BL on Music Theory Print

Black Gospel music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background: 18th century–late 19th century#

Black gospel music has roots in the Black oral tradition—the passing down of history via the spoken word rather than in writing. Griots performed in West Africa. In colonial America, where enslaved Africans were prevented from being formally educated, oral and otherwise non-written communication became the method not only for cultural patrimony, but for virtually all communication. Some of this communication (including work songs sung in the fields) was used to organize, including plans for retaliation against their enslavers and for escape. This eventually led to the banning of drums in many parts of colonial America, as well as other instruments related to West African patrimony. As such, most Black churches relied on hand- clapping and foot-stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. West African dance and ring shout traditions developed among early Black Christians into shouting, in which fast-paced gospel music is accompanied by equally rapid (often frenzied) dancing. (In its modern form, this is also known as a “praise break”.) This, along with the repetition and “call and response” elements familiar to West African music, helped to engender an ecstatic, trance-like state and to strengthen communal bonds. These elements also enabled illiterate members the opportunity to participate. Useful in the fields and in the church house, Negro spirituals (and the traditions associated with them) were the earliest form of Black gospel. In 1867, a compendium of slave songs titled Slaves Songs of the United States was issued by a group of Northern abolitionists. It is also the first such collection of African-American music of any kind, and included a number of early Black gospel songs, including “Down in the River to Pray” (then titled “The Good Old Way”). In 1871, the Fisk Jubilee Singers were formed, an a-cappella Black gospel ensemble formed to fundraise for Fisk University, an HBCU in Nashville.

Black metal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Although black metal now typically refers to the Norwegian style with shrieking vocals, the term has been applied to bands with widely differing sounds, such as the Greek and Finnish bands that emerged around the same time as the Norwegian scene.

Instrumentation and song structure#

Manish Agarwal of Time Out describes black metal as “a cult strain of ultra-thrash” characterized by “icy noise”. Norwegian-inspired black metal guitarists usually favor high-pitched or trebly guitar tones and heavy distortion. The guitar is usually played with fast, un-muted tremolo picking and power chords. Guitarists often use dissonance—along with specific scales, intervals and chord progressions—to create a sense of dread. The tritone, or flat-fifth, is often used. Guitar solos and low guitar tunings are rare in black metal. Even still, authenticity is still prioritized over technique. “This professionalism has to go,” insists well-respected drummer Fenriz (Gylve Fenris Nagell) of Darkthrone. “I want to de-learn playing drums, I want to play primitive and simple, I don’t want to play like a drum solo all the time and make these complicated riffs”. Black metal songs often stray from conventional song structure and often lack clear verse-chorus sections. Instead, many black metal songs contain lengthy and repetitive instrumental sections. The Greek style—established by Rotting Christ, Necromantia and Varathron —has more death metal traits than Norwegian black metal.

Black MIDI

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and early history#

Though the two are unrelated in origin, the concept of impossible piano existed long before Black MIDI, manifesting itself for example within Conlon Nancarrow’s work involving player pianos, in which he punched holes in piano rolls, creating extremely complex musical compositions in the same impossible, unplayable spirit of Black MIDI. It was uploaded to the Japanese video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga in 2009, and public awareness of Black MIDI spread from Japan to China and Korea in the following two years. The Black MIDI community in Japan vanished and, according to Jason Nguyen, the group was “analogous to those TV shows where there’s a mysterious founder of a civilization that is not really known throughout the course of the show”.

Blackened death metal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The genre is commonly death metal that incorporates musical, lyrical or ideological elements of black metal, such as an increased use of tremolo picking, anti-Christian or Satanic lyrical themes and chord progressions similar to those used in black metal. Blackened death metal bands are also more likely to wear corpse paint and suits of armour, than bands from other styles of death metal. Lower range guitar tunings, death growls and abrupt tempo changes are common in the genre. Some blackened death metal bands, such as Goatwhore and Angelcorpse, even take significant influence from thrash metal.

