... music. Really studying music involves learning music theory and musical form. To understand music you must first know how the song is structured based on chords and rhythmic passages. Blues originated in Missippissi around the nineteenth century. Blues or "12-bar blues", as it is called, has a standard chord ... style of Jazz that reminds me of a walking horse. Blues or flatted notes are notes that are lowered a half step. Instead of hearing major chords, the chords are actually minor sounding sad. Improvising is a soloist playing a solo off the top of his head not rehearsed at all. Tec...

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• Grade Level: High School

... would sit with my fingers on the strings at random positions, listening to the sounds it made. I didn't even know that there were such things as chords or harmonics, and the concept of tuning a guitar was completely over my head at the time. For a couple of weeks, I had the guitar out ... could play "Yesterday" quite well. The next step was to learn more songs. I asked my mom to show me more and she introduced me to chords. She explained how to read a chord chart and I found some old guitar music magazines that had lots of chord charts in them. Then I tried ... sounded good and which ...

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• Grade Level: High School

... by ear or actually reading music. Really studying music involves learning music theory and musical form. To understand music you must first know how the song is structured based on chords and rhythmic passages. Blues originated in Mississippi around the nineteenth century. Blues or "12-bar blues", as it is called, has a standard chord progression. The song never changes, but allows ... differentiate the musicians. Swing is a style of Jazz that reminds me of a walking horse. Blues or flatted notes are notes that are lowered a half step. Instead of hearing major chords, the chords are act...

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• Grade Level: High School

... because of the horrid guitar playing that punk rockers display. I see this topic differently than most because I play the instrument and I know these guys make music by playing the same chords over and over again and to me that gets real old quickly. Just listen to a couple songs and tell me I"m wrong, if I was rebel and my hair was in a mohawk ... standard tuning day in and day out at every show they play. What's so fun and cool about that? Diversity is something all bands should have, and playing the same chords over and over in every song is not diversity. Alternative rock and rock m...

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• Grade Level: High School

... followed it. Developed in the rural South, the first form of blues, called 12 bar blues, uses the African derived scale and sliding pitches combined with traditional European meter and chords as its framework. Also, divided into three sets of four bars, 12-bar-blues uses a variation of call and response in which the first two lines vocally are identical, and ... , using the same instrument both for solo and ensemble in the same piece with great fluidity. Finally, Ellington added complexity to the use of harmony by expanding the breadth of chords, and adding more dissonance. This type of ...

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... on 20th century American popular music. ...a song-form with an AAB rhyming scheme in three four-bar segments--each one part vocal, part instrumental response--using a I-IV-V chord progression, including chords with flatted "blue" notes, usually thirds and sevenths. ...a musical state of mind. All true, none of them true enough. The origins of the blues precede recorded music, and even after ... Blake, who virtually alone among rural bluesmen ventured into jazz-rooted compositions. Texas bluesmen also experimented with more complicated guitar parts, often tending to arpeggiate (pick the ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... such as manoeuvring the guitar's tremolo arm and playing close to the amplifier, Hendrix achieved spectacular effects. Such a master, that he expanded the vocabulary of electric rock and guitars, inventing chords (Dominant 7#9 also called the Hendrix chord) and scale progressions. Hendrix's need to find new sounds, which he wanted to express through his guitar playing, together with the incomprehension of the ... influences still today a whole host of modern musicians, from Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana. His ambition took him to redefine the guitar and way it was played. New sounds, ne...

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... ensembles. Some instruments, once in favor, have gone out of style - the banjo for example, largely replaced by the guitar in the 1930's, where a smoother, quieter form of rhythm and chords was required. Other instruments have virtually disappeared only to come back later with a different role to play. This is seen with the tuba, which began as a rhythm instrument, and was ... st louis toodle o". Ellington and his trumpeter bubber miley jointly worked out this 1927 recording. Miley's talking trumpet carried the first two of three themes, while the saxophones walk in chords behind him. O...

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... such as "why you sweatin' me" and "don't stop for hoes." Howlin Wolf used slang phrases like "I eats mo' chicken." Both songs have guitar chords in their production as well. Tupac and Howlin' Wolf both discussed social issues pertaining to the black community in their songs. Their lyrics described situations that were common in African ... ...

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... come with the manic "Communication Breakdown" and the lumbering set stopper "Dazed and Confused." --Billy Altman (www.Emusic.com, September, 19th, 2002) From the moment you hear the opening guitar chords of Good times, Bad Times coupled with John Bonham's powerful drumming you know this album is going to be great. It's easy to tell that the musicians in this album ... ...

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... Langston Hughes describes Hughes" fascination for blues music. His appeal for the blues is so high that he even describes a singer and his lyrics in the poem. "He played a few chords then he sang some more - "I got the Weary Blues"" (24 - 25). In this line, Hughes may be describing the singer and his lyrics, but he is also saying that he ... ...

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... to play blues at home. He sang in spiritual groups like the Elkhorn Singers and the Saint John's Gospel Singers. A relative who was a guitarist and a preacher showed King his first chords on the instrument. As a teenager he began playing streetcorners for coins, combining gospel songs with the blues. When he started making more money playing in one night then he would ... ...

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• Grade Level: High School

... band is usually Black Sabbath, which was led by lead singer Ozzy Osbourne. Heavy metal consisted of an extreme distortion in the sound of the guitar, with un-harmonized power chords and loud flashy solos. Heavy Metal was a tough form of music to accept open and widely in our society even though rock was firmly established in the United States in ... ...

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... speak the language and many were separated from their families. So they were forced to improvise which, of course found also expression in their music. Mostly based on only a few chords, black music leaves the player much space to develop his own style. In 1817, the slaves of New Orleans were permitted to meet at places where they could sing and ... ...

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... . The tambourine gives the music a feel of celebration and joy; It's there in constant repetition, keeping the music in time on track with the drum kit. His pianist plays strictly chords, providing an overall sounds of his music, to fill the background. His guitar is used to create melodies and not to carry the music; as well as the violins and ... ...

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• Grade Level: High School