythm with hand clapping and foot stomping to form a lively accompaniment.

Most often, gospel music was performed a cappella, and the first official use of the term "gospel music" appeared in 1874. The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly increased the audience for this genre.

Gospel blues is a form of blues music (a combination of guitar and Christian lyrics). Progressive "southern gospel" - a musical genre native to the southern United States - has gained a lot of popularity over the past few decades. There is also Christian country music, sometimes referred to as a gospel sub-genre, which reached its peak in the mid-1990s.

Gospel in Russia

In Russia, gospel and spirituals can most often be heard during tours, master classes or lectures by American Christian choirs, which often visit our country. Due to the fact that this music has a pronounced spiritual message and the energy of a completely different culture, gospel music is not particularly developed among Russian musicians, although there are pleasant exceptions. There is an ensemble in St. Petersburg total price, singing gospel, a feature of which was the performance of texts both in English and in Russian. The choir participates in church music services, evangelistic concerts, conferences, as well as in many other various events.

Among the band members: vocalists (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), drummer and bass player, all active Christians from different churches. The choir often visits America and European countries with performances and regularly participates in St. Petersburg musical events.

In the capital, you can listen to gospel music performed by the choir Moscow Gospel Mass Choir, formed in 2010, in which church parishioners from different countries sing.

Many of them are students: doctors, journalists, engineers, there are also people who come to rehearsals after their main work. As choir drummer Michael Amirika Tufur says:

We sing gospel or Christian music. With its help, we help people to recognize and praise the Lord. We sing in our church every Sunday morning. There are usually a lot of people: the last time all 200 seats were occupied in the hall.

Founder of the choir Eben Ezer Dion performs Christian compositions on the organ in Côte d'Ivoire. A few years ago he studied at the Russian Academy of Music. Gnesins. The Moscow Gospel Mass Choir consists of 15 people who often participate in gospel festivals, Christian services in Moscow, which a large number of people come to listen to.

Actually, when did this amazing style - the blues - appear? Approximate time of birth - the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Place of birth - Delta (hence the style delta blues), the Mississippi Delta (from Memphis to the Gulf of Mexico). In these vast territories, among almost impoverished black people, America's most precious national treasure was born, this popular and today blues style. Name " Delta"rather not a geographical, but a historical and cultural concept. This is the place where, after clearing the forests, draining the marshes, they began to grow cotton. Hundreds of thousands, first slaves and then semi-slaves, swarm on these endless floodplain fields. Their life was miserable, hard and humiliating. The music, the songs of these people, their amusements were, in essence, an expression of this life of despair. In this way, blues style, delta blues and blues history have very little that is romantic.

The history of the blues and its geography

The history of the blues is very interesting, mysterious, long and filled with interesting legends. The places where the blues style (delta blues) was born as a result of complex processes of interpenetration also include Alabama, the states of Georgia, and Florida.
From Delta this delta blues spread throughout all the states of America and in different states it had its own characteristics. Its most important centers were the city of Chicago, Texas, California and still remains the Delta. From these points continues to come to blues more and more stars.
The blues style at one time had another world center - England. But much time has passed since then, and this country has lost interest in this art. The history of the blues played a cruel joke on England: this country lost its importance as the world center of the blues. Everything that sounds there today is not the original English style of blues that was there in the days of John Mayle, in the 60s, but rather a pale shadow of American blues. Of course, this does not exclude the fact that there are bright talents in Foggy Albion. There are dozens of them, and all of them are interesting in their own way, the blues they perform is also interesting in its own way.

The blues music style is a simple thing. And indeed it is. However, it is worth flipping through any blues magazine or talking to an "advanced" collector and it turns out that there are many sub-styles, types, sub-species of blues. Sometimes there is even a suspicion that music journalists, art historians compete in who, how many more subtleties and who will name more styles. Plus different relatives of the blues - gospel and spiritual. No, he is not at all simple this mysterious blues style. And then, if everything is so elementary, why do people with a conservatory education, with dazzling careers, with deafening names in show business, suddenly indulge in this spontaneous, intuitive, mysterious, attractive art called the blues with enthusiasm and pleasure? No, perhaps this blues style not so simple. And this is also true. Blues history- confirmation of this.

Blues History: Sources and Instruments

The blues had several sources and several components. One of them is African, which is understandable, because the ancestors of the current bluesmen were from West Africa. Recently, musical instruments, prototypes of the banjo, the first almost blues instrument, were discovered there. And the peculiarities of the vocal technique of Africans suggest the deep African roots that the history of the blues has, and in particular delta blues.

