1.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
2.
Folk music
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Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music, however, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
3.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
4.
Washboard (musical instrument)
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The washboard and frottoir are used as a percussion instrument, employing the ribbed metal surface of the cleaning device as a rhythm instrument. Often the washboard has additional traps, such as a block, a cowbell. Conversely, the frottoir dispenses with the frame and consists simply of the metal ribbing hung around the neck and it is played primarily with spoon handles or bottle openers in a combination of strumming, scratching, tapping and rolling. The frottoir or vest frottoir is played as a percussion instrument, often in a band with a drummer. In Zydeco bands, the frottoir is played with bottle openers. It tends to play counter-rhythms to the drummer, in a jug band, the washboard can also be stroked with a single whisk broom and functions as the drums for the band, playing only on the back-beat for most songs, a substitute for a snare drum. In a four-beat measure, the washboard will stroke on the 2-beat and its best sound is achieved using a single steel-wire snare-brush or whisk broom. There are three ways of deploying the washboard for use as an instrument. The first, mainly used by American players like Washboard Chaz of the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio, there is a Polish traditional jazz festival and music award named Złota Tarka. Washboards, called zatulas, are occasionally used in Ukrainian folk music. The washboard as a percussion instrument ultimately derives from the practice of hamboning as practiced in West Africa and this led to the development of Jug bands which used jugs, spoons, and washboards to provide the rhythm. Jug bands became popular in the 1920s, the frottoir, also called a Zydeco rub-board, is a mid-20th century invention designed specifically for Zydeco music. It is one of the few musical instruments invented entirely in the United States and it was designed in 1946 by Clifton Chenier and fashioned by Willie Landry, a friend and metalworker at the Texaco refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. Cliftons brother Cleveland Chenier famously played this newly designed rubboard using bottle openers, likewise, Willies son, Tee Don Landry, continues the traditional hand manufacturing of rubboards in his small shop in Sunset, Louisiana, between Lafayette and Opelousas. In 2010 Saint Blues Guitar Workshop launched an electric washboard percussion instrument called the Woogie Board, see also, Category, Washboard players In British Columbia, Canada, Tony McBride, known as Mad Fingers McBride, performs with a group called The Genuine Jug Band. Tony is referred to as The Canadian Washboard King and his percussion set-up was created by Douglas Fraser, of the same band. The washboard set-up was seen in Modern Drummer magazine, August 2014 edition, musician Steve Katz famously played washboard with the Even Dozen Jug Band. His playing can be heard on the group’s legendary self-titled Elektra recording from 1964, Katz reprised his washboard playing on Played a Little Fiddle, a 2007 recording featuring Steve Katz, Stefan Grossman and Danny Kalb
5.
Jug (instrument)
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The jug used as a musical instrument is an empty jug played with buzzed lips to produce a trombone-like tone. The characteristic sound of the jug is low and hoarse, below the pitch of the fiddle, harmonica. The jug does not touch the mouth, but serves as a resonating chamber to amplify. Changes in pitch are controlled by loosening or tightening the lips, an accomplished jug player might have a two-octave range. Some players augment this sound with vocalizations, didgeridoo style, in performance, the jug sound is enhanced if the player stands with his back to a wall, which will reflect the sound towards the audience. The stovepipe is played in much the manner, with the open-ended pipe being the resonating chamber. There is some similarity to the didgeridoo, but there is no contact between the stovepipe and the players lips, as a bass instrument, the jug is part of the bands rhythm section, but jug solos are common. Most jug bands use a single jug player, but there are recordings of bands that used jug sections of two or more players. Jugs will also produce sound at their main resonance frequency when air is blown across the top opening and this method is not used in bands, since it is relatively quiet and produces only a single pitch. It is typically used for making glass bottles whistle, a larger bottle produces a lower musical pitch while smaller ones produce higher pitches. The pitch of a bottle played in this way may be controlled by changing its volume by adding or emptying contents, loudness is a function of the speed of the air blown across the top. The jug as a musical instrument reached its height of popularity in the 1920s, the jug was also popular because it was cheap and easy to carry around. In addition to the most common ceramic jug, containers of different materials have been used for musical jugs, e. g. glass jugs and bottles, plastic bleach bottles, tin kerosene cans. Different materials produce different sounds, as do different sizes, a version of the jug, known as the botija, was played in early Cuban musical forms such as the son. In recent times, Fritz Richmond was a well-known and successful jug player, josh Smith of the Glade City Rounders is one of the most famous jug players touring and playing live. He is said to possibly be the best in the world by some jug band scholars, blown bottle Cegléd water jug How to Prepare and Play a Jug Jug Band Examples
6.
