THIS IS A POST ON http://www.themodernvocalist.com/
I am currently a member of the "Blues Singers Group" on this site. I went on it just a bit ago to check on the activity. I am sad to see that there has been little activity since mid February. Talk about being blue about something, with all the talent & intellegence I have seen since joining this site I would have thought more contributions would be proffered. Singing the Blues is akin to playing the Blues on guitar, or sax, or harmonica, or piano. We attribute W. C. Handy with the 1st Bastion who held the Blues tune up like a torch, blazing in the twilight of inspiration. If not for Bessie Mae Smith @ 1919 who with her voice launched a timeless hit, we may never have heard Handy's " St. Louis Blues". Louie Armstrong may have never joined her with the Coronet & this song may have passed on into obscurity. Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Louie Armstrong, B.B. King, the names go on & on forming & forging a foundation that gave us around 100 years later a place in our hearts for the love they had & we share of the blues. I 1st believe that with any form of singing, warm up is required. Your voice is an instrument, & thus must be treated as such. Most musicians have a warm up routine. Guitarists may run thru open chords to limber up their fingers, & then run a few pentatonic scales just to keep your right & left hands timing just so. A Saxaphonist may limber up his keys & ensure the reed is seated just right in the ligature. The point being the voice needs tuning up. The differance with singing the Blues, is that there is so much emotion added into the song, that in all reality, a Blues song could be in perpetual evolution. Meaning that each night you could hear a varaience in the songs composition.
Before delving depper into how the Blues can shape the singer & the song, we must try to capture the essence of what exactly is "The Blues" The older Blues players had (even before age assisted) had the Blues etched into their soul, and you could actually see it when you faced one of these Icons. Be it a damaged gait in the way they walked as if the weight of their world was upon them, or in the depth of their eyes that held you captive when they shook your hand. A hand that was caullosed and weathered and felt like worn leather. The pain, or joy, or confusion of a world turned upsidedown for so long that had been taught to be kept down inside of themselves. The only outlet was in the form of music. The feelings began to pour thru their fingers, up from their diaphrams. between vocal chords, and out for all the world to see. Paul Cezanne one of the later impressionist's said about his medium of art; "We all share the same misery, for a moment come and share it's beauty" His work was dark & moody & he was identifying his work as beauty. Sounds much like the Blues eh?
The Blues to "The Modern Vocalist" is something or some things that tug onto the heartstrings of the vocalist. In these times (2009) society is indeed blue! The future is bleak, the economy sucks, people are losing their homes left & right. Banks are getting bailed out all the while handing out huge bonuses' to the shareholders. Confidence is low, fear is high, crime is on the rise. Men feel emasculated because they are out of work. Woman are in a flux as what to do. Jobs that are available don't make it past the week. As these realities begin to hit home, the Blues slowly creep in. Working gigs are fading away to Karaoke, or Open Mike nights. Then somewhere from deep inside you have this feeling...its slow...sultry...deep...painful. It comes out of your body. It makes you want to peel away your skin. Now your up there on a cramped stage as the band senses your vibe & rolls out a group of chords that gives you a chance to open up that bottle you have kept stopped up, or crack open that door that holds the pain and you lash out the words like you never have before. Your bandmates don't know what to do. They look at the Bass Player & Drummer for direction on the downbeat. The rest of the group seems to "feel" what you are trying to say. Four minutes later the Guitarist has taken your lead and is harmonizing with your voice. You all feel a sense of commonality as you wind down the song. You're soaked in sweat like you never have been before. The song ends & for the 1st time you are emotionally drained from singing one song! Your head may spin, you close your eyes & realize you have exposed a very private side of yourself. It's then that you feel naked to the audience. Yet the people are going wild. You realize that your emotions have taken over and you are singing the Blues! No teacher has taught you this, this came from deep down inside you. It's warm & powerful. You feel elated as it carries you the rest of the night. You go home...too jazzed to sleep, but so drained of emotion that all you can do is sit in your comfortable chair, drink in hand running the sets thru your mind, your performance, the bands performance, knowing how magical it was. Could it be repeated again the next night? It's then that you realize you really sang the Blues, instead of singing the Blues!
Leading up to the other question in the title? Does getting the Blues make you sing ...better? One argument is that as listed having the Blues causes you to supress these feelings until you can find a suitable outlet? I feel having or getting the Blues makes you a naturally better singer. When you sing, you take a story put to music and sing along with the music. As you know the melody is not a monotonus group of notes. The notes go up...down...fast...slow...atempo...off-beat...stacatto. In having all these opportunities to emote, having the Blues gives you a medium to express all that you have kept down. What's even better, is the fact that the audience shares the same highs & lows. You are a representative of all what people are thinking...feeling....hiding. By doing what you are doing on stage, you allow the average joe/joanne to feel your pain too. For one moment in time, you all come together and magic is created by the haunting saddness of the Blues. It is my opinion that both questions are answered in the affirmative. You sing for an outlet of these feelings, & the feelings make you sing better because of the power of the release of the Blues. Can you be taught to sing the Blues? Only if you can be taught to release the weight of your world in front of strangers, & celebrate in the beauty of what we all see as bad, but as bad as it is, we ALL share these doubts, fears, secrets, and wishes of celebrating the beauty that is the BLUES!
