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Blues, Jazz and Spirituals

Spirituals:

songs of hope in God and freedom from slavery
simple tunes, often using call-and-response patterns
often built on a pentatonic scale
examples are 'Kumbyah', 'Swing low, sweet chariot', 'Michael row the boat ashore'...

Blues:

songs which began after the time of slavery, but were still a way for black people to express their feelings of sadness
built on a particular musical framework of 12 bars, with the words in 3-line verse

Here is the chord chart for the Blues. You will probably be playing the Blues in the key of C, so in this chart:

1= chord of C (notes C E and G)

4= chord of F (notes F A and C)

5= chord of G (notes G B and D)

1	1	1	1
4	4	1	1
5	4	1	1

This is the framework for the Blues. The music comes alive by what the musicians do over the top of this chord structure. Melodies are usually made up from the notes of an ordinary C major scale plus some others such as

Eflat Fsharp Bflat

We'll be listening to some different styles of Jazz, finding out about how it all began and trying out the ingredient that gives life to Jazz: Improvisation