The musical frameworks of five blues schemes.
Item
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Title
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The musical frameworks of five blues schemes.
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Identifier
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AAI3325400
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identifier
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3325400
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Creator
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Stoia, Nicholas.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Stephen Blum
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Music | American Studies
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Abstract
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Many American blues schemes have been identified and classified, usually on the basis of either their text, rhythm, harmony, or melody, but little has been written about how all of these elements interact. A major goal of this project is to illustrate the ways in which all of these components interact in five blues schemes that were once very popular and widespread in American folk and popular music: the "John Henry," "Alabama Bound," "How Long," "Trouble In Mind," and "Sitting On Top Of The World" schemes. They are united as a group by being eight to ten bars long. The primary sources for this study are recordings made between the early 1920s and the early 1940s.;Performers view schemes as a public resource for making music. When realizing a scheme, they take on certain constraints and make choices within those constraints. An analytical study can help bring us closer to understanding the musical framework of a blues scheme and the choices made by performers within that framework. The reductions and comparisons of different realizations of a scheme reveal its most consistent characteristics---the components most fixed upon by performers. These components vary from scheme to scheme, and so this project may be viewed as five case studies of different types of musical framework.;The rhythmic structure tends to be among the most consistent elements, after which either the harmonic or melodic structure may be more consistent, and thus the five frameworks divide into two broad categories. Those in which the rhythmic and harmonic structures are more consistent and the discant displays more variance and substitution are further differentiated by how many discants they support: "Trouble In Mind" supports one, "Alabama Bound" two, and "How Long" several. Schemes in which the rhythmic and melodic structures are more consistent and the harmony displays more variance and substitution differ in the degree to which performers fix upon certain general requirements for the harmonic progression: "Sitting On Top Of The World" has more requirements and "John Henry" fewer. The more consistent component generally informs the choices for substitution in the less consistent component.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