Blackgaze

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Development#

Michael Nelson of Stereogum tracks the origins of blackgaze to the early work of French musician Neige, who pioneered the fusion through projects including Alcest, Amesoeurs and Lantlôs. According to Nelson, Alcest’s 2005 EP Le Secret was “the birth of blackgaze”; he noted that it sounded “like a Cocteau Twins/Burzum collaborative split” and that " r oughly half the time, vocals were delivered in an angelic coo; the other half, they were a raw, distant shriek". Natalie Zina Walschots of Exclaim! also credits Neige with pioneering the style, while noting that American band Deafheaven has pushed the genre to “greater prominence”.

Blatnaya pesnya

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Terminology#

In the post-Soviet era, blatnaya pesnya are marketed largely under the more generalized name “Russian chanson” (). Coined in the 1990s, “Russian chanson” has become a marketing neologism akin to world music. Some collections identify these songs as ulichnaia pesnia or “street songs” (), allowing for the inclusion of pieces that do not explicitly involve references to criminal behaviour. According to Robert A. Rothstein, this terminological fluidity: “reflects the fact that what makes a song blatnaia is more a question of style and tone than of literal content.”

Bleep techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style#

Bleep techno is a sparse, cold subgenre of techno primarily defined by minimalistic electro-style synthesizer tones (the eponymous “bleeps”) and heavy sub-bass inspired by dub and reggae sound systems. combining acid house’s hypnotic pull with “skippy syncopation” that presaged jungle. Roland TR-909 drum machines with syncopation are frequently used.

History#

In the 1980s, the burgeoning British rave music scene was influenced largely by American house and techno records—music which came from cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Original UK tracks were generally considered second-rate at that time. However, this changed with the release of 1988 single “The Theme” by Bradford-based group Unique 3—music characterized as the first bleep techno single owing to its unprecedented blend of Chicago house with elements of hip hop and reggae. The track featured deep sub-bass with “bleepy melodies, shuffling TR-909 rhythms and weird synth tones.” Following the release of “The Theme”, a wave of artists in cities like Sheffield, Leeds, Leicester, and Birmingham began making music inspired by this new sound. The newly founded Warp Records became the subgenre’s most prominent label in 1989, with artists such as Sweet Exorcist, Forgemasters, LFO, and Nightmares on Wax becoming important figures in the style. Warp’s first release was Forgemasters’ “Track With No Name”, funded by the UK’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme, a grant meant to help unemployed youths start businesses. LFO’s eponymous single reached no. 12 in the UK charts in 1990. Between 1989 and 1991, bleep techno would serve as one of England’s most popular rave styles. The Warp compilation Warp 10+2: Classics 89–92, released in 1999, contains much of the label’s early bleep material.

Blog rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

Writer Peter C. Baker of the New Yorker, when writing about the blog rock era claimed that, “if the year 2005 were condensed into a single word, that word would be “blogroll.” The term “blog rock” was similar to “bloghouse”. In Chris DeVille’s 2025 book on indie rock, Such Great Heights, he describes the term’s “derogatory” meaning, saying that it “connoted something … specific: a cloying sort of indie band with fleeting success manufactured online, apart from real-world communities and institutions.” DeVille gives examples of bands more suited to the term as Architecture in Helsinki, I’m from Barcelona, and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.

Bloghouse

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “bloghouse” was originally defined by Carles, the anonymous writer behind the music and culture blog, Hipster Runoff. He used the term in a post titled “WTF is Blog House?”, published on July 10, 2008, to describe several prominent electronica-related acts that were being described as “bloghouse”. In the article Carles, listed several artists as part of the bloghouse umbrella, including prominent acts like Justice and Crystal Castles, alongside artists that would later be more closely associated with the blog rock movement, such as Black Kids. Artists like Interpol from New York’s post-punk revival scene were also mentioned. Over time, the sound of bloghouse became more narrowly defined, describing a proliferation of electronic music artists that were associated with the early online musical blogosphere.

