The Blues
The Blues, one of Americas oldest story telling methods. Not only is it written, but it is also sang and is a musical genre. This blog may become very biased in a good way at times because the blues is not only my favorite genre of music to listen to, but also my favorite to play on my Epiphone casino guitar. The Blue’s routes can be traced back to late-ninetieth-century in the the deep south of America’s homeland. The blues consists of, “ work songs structured on African musical, verbal and communal patterns” (Patterson 199). It started in the cotton fields and found it’s way across the entire south through blues performers playing in county fairs, and juke joints to city street corners. By 1912 the blues was recorded via phonograph recordings. It made its way to the north through these recordings. It made its way to cities like Chicago where the Chicago Blues was born. This type of blues was introduced along with the existing types of blues such as the Mississippi blues, Texas Blues, the Memphis Blues etc.
The blues morphed into different forms and variations like the twelve bar blues. This form consist of a chord sequence starting with four measures of the I chord followed by two measures of the IV chord. Then back to the I chord for two measures followed by the V chord, the V chord and finally back to the I for two measures. “Compositions like Handy’s “Saint Louis Blues” popularized the “classic” blues lyric stanza: three lines of iambic pentameter, rhymed AAa, each with a caesura.” (Patterson) 198. “The first line makes a statement that is repeated in the second line. The third line provides a rhymed response to the statement (Patterson 198). This is just one example of the poetic form. There are many forms to it! “There is no fixed number of stanzas and several of the AAa rhyme pattern may occur in the same lyric” (Patterson 190).
The blues is a poetic form that focuses on a tragedy or pain that one encounters in their life. It is a way to express something horrible. Look no further than it origins… It was created by people that went through hell and they were not treated like people. “The blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically” (Patterson 189). A perfect example of the blues can be found on page 193. Ishmael Reed’s Oakland Blues. His poem stays true to the form of the blues. It has a ababcb ryhme scheme and the lines repeat, but with minor variation. The poem tells a story of depressed person who lost his baby. The speaker mourns the loss in the city of Oakland at six o’ clock in the evening, the day they buried her. The speaker mentions a diagnosis of a sickness eighteen months ago, then repeats it. The speaker goes on to wonder what will happen to them and the mentions the emptiness of the house is like the emptiness they feel inside.
Patterson, Raymond R. “Computer Blues”. An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Eds. Anne Finch and Katherine Varnes. Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 2002. p 303.