So, what do you think?
Regards,
cdbone501
"Listen Til it Hz
DIVA JC WROTE:cdbone501,
I'm answering this post with reservation, knowing that my response will disturb the peace that seems to emit from this stream. For me, the blues is 3-fold:
1. The blues is a man and a woman making love or not making love, whatever the case may be.
2. You cannot sing the blues when you are sad.
3. The blues was born from the tears of black women victims of the peculiar institution of American slavery; who had their children plucked from their arms and sold at market like so many eggs from a hen's nest; who misses her man whom she knows she will never see again either because he is hanging from a tree whipped and lynched or on the run with vicious dogs on his trail as he heads for points North, where he may find his freedom and never return for her; who was and for the most part still is on the bottom rung of society that sees her face as an abomination, not because of anything that she's done but because of what has been done to her in the name of capitalism and power; who is ashamed for her blackness that has been her damnation even before she was born. Blues women sounded the voice of FREEDOM in America and around the world. Women like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters and Dinah Washington stepped up to the microphone, like a rookie steps up to the plate to swing that home run out of the ball park and take his rightful place in the Hall of Fame. Yes, there were the guitarists and the male singers who made the Blues stand out and grow into Jazz and Rock & Roll, but it was the BLUESWOMEN whose hearts were ripped out of their bodies and that hole became the Blues.
For more on this subject, visit our siteWOMEN IN JAZZ SOUTH FLORIDA, INC.
For more on this subject, visit www.redroom.com/member/divajc where I'll be posting my 9th book, very soon, A HISTORY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN JAZZ AND BLUES that contains three papers I've written:
1) THE SIGN OF THE BLUES
2) JAZZ: THE UNMASKED RHETORIC
3) THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF COMMERCIAL JAZZ.
All of my books are available at http://stores.lulu.com/divajc, except my first book, IN PURSUIT OF A MELODY that is available at www.trafford.com/05-0819 and at www.fyicomminc.com/inpursuit.htm
And, most of all, stop thinking that we all share in what the blues is really about because we didn't and we don't.
Unapologetic for telling the truth,
Diva JC
· http://www.divajc.com
· www.blogtalkradio.com/musicwoman
· www.fyicomminc.com
MORE RESPONSES
One must live the blues...to know the blues....and if you live it...and know it......the odds are you can sing it!!!
Take care...always,
Andrea
From: Rita Knighton
Subject: What is the Blues???
Hey Joan-- that is very poignant, and true, except for one thing, the very sensitive male blues players that I've known and loved sang and talked about the misery of lost love, and the pain of the ultimate male impotence, knowing that generations of their forefathers couldn't protect and save their mothers, women and children---they had that hole, too.
RG
Hello Diva JC,
I am humbled by your knowledge & for the passion in which you wrote about the history of the beginnings of what was & is the "Blues." Although being the history fanatic of what is published & history that has not been given its JUST DUE, I had to concentrate on the main topic that was in the title of the blog. I'm grateful for you to add the history that you provided, as you have a very eloquent writing style. Sometimes "disturbing the peace" can be a good thing, and anyway this is why I put out the blog. To get a dialog going about something I am passionate about. In regards to your list, I love #1...I do challenge #2 as some may "sing sadly" to demonstrate the pain that is the blues. Of course I cannot hold a candle to #3! Thank you very much for your contribution!
Regards,
cdbone501
"Listen Til it Hz"
Also, read
· Blues People by LeRoi Jones
· Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Y. Davis
· Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory by Houston Baker
First published in 1990, Michele Wallace’s Invisibility Blues is widely regarded as a landmark in the history of black feminism. The original edition includes a consideration of the work of her mother, the artist Faith Ringgold; recollections of her early life in Harlem; an account of her development as a writer in the 1970s, and investigations if the legacy of black artists such as Zora Neale Hurston, Spike Lee and Michael Jackson. To this long-awaited new edition, Michele Wallace has added an extensive introduction, as well as some photographs from her family’s collection documenting the 1970s and 80s.
Michele Wallace asks the tough questions that any book about the black experience of America must address, and this new edition of Invisibility Blues will challenge and inform a new audience with the combination of literary flair and scholarly rigor that has made it an acknowledged classic.
“Michele Wallace keeps her eyes open and her wits about her. Scrupulously fair, honest, clever and wise.” — Angela Carter
“Invisibility Blues is a warm book, even a hopeful one. Simultaneously confident and vulnerable, full of hard-earned insights into American culture and un-starry-eyed evaluations of the available role models, it is the unfinished saga of a proud outsider trying to make a place for herself and her sisters.” — Lucy R. Lippard, Transition
“Invisibility Blues shows why Michele Wallace has long been at the forefront of African-American cultural criticism.” — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
“Michele Wallace is one of the most talented and provocative cultural critics now writing in the USA. Listen and learn!” — Cornel West
Michele Wallace, who completed her PhD in Cinema Studies at New York University in 1999, is Professor of English at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center. Her seminal Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman is also available from Verso.
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