Blue yodeling

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yodeling in the United States#

Yodeling seems to be an Alpine tradition in Europe. However, it became popular in large cities such as Vienna from around 1830 as an entertainment interlude in the Viennese suburban theaters and Singspielhalles and was only subsequently brought to the countryside by guest artists. Various immigrant groups also brought it to the United States as a seemingly traditional means of identification. The first encounter with Anglo-American musical styles is said to have taken place in the early 19th century, when British and Irish settlers met German-speaking immigrants in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. In Emma Bell Miles’ (1879–1919) 1905 collection of essays The Spirit of the Mountains, in which she describes life in the Southern Appalachians, yodeling is mentioned in several places, such as in the description of the difference between men and women:: “His first songs are yodels. Then he learns dance tunes, and songs of hunting and fighting and drinking, … Triggered by successful guest performances by Austrian and Swiss artists who called themselves “Tyrolese Minstrels” or “Alpine Minstrels”, for example, a steady rise in popularity can be traced from the 1830s onwards. Yodeling performances were often advertised as a special curiosity. Tom Christian, known as the “Yodeling Minstrel”, first appeared in public around 1847; the first recordings of a yodeler were made by L.W. Lipp in 1892. In 1905, the Swiss tenor Arnold Inauen made the first commercial recordings for Columbia Records, albeit still in the Alpine style. At the same time, a yodeling style developed in the environment of roving Minstrel and Vaudeville shows, which was particularly supported by African Americans and was strongly influenced by elements of the Blues, especially the so-called Delta Blues and the Jazz predecessor Ragtime. Outstanding representatives were Monroe Tabor (“The Yodeling Bell Boy”), Beulah Henderson (“America’s Only Colored Lady Yodeler”) or Charles Anderson (“The Yodeler Blues Singer”). In fundamental research, historians Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff have proven the influence of African-American artists and traditions in this area. This influence is said to lie, among other things, in typical inarticulate calls with simultaneous breaking of the voice, the field hollers, from which the so-called “black falsetto” has developed. The term falsetto refers to the falsetto voice. The Texan country traditionalist and passionate yodeller Don Walser later released his “Dixie Blues” paid homage to this legacy. The “blue yodel syntax”, Milton Brown, one of the pioneers of Western swing, formed his first band with two friends in 1927: The Three Yodeliers. The repertoire consisted mainly of barbershop and contemporary pop songs, but also some yodeling songs, including Emmett Miller’s “I Ain’t Got Nobody”. The further Brown’s personal style shifted towards jazz, the less he devoted himself to yodeling. Fleming and Townsend helped pioneer the blue yodel duet through harmonizing with each other’s yodels. With regard to the 1920s and early 1930s, the music journalist Nick Tosches distinguishes between various yodeling styles, including the “archaic 19th-century yodel”, the minstrel yodel and the minstrel yodel. Century", the minstrel show yodel, which he calls “fake blue yodel” and characterizes as a “Swiss yodel with black content”, and the pop-country yodel, as used by Jimmy Long in “Yodel Your Troubles Away” (1929). The “revival experience” of Wilf Carter can be considered exemplary for the development of yodeling. Around 1915, when he was about ten years old, he saw a Swiss yodeller at a cattle drive who appeared as an additional attraction at a performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and called himself “The Yodeling Fool”. Here, the character of the yodelling performance as a novelty and curiosity was still clearly recognizable, which did not really fit in with the theme of the actual performance. At the same time, however, it hinted at the incipient transformation it would undergo in the traveling shows.