But the banjo did not become the main character in blues history. Its sound is very interesting, unusual, but sharp and short. But in blues music, it is important that the instrument is not only an accompaniment, but also, as it were, continued by the human voice.

The piano is really the instrument for the blues soul. Blues history inextricably linked with this tool. Its disadvantage at one time was the inability to move along with the musicians, who were what is called "tumbleweed" and moved to where they were paid, which was quite natural.

The history of the blues is closely connected with world history. Capitalism, industrial production spread their tentacles, stretched out their grasping hands at the beginning of the 20th century. everywhere: where there is production, there are a lot of workers. The mass has worked - the mass wants to rest. Therefore, a whole system of entertainment and entertainment facilities arose. Hundreds and thousands of so-called bordel houses began to multiply throughout America (something between a beer house and a brothel), in which delta blues sounded. There were no radio equipment then, at the beginning of the century, with amplifiers, speakers, loudness. But the piano has always been in such places. Mostly these broken, out-of-tune pianos played the blues loud and fast. It was called boogie-woogie. But then, in the first quarter of the 20th century, the first slow blues, called blues ballads, appeared.

Another member of the blues instrument family is the tiny harmonica. In length, it reached only 10 centimeters. Today there is a wide variety of such instruments of various sizes: there are harmonicas the length of a clarinet, there are harmonicas with different pitches, different sets of registers, but the main instrument of the blues is such a small harmonica. Each harmonica corresponds to a separate note or tone, so during a concert one can observe a musician-harmonist, on whose chest, like a machine-gun belt, patronage of 10-15 harmonicas or smaller instruments is fixed. Sometimes during one song the musician replaces the harmonica several times. These little harmonicas are called differently in the blues environment: French harp ("French harmonica"), Jewish harp ("Jewish harmonica"), "Mississippi saxophone", etc. The harmonica was used as an accompanying instrument, and later, in the middle of the 20th century musicians learned to play the blues on it, putting it close to the microphone - in blues history The harmonica became a powerful solo instrument.

The main instrument of the blues is, of course, the guitar. Blues history knows three basic ways of blues playing, which are rather arbitrary: strumming, "picking" (from English peaking - when individual notes are taken, as in soloing in jazz), and "bottle neck" (English bottle neck) - the most ancient and the original style, blues - its most archaic kind of delta blues - is actually associated with this playing style.
Bottle neck - a bottle neck, which was carefully separated from the bottle, strung on one of the fingers of the left hand and, pressing the hand against the strings, moved up and down, striking the strings with the left right hand. Thus the melody was born. Simply put, the guitarist slid this neck along the strings, either accompanying himself or playing in unison with his voice. game technique and delta blues remained the same. There are many variations of different guitar settings, bottlenecks (sliders) to countless sounds, which is achieved by the amount of equipment used, amplifiers, speakers, etc. etc. Not to mention the instrumental fantasy that every musician is free to put into his blues.

Playing a slide - sliding - in the blues is extremely effective. At concerts, fast blues slide numbers are the hottest, and they can drive the audience literally into a frenzy. The slide technique is not available to everyone. Even the greats B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan didn't use the slide. Steve Ray Vaughan literally annoyed the slide. BB King played his blues differently instead of slide. He began to pull the strings with his heavy left hand while vibrating the guitar string, thereby creating the style of musical playing that dominates the electric guitar blues today. Probably nine out of ten blues guitarists use this style. This is the same guitar picking, the same legendary string pull, which is so famous blues

Blues vocals and poetry

However, the most important instrument of the blues, which all other instruments try to reach out to, is the human voice.
I must say that everything that is done in the blues style by any musician, on any instrument - everything will strive for the expressiveness of the human voice. It is possible that music itself began in antiquity after a person, having extorted the first cry of joy or despair, did not cut it off immediately, but continued for several moments. Although, who knows how the music began. But in any case, it started with rhythm. It also begins with blues.

In the middle of a forest or in a field you will hear many sounds: the wind, birds, the rustle of branches, the sound of drops, perhaps the fuss of insects - there will be no rigor, no order, no rhythm. Calm powerful chaos. Rhythm you will hear in yourself. Your heart will set the rhythm for everything. So it is in the blues. Blues, including delta blues comes from very ancient, ancient sources, very deep, so the blues in its most original form delta blues It's just voice and rhythm. Although the main thing is also the ability to feel. Spiritual and blues it is impossible to sing without a heart.