Tea chest bass
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The washtub bass, or gutbucket, is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. The washtub bass was used in jug bands that were popular in some African American communities in the early 1900s. In the 1950s, British skiffle bands used a variant called a tea chest bass, variations on the basic design are found around the world, particularly in the choice of resonator. As a result, there are different names for the instrument including the gas-tank bass, barrel bass, box bass, bush bass, babatoni, tingotalango, tulòn, laundrophone. The hallmarks of the design are simplicity, very low cost and do-it-yourself construction. Ethnomusicologists trace the origins of the instrument to the ground harp - a version that uses a piece of bark or a skin stretched over a pit as a resonator. The washtub bass is used in a jug band, often accompanied by a washboard as a percussion instrument. Jug bands, first known as bands, were popular especially among African-Americans around 1900 in New Orleans. At about the time, European-Americans of Appalachia were using the instrument in old-timey folk music. A musical style known as gut-bucket blues came out of the jug band scene, according to Willie The Lion Smiths autobiography, the term gutbucket comes from Negro families who all owned their own pail, or bucket, and would get it filled with the makings for chitterlings. The term gutbucket came from playing a style of music. In English skiffle bands, Australian and New Zealand bush bands and South African kwela bands, before the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartneys band, The Quarrymen, featured a tea-chest bass, as did many young bands around 1956. A folk music revival in the U. S. in the early 1960s re-ignited interest in the washtub bass, bands included Mother McCrees Uptown Jug Champions which later became The Grateful Dead, and, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band featuring Fritz Richmond on bass. A tea chest bass is a variation of the bass that uses a tea chest as the resonator for an upright stringed bass. The instrument is made from a pole, traditionally a broomstick, one or more strings are stretched along the pole and plucked. In Europe, particularly England and Germany, the instrument is associated with skiffle bands, in Australia it was traditionally used to provide deep sounds for bush bands, though most such groups today use electric bass or double bass. It was commonly called a bush bass, Fritz Richmond has performed on numerous recordings from America and Japan. One of his washtub basses is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, Donald Kachamba and Moya Aliya, one-string box players with the influential Malawi group Kachamba Brothers Band
7.
Kazoo
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The kazoo is a musical instrument that adds a buzzing timbral quality to a players voice when the player vocalizes into it. It is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, one of a class of instruments which modifies its players voice by way of a vibrating membrane, a kazoo player hums, rather than blows, into the instrument. The oscillating air pressure of the hum makes the kazoos membrane vibrate, the resulting sound varies in pitch and loudness with the players humming. Players can produce different sounds by singing specific syllables such as doo, similar hide-covered vibrating and voice-changing instruments have been used in Africa for hundreds of years, often for ceremonial purposes. A popular belief is that Alabama Vest, an African-American in Macon, however, there is no documentation to support that claim. The first documented appearance of a kazoo was that created by an American inventor, Warren Herbert Frost, the patent states, This instrument or toy, to which I propose to give the name kazoo. Frosts kazoo did not look like present-day submarine-shaped kazoos, the modern kazoo—also the first one made of metal—was patented by George D. Smith of Buffalo, New York, May 27,1902. These machines were used for many decades, by 1994, the company produced 1.5 million kazoos per year and was the only manufacturer of metal kazoos in North America. The factory, in nearly its original configuration, is now called The Kazoo Factory and it is still operating, and it is open to the public for tours. In 2010, The Kazoo Museum opened in Beaufort, South Carolina with exhibits on kazoo history, the kazoo is played professionally in jug bands and comedy music, and by amateurs everywhere. It is among the instruments developed in the United States. In North East England and South Wales, kazoos play an important role in jazz bands. During Carnival, players use kazoos in the Carnival of Cádiz in Spain, in the Original Dixieland Jass Band 1921 recording of Crazy Blues, what the casual listener might mistake for a trombone solo is actually a kazoo solo by drummer Tony Sbarbaro or Red McKenzie. The Mound City Blue Blowers had a number of hit records in the early 1920s featuring Dick Slevin on metal kazoo. The vocaphone, a kind of kazoo with a tone, was occasionally featured in Paul Whitemans Orchestra. Trombonist-vocalist Jack Fulton played it on Whitemans recording of Vilia and Frankie Trumbauers Medley of Isham Jones Dance Hits, the Mills Brothers vocal group originally started in vaudeville as a kazoo quartet, playing four-part harmony on kazoo with one brother accompanying them on guitar. The kazoo is rare in European classical music, leonard Bernstein included a segment for kazoo ensemble in the First Introit of his Mass. The brief passages have the kazoo chorus sliding up and down the scale as the cheering rises, jesse Fullers 1962 recording of his song San Francisco Bay Blues features a kazoo solo, as does Eric Claptons 1992 recording of the song on MTVs Unplugged television show and album
8.