Blue-eyed soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1960s#

Georgie Woods, a Philadelphia radio DJ, is thought to have coined the term “blue-eyed soul” in 1964, initially to describe the Righteous Brothers, then white artists in general who received airplay on rhythm and blues radio stations. The Righteous Brothers in turn named their 1964 LP Some Blue-Eyed Soul. According to Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, R&B radio stations who played their songs were surprised to find them to be white when they turned up for interviews, and one DJ in Philadelphia (unnamed by Medley but probably Georgie Woods) started saying “Here’s my blue-eyed soul brothers”, and it became a code to signal to the audience that they were white singers. The popularity of the Righteous Brothers who had a hit with “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” is thought to have started the trend of R&B radio stations to play songs by white artists in the mid-1960s, a more integrative approach that was then popular with their audience. The term blue-eyed soul was then applied to such artists as Sonny & Cher, Tom Jones, Barry McGuire, and Roy Head. White musicians playing R&B music, however, began before the term blue-eyed soul was coined. For instance, in the early 1960s, one of the rare female blue-eyed soul singers was Timi Yuro, whose vocal delivery and repertoire were influenced by African-American singers such as Dinah Washington. Lonnie Mack’s 1963 gospel-infused vocals earned him widespread critical acclaim as a blue-eyed soul singer. Len Barry, former lead singer on the Dovells, recorded blue-eyed soul hits in 1965 and 1966 for Decca Records in the US and released by Brunswick Records: “1-2-3”, “Like a Baby”, and “I Struck It Rich”, a song he wrote with Leon Huff of the Philadelphia International Records producers, Gamble and Huff. Groups such as the Rascals had soul-tinged pop songs, but it was the soulful vocals of Felix Cavaliere that gave them the blue-eyed soul sound. By the mid-1960s, British singers Dusty Springfield, Eric Burdon, and Tom Jones had become leading vocal stars of the emerging style. Other notable UK exponents of blue-eyed soul included the Spencer Davis Group (featuring Steve Winwood), Van Morrison, and archetypal mod band the Small Faces, whose sound was heavily influenced by the Stax label’s house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s. Blonde, blue-eyed soul singer Chris Clark became the first white singer to have an R&B hit with “Love’s Gone Bad” with Motown Records in 1966. In 1969, Kiki Dee became the first British artist to sign and record with Motown. Some British rock groups of the 1960s – such as the Spencer Davis Group, the Rolling Stones (“My Girl”), and the Who (“Heat Wave”) – covered Motown and rhythm and blues tracks. In 1967, Jerry Lee Lewis, whose latter days at Sun Records (1961–63) had been characterized by R&B covers, recorded an album for Smash entitled Soul My Way. In the late 1960s, Elvis Presley began embracing soul music in his recordings, and released From Elvis in Memphis in 1969, an album of blue-eyed soul, southern soul and country soul. Delaney and Bonnie (Bramlett) produced the blue-eyed soul album Home on Stax in 1969. Michael Sembello, who left home at age 17 to tour with Stevie Wonder, wrote and performed on numerous blue-eyed soul hits for Wonder, Brian McKnight, David Sanborn, Bill Champlin, and Bobby Caldwell. Todd Rundgren began his career in Woody’s Truck Stop, a group based on the model of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Janis Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius “Snooky” Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. Joe Cocker, who sang soul-oriented covers of songs such as “With a Little Help from My Friends”, was said by the Chicago Sun Times to have “opened the door for all blue-eyed soul singers after him”.

Bluegrass fiddle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The beginnings of bluegrass music#

In the 1940s Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys revolutionized American string band music by incorporating virtuosic instrumental solos and a “high lonesome" vocal style. Bluegrass fiddling was first exposed to national view during the folk revival of the 1960s with the first televised documentary Bluegrass Roots: On The Road With Bluegrass Musicians shot in the Mountain of North Carolina by Bascom Lunsford while auditioning musicians for the Asheville Mountain Music Festival. It was the festival to feature this type of music. In recent years events have brought renewed interest in bluegrass fiddling: major mainstream performers have recorded bluegrass albums, and the Coen Brothers’ released the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? in (2000), with an old-time and bluegrass soundtrack, and the Down from the Mountain music tour.

