- Okay, I have a question for you. Listen to these clips
from three different songs and try and guess what
they all have in common. (jazz music) (country music) (rock music) Could you figure it out? Whether directly or indirectly, all of these songs were inspired in some way by blues music. But how are all these songs
that sound so different influenced by the same music, and what makes blues music the blues? (soulful music) - Because if you don't like the blues, you don't like your mama. 'Cause it's the ruler of music, man. It's like cooking potatoes. You may fry 'em, you may bake 'em, you may cut 'em up, you may smash 'em, but they're still potatoes. - Gritty guitar solos, wailing harmonicas, and soulful lyrics about life's hardships are all part of what makes
people love the blues. But how did this music start, and why is it so important
to American music? The answer to this question can be found deep in the Mississippi
Delta of the American south, where the blues was born
some time in the late 1800s. - Even after slavery officially ended, poverty and unjust laws kept
people from full freedom. Many former slaves stayed in the south and continued to work
in difficult conditions. People sang spirituals at church and work songs in the field to help deal with the daily struggles. Over time, this music developed into what people now call the blues. - Most blues musicians
were farm workers by day and would play at blues bars
called juke joints by night. The earliest form of the blues was often referred to as
country blues or Delta blues, and this style usually had a solo singer who would also either play the harmonica or bottleneck slide guitar. Bottleneck slide guitar is when a musician presses a hard object
across multiple strings on a guitar and slides
it down the fingerboard. Sometimes they would use a steel bar, a knife, or a bottleneck, and this would create a
smooth, wailing type of sound. (guitar music) The Delta blues also emphasized
rhythm, finger-style guitar, and reflective lyrics about the hard lives of African American farmers in the South. As blues music grew in popularity, some musicians like Charley Patton, Eddie James "Son" House, Jr., and Robert Johnson became famous and toured around the delta region. Later, blues musicians started performing in Memphis, Tennessee to
establish their careers. This included famous
blues men like B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. - During what's known
as the Great Migration, from 1910 to 1970, millions
of African Americans tried to escape the racism
and Jim Crow laws of the south by moving to northern cities. Many moved to the city of
Chicago, in particular. (blues music) Blues musicians like
Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, and Muddy Waters made this journey and brought the blues with them. They also developed a
new Chicago blues sound. Chicago blues was basically
the same style of blues played in the delta, except
played more energetically, with an electric guitar, sometimes a bass guitar, piano, and drums. Listen to this clip from Robert
Johnson's delta blues style song, "I Believe I'll Dust
My Broom," recorded in 1936. ("I Believe I'll Dust My
Broom" by Robert Johnson) Now, listen to a 1966
version of the same song in a more Chicago style by Howlin' Wolf. ("I Believe I'll Dust My
Broom" by Howlin' Wolf) Now the Chicago style would later have an influence on rock and roll, but we'll talk more about that later. What gives you the blues, Nahre? When they run out of peanut butter jelly? - (laughs) Oh, wow, you
know me really well now. How much experience do you
have playing the blues? - That is a very interesting question because it's also asking me how much experience do
I have playing gospel, rock and roll, R&B, soul- - Because it's all intertwined. - Yeah. - I actually did an episode on my channel on the blues a year ago. (electronic keyboard music) And since then, I've
learned a lot about blues, about the blues as a
genre and also the form. - How would you say blues music and your realm of classical
music are related? - The way that melody
is formed over chords, how it's elaborating
upon different chords, different chord progression, I think that's where the similarity is. - Wow, right. - So what is it that makes
blues music sound bluesy? Well, let's take a look at the scale that's most commonly found in blues songs, which is a six-note scale
based off of a five-note scale. That five-note scale either being the major pentatonic scale
(plays scale on piano) or the minor one (plays minor scale), and as you can hear,
these five-note scales are quite different than the seven-note scales
(plays seven-note scale) that you most commonly
hear in western music. Now going back to the major pentatonic scale (plays scale), to that we're going to add a flat three from the
root note (plays flat). That will sound like this. (plays piano scale) To the minor one (plays scale), we're going to add the flat five from the
root note (plays flat), and that'll sound like this. (plays piano scale) Another important part
of the blues is the form, and most blues will follow a
12-bar blues chord progression, which is based around
three different chords. Those chords in C Major
will be C (plays chord), the one chord, F (plays
chord) the four chord, and G (plays chord) the five chord. And these chords will be
repeated in a specific order, most commonly with a flat seven as well. So a C7 (plays chord), F7 (plays chord), and G7 (plays chord). And that'll sound like this. (plays chords in succession) C7 for four measures. Three. Four. F7 for two. C7 for two. G7 for one. F7 for one, and back to C7 for two. Of course, improvisation is
a huge part of the blues, and no tune is complete without it, so I'm going to give it a shot. (plays blues music) (chuckles) Is there something that is similar to what a blue note is in terms of pitches in the context of just drums? - Absolutely. With pitch, it's like if you're playing in between a C and a C sharp. There's a note in between
the C and C sharp. A blue note in rhythm would be like if it's directly on the beat or there's notes in
between the quantized beats that you can still ride with.