Cigar box guitar
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The cigar box guitar is a primitive chordophone that uses an empty cigar box as a resonator. The earliest had one or two strings, modern models typically have three or more, generally, the strings are connected to the end of a broomstick or a 1 x 3 inch wood slat and to the cigar box resonator. Cigars were packed in boxes, crates, and barrels as early as 1800, until then, cigars were shipped in larger crates containing 100 or more per case. After 1840, cigar manufacturers started using smaller, more portable boxes with 20–50 cigars per box, trace evidence of cigar box instruments exists from 1840 to the 1860s. The earliest known illustration of a cigar box instrument is an etching copyrighted in 1876 of two American Civil War soldiers at a campsite, one of whom is playing a cigar box fiddle. The etching was created by illustrator and artist Edwin Forbes, who, under the banner of Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper, the etching was included in Forbess work Life Stories of the Great Army. In the etching, the fiddle clearly shows the brand Figaro on the cigar box. In addition to the etching, plans for a cigar box banjo were published by Daniel Carter Beard, co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America, in 1884 as part of Christmas Eve with Uncle Enos. The plans, retitled How to Build an Uncle Enos Banjo, were included in the 1890 edition of Beards American Boys Handy Book as supplementary material at the back of the book. These plans omitted the story but still showed a step-by-step description of a playable five-string fretless banjo made from a cigar box and it would seem that the earliest cigar box instruments would be crude and primitive, but this is not always the case. The 1886 fiddle was made for an 8-year-old boy and is certainly playable, the latter instrument was made for serious playing. Cigar box guitars and fiddles were also important in the rise of jug bands, as most of these performers were black Americans living in poverty, many could not afford a real instrument. Using these, along with the bass, jug, washboard. The Great Depression of the 1930s saw a resurgence of homemade musical instruments, times were hard in the American South, and sitting on the front porch singing away the blues was a popular pastime. Musical instruments were beyond the means of most people, but with an old cigar box, a piece of broom handle and a couple of wires from the screen door, a guitar was born. A modern revival of these instruments has been gathering momentum with an increase in the number of cigar box guitar builders and performers, a loose-knit group of underground musicians tour the East Coast of the United States each summer under the banner Masters of the Cigar Box Guitar Tour. These musicians include Doctor Oakroot, Johnny Lowebow, Tomi-O and many others, a growing number of primitive luthiers are adding cigar box guitars to their items for sale. The Top cigar box guitar builders of today are Shane Speal, Mike Snowden, the modern revival is sometimes due to interest in jug bands and the DIY culture, as a cigar box is inexpensive in comparison with other factors, such as strings and construction time
9.
Musical saw
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A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is a hand saw used as a musical instrument. Capable of continuous glissando, the sound creates an ethereal tone, the musical saw is classified as a friction idiophone with direct friction under the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification. The saw is generally played seated with the handle squeezed between the legs, and the far end held with one hand, some sawists play standing, either with the handle between the knees and the blade sticking out in front of them. The saw is usually played with the edge, or teeth, facing the body. Some saw players file down the teeth which makes no difference to the sound. Many—especially professional—saw players use a handle at the tip of the saw for easier bending, to sound a note, a sawist first bends the blade into an S-curve. The parts of the blade that are curved are damped from vibration, at the center of the S-curve a section of the blade remains relatively flat. This section, the spot, can vibrate across the width of the blade, producing a distinct pitch, the wider the section of blade. Sound is usually created by drawing a bow across the edge of the saw at the sweet spot. The sawist controls the pitch by adjusting the S-curve, making the sweet spot travel up the blade for a higher pitch, harmonics can be created by playing at varying distances on either side of the sweet spot. Sawists can add vibrato by shaking one of their legs or by wobbling the hand holds the tip of the blade. Once a sound is produced, it will sustain for quite a while, on occasion the musical saw is called for in orchestral music, but orchestral percussionists are seldom also sawists. If a note outside of the range is called for. Sawists often use standard wood-cutting saws, although special musical saws are also made, as compared with wood-cutting saws, the blades of musical saws are generally wider, for range, and longer, for finer control. They do not have set or sharpened teeth, and may have grain running parallel to the edge of the saw. Some musical saws are made with metal, to increase flexibility, while others are made thicker, for a richer tone, longer sustain. A typical musical saw is 5 inches wide at the end and 1 inch wide at the tip. Such a saw will generally produce about two octaves, regardless of length, a bass saw may be 6 inches at the handle and produce about two-and-a-half octaves
10.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