With vocals, a series of paradoxes in the blues begins. It turns out that singing it, believe it or not, is not at all necessary. That being said, have a great voice too. It may surprise you, but in the blues the vast majority of musicians and performers, to put it mildly, are not Chaliapins and not even Luciano Pavarotti at all. There are completely voiceless singers (in the academic sense). After all delta blues does not require a perfect voice from the performer. However, as for blacks (as they call themselves, African-Americans), there are no bad singers among them - this is also a paradox that is not worth discussing. They are given by nature a phenomenal sense of rhythm, and very many - the ability to sing the blues (and not only the blues) without learning to sing. An example of this is not only the blues, but also spiritual.

There is one circumstance that explains why there are so many singers and singers in America. Classical blues stars, and not only them, sang in the choir of the Baptist church as children. Choral spiritual singing, called gospel (gospel) or spiritual(spirituals) - a school that has no analogues in every sense. The main lesson of the spiritual is the need to be sincere, to invest feelings, and not just strain the ligaments. Agree, because when singing is addressed to the Lord, it is impossible to be hypocritical. That is what the spiritual teaches.

Gospel is also called holy blues ("holy blues"). Musically, gospel, spiritual, and blues are almost twins: they sound very similar, they often have the same structure, the same ancestors, and in many cases they are performed by the same performer. Suppose, in the repertoire of the same BB King there is a disc in his discography, where he sings only spiritual music. However, if these two musics, these two spiritual arts and the blues are brothers, then their paths once diverged, and fundamental antipodes emerged from these brothers.

Gospel and spiritual developed into a highly moral spiritual personality, and the blues went down a different path, as it were, rolled down an inclined path. 95% of all blues are about failed love. But since there were never censors over the blues, its authors, though gifted, but very spontaneous, spoke mostly openly about their desires, about their hidden desires, fantasies, about their sexual adventures - about everything that could come to mind. about love and sex. Sometimes it turned out very ambiguously, but more often in plain text.
The blues has a worse reputation: half-jokingly at the beginning of the 20th century, African-Americans themselves dubbed it devils music (satanic music). In the old days, when morality was stricter, the content of the blues was considered prejudicial and very "salty" in a decent society;. Yes, and the musicians were all some kind of tear-offs: no stake, no court, no foundations, no respect. Where the hard one will carry, it will carry it there. And where to? Where there is fun, women, stabbing, whiskey. Yes, it will take you there. Many ended badly and, when this happened, they said: "Well, he sang the blues - devils music." And again, rumors played a role, generalizations of bluesmen with evil spirits, about which they sang with pleasure, and they still insert their songs into their songs. This is how gospel, spiritual and blues went.

I must admit that times have changed a lot, and what blacks themselves once told about the blues, now seems to be, perhaps, harmless superstition or poetic exoticism.

By the way, about the blues poetry. So that you don't get the impression that blues- the art of some corrupted, vicious and limited people, it should be noted this: people, no matter what life makes them, always hope. They always wait for love, suffer without it. Their destiny is loneliness and the search for other people, another heart. Blues about it. And often here, in the blues, there is high and poignant poetry, as in a song that was once composed by Robert Johnson, who died in 1938. It's called Love in Vain:

with a suitcase in my hand
And I followed her to the station
with a suitcase in my hand
Well, its hard to tell, its hard to tell
when all your loves in vain
All my loves in vain

I looked at her in the eye
When the train rolled up to the station
and I looked at her in the eye
Well, I was lonesome, I felt so lonesome
and I could not help but cry
All my loves in vain

with two lights on behind
When the train left the station
with two lights on behind
Well, the blue light was my blues
and the red light was my mind
All my loves in vain

We went to the station, I was carrying a suitcase,
She walked ahead and I followed her.
We were silent, she walked ahead. I walked behind her, I was leaving.
It's hard to say, but the love was in vain.
When the train approached the platform, I looked into her eyes and understood:
now I'm alone, and nothing can help here. Cry, don't cry - love was in vain.
Two lanterns on the last car of this train that carried me away:
blue as a beacon of my anguish, red as a firefly of my memory.
Love was in vain.

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ragtime(eng. ragtime) - a genre of American music, especially popular from 1900 to 1918. This is a dance form in 2/4 or 4/4 time signatures in which the bass is played on the odd beats and the chords are played on the even beats, giving the sound a typical "marching" beat; the melodic line is heavily syncopated. Many ragtime compositions consist of four different musical themes.