Bluegrass music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The violin (also known as the fiddle), five-string banjo, guitar, mandolin, and upright bass (string bass) are often joined by the resonator guitar (also referred to as a Dobro) and (occasionally) harmonica or Jew’s harp. This instrumentation originated in rural dance bands and is the basis on which the earliest bluegrass bands were formed. The fiddle, made by Italians and first used in sixteenth century Europe, was one of the first instruments to be brought into America. It became popular due to its small size and versatility. They began receiving attention from white Americans when minstrel shows incorporated the banjo as part of their acts. The “clawhammer”, or two finger style playing, was popular before the Civil War. Now, however, banjo players use mainly the three-finger picking style made popular by banjoists such as Earl Scruggs. Meanwhile, a polyphonic pair of instruments playing in conversation, double banjos or twin banjos, is a bluegrass tradition upheld by artists like Tony Trischka. Guitars are used primarily for rhythmic purposes. Other instruments may provide a solo on top of the guitar during breaks, guitarists may also provide these solos on occasion. The instrument originates from eighteenth century Spain, but there were no American-made models until the C.F. Martin Company started to manufacture them in the 1830s. The guitar is now most commonly played with a style referred to as flatpicking, unlike the style of early bluegrass guitarists such as Lester Flatt, who used a thumb pick and finger pick. Bassists almost always play pizzicato, occasionally adopting the “slap-style” to accentuate the beat. A bluegrass bass line is generally a rhythmic alternation between the root and fifth of each chord, with occasional walking bass excursions. Instrumentation has been a continuing topic of debate. Traditional bluegrass performers believe the “correct” instrumentation is that used by Bill Monroe’s band, the Blue Grass Boys (guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and bass). Departures from the traditional instrumentation have included dobro, accordion, harmonica, piano, autoharp, drums, electric guitar, and electric versions of other common bluegrass instruments, resulting in what has been referred to as “new grass.” Despite this debate, even Monroe himself was known to experiment with instrumentation; he once even used a string orchestra, choir, and pre-recorded bird-song track.

Blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term ‘Blues’ may have originated from “blue devils”, meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman’s one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase ‘blue devils’ may also have been derived from a British usage of the 1600s referring to the “intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal”. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. 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. In Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, he mentions “the blues” in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it was not published until 1854. The phrase “the blues” was written by Charlotte Forten, then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she “came home with the blues” because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as “Poor Rosy”, that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs “can’t be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit”, conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand’s “Dallas Blues” became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.

Blues ballad

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure and variations#

The blues ballad often uses the Thirty-two-bar form of verse-verse-bridge-verse, in contrast to the 12-bar or 8-bar blues forms.

Popular blues ballads#

The first blues ballads tended to deal with active protagonists, often anti-heroes, resisting adversity and authority, often in the context of industrialisation. They usually lacked the strong narrative common in European ballads, and emphasised instead individual character. They were often accompanied by banjo and guitar and often followed a standard 12-bar the blues format, with a repeated refrain in the last line of every verse. Blues ballads are usually anonymously authored and were performed by both black and white musicians in the early 20th century. Ballads about anti-heroes include “Wild Bill Jones”, “Stagger Lee” and “John Hardy”. The most famous blues ballads that deal with heroes in the context of industrialisation include those about John Henry and Casey Jones.

Blues rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Blues rock can be characterized by bluesy improvisation, extended boogie jams typically focused on electric guitar solos, and often a heavier, riff-oriented sound and feel to the songs than found in typical Chicago-style blues. Blues rock bands “borrow ed the idea of an instrumental combo and loud amplification from rock & roll”. It is also often played at a fast tempo, again distinguishing it from the blues. Blues rock songs often follow typical blues structures, such as twelve-bar blues, sixteen-bar blues, etc. They also use the I-IV-V progression, though there are exceptions, some pieces having a “B” section, while others remain on the I. The Allman Brothers Band’s version of “Stormy Monday”, which uses chord substitutions based on Bobby “Blue” Bland’s 1961 rendition, adds a solo section where “the rhythm shifts effortlessly into an uptempo -time jazz feel”. The key is usually major, but can also be minor, such as in “Black Magic Woman”. One notable difference is the frequent use of a straight eighth-note or rock rhythm instead of triplets usually found in blues. An example is Cream’s “Crossroads”. Although it was adapted from Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues”, the bass “combines with drums to create and continually emphasize continuity in the regular metric drive”.