- Ah! - Another important element of blues is its A-A-B lyrical structure. Let's go back to the Robert Johnson track, "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom." ♪ I'm gonna get up in the morning' ♪ ♪ I believe I'll dust my broom ♪ Now, do you know what lyrics come next? ♪ I'm gonna get up in the morning' ♪ ♪ I believe I'll dust my broom ♪ It's the first line repeated. This A-A-B lyrical structure
is very common in the blues. It's inspired by the call
and response style of singing in African American
spirituals and work songs. In the blues, the first
line is often repeated, and the third line answers. ♪ Girlfriend the black
man you've been lovin' ♪ ♪ Girlfriend can get my room ♪ Of course, what the lyrics
are about is also important. - Now true blues, the
lyrics are absolutely true. Saying about life experience. (plays chord on guitar) Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but they didn't lie. - As blues musicians moved from the south and took their music to
different part of the U.S., the blues mixed with other musical styles from those regions and helped
inspire many new genres - The 12-bar blues chord progression became one of the most popular forms for early jazz improvisation. Jazz performers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis were all influenced by the blues, often using a 12-bar
structure for their songs. (jazz music) The 12-bar structure was also a major influence on rock and roll. Some even call rock and
roll blues with a backbeat, and Elvis Presley
probably had this in mind when he recorded his
version of a blues song by Big Mama Thornton called, "Hound Dog." ("Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton) ("Hound Dog by Elvis Presley) - Blues also inspired
other rock and pop artists, such as ("Johnny B.Goode" by Chuck Berry) ("Can't Buy Me Love" by the Beatles) ("Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream) ("Ball and Biscuit" by The White Stripes) All of these songs use some form of the 12-bar structure
or the blues scale. The pentatonic and blues
scales are even common throughout heavy metal music. ("Highway to Hell" by AC/DC) Country music, too. In fact, country is
thought to be the result of blues music mixing with folk music brought by European immigrants to the U.S. Because of this, many
country songs are written with a blues scale or following the 12-bar blues progression. ("Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash) Blues, here we go.
- Blues. - I was thinking, we don't
have to do classic blues. - We'll just have our own twist to it. - That's what it is. We just gotta let creation happen. - I mean, we always do. So our song contains the
12-bar blues chord progression as well as the blues scale, and some other elements
of the blues were included but with our own twist. For example, the wailing type of sound of the bottleneck slide
guitar got translated into this type of synth
sound (plays synth sound), which I think has a squiggle
and has that wailing quality. And obviously, the other
parts (adds more sounds) are quite not traditional, but we tried to go with sounds that have this laid back, yet
yearning, type of quality. (blues music with synth incorporated) - Let us know what you think
of our blues-inspired song, and make sure you don't
forget to subscribe. - Three is the one.
- Three is the one, yeah. (bright chord)
No lie, this taught my wife more about music theory and modern music history than she'd ever picked up. Loved it, thank you.