Ragtime is considered one of the forerunners of jazz. Jazz inherited from ragtime rhythmic sharpness, created by the mismatch of rhythmically free, as it were, “torn” melody. Some time after the First World War, ragtime was again fashionable as a salon dance. Other dances originated from him, including the foxtrot.

The peculiarity of the rhythm of this form is very widely used in professional music - works by Antonin Dvořák on an American theme (the symphony "From the New World" and the string "American Quartet"), as well as "Ragtime" (1918) by Igor Stravinsky for eleven instruments.

The origin of the word "ragtime" is still unclear. Perhaps it comes from English. ragged time ("torn time", that is, a syncopated rhythm).

Spirituals, spiritual (English Spirituals, Spiritual music) - spiritual songs of African Americans. As a genre, spirituals took shape in the last third of the 19th century in the United States as modified slave songs of African Americans of the American South (in those years, the term "jubilize" was used).

The source of Negro spirituals are spiritual hymns brought to America by white settlers. The theme of spirituals was biblical Old Testament stories, especially those related to the theme of liberation (Moses, Daniel). Pictures from the Book of Revelation were often used. The songs were adapted to the specific conditions of everyday life and everyday life of African Americans and were subjected to folklore processing.

They combine the characteristic elements of African performing traditions (collective improvisation, characteristic rhythm with a pronounced polyrhythm, glissand sounds, untempered chords, special emotionality) with the stylistic features of American Puritan hymns that arose on the Anglo-Celtic basis. Spirituals have a question-answer (responsible) structure in the dialogue of the preacher with the parishioners. Often, singing was accompanied by clapping, stomping, less often - dancing.

Blues(from the English. Blues or Blue Devils - longing, sadness) - a musical form and musical genre that originated at the end of the 19th century in the African American community of the Southeastern United States, among immigrants from the Cotton Belt plantations. It is (along with ragtime, early jazz, hip-hop, etc.) one of the most influential contributions of African Americans to world musical culture. The term was first used by George Colman in the one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). Since then, in literary works, the phrase English. "Blue Devils" is often used to describe a depressed mood.

The blues was formed from its manifestations such as “work song”, holler (rhythmic cries that accompanied work in the field), cries in the rituals of African religious cults (English (ring) shout), spirituals (Christian chants), shant and ballads (short poetry stories).

In many ways, he influenced modern popular music, especially such genres as "pop", "jazz", "rock and roll", "soul".

The predominant form of the blues is 12 bars, where the first 4 bars are often played on tonic harmony, 2 each on subdominant and tonic, and 2 each on dominant and tonic. This alternation is also known as the "blues grid". The metric base in blues is 4/4. The rhythm of eighth triplets with a pause is often used - the so-called shuffle.

Spiritual songs (spirituals)

Important in shaping African-American music

played the process of converting those brought to the Christian faith

slaves from Africa. Blacks didn't mind the inclusion

to a new faith, because it gave them hope for liberation.

This is how the dogmas of Christianity were perceived, adapting to the realities of slave existence. The Church was interpreted by them and how

the possibility of escape from the terrible real life.

For these and other reasons, the music played in the Negro church

carried in itself the features of canonical European ecclesiastical

chants and all kinds of elements of pagan cults,

who came from their historical homeland. Degree of penetration

aesthetic and musical elements of African origin in

temple music depended on the variety of Christianity.

As you know, in the South of the United States, Catholicism flourished to a greater extent.

(Spaniards and French), gravitating towards cult symbols, theatrical

ceremonies and, on the other hand, more tolerant of atavisms

\ African cults. Stricter attitude towards manifestations of paganism

Protestants, especially Puritans, dissatisfied with any manifestation

frivolity.

It is no coincidence that the special development of the genres of African-American

Sacred music was received precisely in the southern regions of the United States.
Spiritual chants of North American Negroes, the so-called

"spirituals", originated in the USA already in the 2nd half of the 18th century

due to the conversion of blacks to Christianity. Their original

religious hymns and psalms brought to

America by white settlers and missionaries. Spirituals

combine distinctive elements of African

performing traditions (collective improvisation,

characteristic glissando rhythmic, untempered

chords, special emotionality) with stylistic features

Puritan hymns. At the same time, they are less

African and to a greater extent European than the rest

African American music. They represented the African as

thinking human being and were the first and most

means of expression through which the whole world

got acquainted with Negro music.
The religious music of American blacks is very diverse.

and includes such types of songs as:
- "ring-shout" (the song is "performed" by the whole body during the dance of all participants

in a circle counterclockwise);
- "song-sermon" (sermon songs)
- gospel and
- "jubilee songs" (praise songs with a short,

rhythmic tune)
-actually "spirituals" with a long, smooth, continuous melody.

The ring-shout is considered the most ancient genre of sacred music.

(ring shout) - a group dance of blacks singing in prayer.

At its climax, this rite reaches a high emotional level.

glow, the participants scream, fall into an ecstatic state. Musically, the ring-shout is characterized by a developed

polyrhythm, accentuation of the weak beat, question-answer form.

This music is typical for non-church ceremonial meetings. At the same time, the spiritual genre, which has many similar features,

These are already church hymns, hymns that have undergone

significant changes that came from the ring-shout.

As a rule, this is a collective prayer with the separation of the functions of the preacher and parishioners. European genres,

which served as the basis of spirituals, these are primarily hymns,

secular and spiritual Anglo-Celtic folklore,

psalms with texts relating mainly to

without musical accompaniment, they existed,

as a vocal piece for soloist and choir.

Later, in the second half of the 19th century,

concert samples of cult music written

composers and transferred nanonotes.
They were included in the first collection of Negro melodies,

which was called "Songs of the US Slaves" (1867). Of course,

there is a big difference between purely folk

and arranged, concert form of performance spirituals.

After the end of the civil war between North and South

and the abolition of slavery in 1865, when blacks first received

some right to enroll in institutes, at the university

Fisca in Nashville in 1871 was organized by the Negro

vocal ensemble "Fisk Jubilee Singers", which

soon made his concert tours around the country and abroad.
Like all other African-American music, spirituals

are the result of a complex blend of European

and African traditions. Folks were the main

hymns of Anglican origin and vernacular style

singing these hymns (based on biblical material)

while the role of the West African rhythm gradually

shortened, the melody lengthened and harmony developed.
Spirituals significantly influenced the origin, formation

and the development of jazz, many of which are still used by jazz

musicians as themes for improvisations. Most Popular

among them among jazzmen is “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot“,

"Go Down, Moses", "Nobody Knows The Trouble I"ve Seen" and

"Down By The Riverside" and the theme is "When The Saints Go"

Marching In" is just a kind of anthem

traditional jazz (Dixieland).
Negro religious music still continues

serve as an inspiration to the entire jazz tradition

generally. An example of this are fragments from the opera "Porgy and Bess"

George Gershwin, Duke Ellington's Sacred Music Concerts,

"Jazz Mass" by Lalo Shifrin, etc.
Spiritual modification as applied to the new age

became the gospel song genre. Its name comes from

English word "Gospel" (Gospel). Gospel based

on the gospel texts, but the differences do not end there.

Many elements of jazz penetrated gospel, including rhythmic,

in character vocals, a gospel song performer often

accompanied by jazz musicians. This genre is represented

not only specializing in them is a magnificent

gospel singer Mahalia Jackson

Mahalia Jackson

Not only music is very interesting,

but also spiritual texts. They are most often based on biblical

texts, but often they have a certain subtext.

For example, among the black slaves who worked for the southern

plantations, were very popular spirituals about the prophet

Moses, who led his people out of slavery:

(the singer began) Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled,

And the Lord called from heaven:

"O my prophet, be wise and bold,

Don't stay here."

“Oh, whatever happens,” the prophet replied, “

I won't stay here.

Let my road be hard -

I won't stay here."

(All parishioners picked up: I will not settle here.

The singer sang in different keys like Moses and his people

wandered through the desert, etc., and the community picked up every time: I will not stay here).

There were spiritual chants and without "subtext",

for example, about Samson and the beauty who killed him

Delilah, which began with the words:

"Dalila was a beautiful woman,

In spirituals, words and whole lines-phrases are often repeated,

like: “Where were you when our Savior was crucified on the cross?”

Charlie Haydon

And, as a rule, deep sadness shines through them, as

in the famous: “Sometimes I feel like a motherless [email protected]

(Sometimes I feel like a child without a mother).

Pepper again repeated many times during the song

"Faraway, far away is your home" (Far, far away is your home

and urged to strive there, and the parishioners picked up:

Believe it! (Believe it) repeating these words over and over.