107-418: The Fender Electric XII is a purpose-built 12-string electric guitar , designed for folk rockers . Instead of using a Stratocaster -body style, it uses one similar to a Jaguar / Jazzmaster body style. It also departed from the typical "Stratocaster"-style headstock , instead featuring a long headstock nicknamed the "hockey-stick" headstock to cope with the twelve tuners. The original Electric XII employed
214-495: 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 1827, it
321-484: A banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House . Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in
428-415: A break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord
535-567: A center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues , because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style
642-399: A component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago , Memphis , Detroit and St. Louis . Electric blues used electric guitars , double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar ), drums , and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier . Chicago became
749-404: A major part of blues and folk music till the 1920s and the 1930s, when their "larger than life" sound made them ideal as solo accompaniment for vocalists, especially Lead Belly and Blind Willie McTell . The 12-string guitar has since occupied roles in certain varieties of folk, rock , jazz, and popular music . In the 1930s, Mexican-American guitarist and singer Lydia Mendoza popularized
856-610: A movement known as the Great Migration . The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration , which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record , initially used by the music industry for African-American music,
963-456: A note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale . For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord . In melody , blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third , fifth and seventh of the associated major scale . Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
1070-594: A part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson 's " Cross Road Blues " as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua , the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James , included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. The blues form
1177-569: A part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the " Saint Louis Blues ". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by
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#17330861180951284-419: A recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled " race records " to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered
1391-406: A separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals . The origins of spirituals go back much further than
1498-494: A single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over the next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as " Dallas Blues " (1912) and " Saint Louis Blues " (1914). According to W.C. Handy ,
1605-452: A staple in pop and rock music in the 1960s. Early use of the instrument was pioneered by the guitarists of The Wrecking Crew ; in 1963, Carol Kaye used a converted Guild six-string on The Crystals ' hit " Then He Kissed Me ," and on Jackie DeShannon 's song " When You Walk in the Room ," Glen Campbell played a well-known guitar figure, composed by DeShannon, on an electric 12-string. One of
1712-401: A thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in octaves, with those of the upper two courses tuned in unison. The gap between the strings within each dual-string course is narrow, and the strings of each course are fretted and plucked as a single unit. The neck is wider, to accommodate the extra strings, and is similar to
1819-537: A unique split pickup design and had a 4-way pickup rotary selector allowing for neck, neck & bridge in parallel, in or out of phase, and bridge only options as opposed to the Alternate Reality version which sports a standard 3-way toggle switch for pickup selection. It also used a string-through-body design similar to a Telecaster to help increase sustain. Designed by Leo Fender , the Fender Electric XII
1926-410: A unison string, while most prefer the distinctive high-pitched, bell -like quality an octave string makes in this position. Another common variant is to tune the octave string in the sixth (lowest) course two octaves above the lower string, rather than one. Some players, either in search of distinctive tone or for ease of playing, remove some doubled strings. For example, removing the higher octave from
2033-406: A way of simulating a 12-string guitar sound, using two six-string guitars playing in unison. This is achieved by replacing the lower four courses on one six-string with the higher octave strings for those four courses from a 12-string set, and tuning these four strings an octave higher than normal tuning for those courses on a six-string. Double-tracking this guitar with the standard-tuned six-string
2140-463: A wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music . 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
2247-449: Is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith , use of the twelve-bar blues spread across
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#17330861180952354-422: Is commonly used in recording studios to achieve a "cleaner" 12-string effect. Mexican 12-String , also known as requinto style or Sierreño style, are modified 12-string guitars that can approximate the sound of a bajo sexto or bajo quinto and play regional Mexican styles, such as norteño (music of Northern Mexico), Tejano (Tex-Mex), and conjunto (música mexicana-tejana). In a traditional 12-string setup,
2461-709: Is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ( Albert Ammons , Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis ). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines , who "linked
2568-491: Is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in
2675-567: The bandolón , the guitarra séptima , the guitarra quinta huapanguera , and the bajo sexto . Pictures such as the 1901 Mexican Typical Orchestra at the Pan-American Exposition show a guitar with 12 strings. At the end of the 19th century, the archtop mandolin was one of the first instruments with courses of doubled strings designed in the United States. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, 12-strings were regarded as "novelty" instruments. The 12-string guitar did not become
2782-511: The African-American culture . The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues , and rock and roll , and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale , and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch , are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
2889-475: The American South sometimes referred to as a jitterbug or a one-string in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as
2996-590: The Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's " One O'Clock Jump " and " Jumpin' at the Woodside " and boisterous " blues shouting " by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and " Sent for You Yesterday ". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from
3103-597: The Gibson EDS-1275 , with six-string and 12-string necks, for live appearances, allowing easy transition between different sounds mid-song. The post punk era of the late '70s and early '80s saw a resurgence of electric 12-string guitar use among '60s-influenced alternative rock, pop, and indie guitarists. Players such as Johnny Marr of The Smiths , Dave Gregory of XTC , Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles , Marty Willson-Piper of The Church , Peter Buck of R.E.M. , and Tom Petty and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and
3210-548: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 : Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying
3317-579: The Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof , Fula and Mandinka ). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon . Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals , including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also
Fender Electric XII - Misplaced Pages Continue
3424-741: The Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation , Okeh Records , and Paramount Records , began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter , Jimmie Rodgers , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Lonnie Johnson , Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in
3531-409: The degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround , marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as
3638-468: The "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues . Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to
3745-438: The 1920s, among them "the big three"— Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Lucille Bogan . Mamie Smith , more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to
3852-428: The 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories " race music " and " hillbilly music " to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define
3959-445: The 1st, 2nd and 4th courses of his guitars; at first adapted six-string instruments and into the sixties and later usually adapted 12-strings. The extra tension placed on the instrument by the doubled strings is high, and because of this additional stress on their necks and soundboards, 12-string guitars long had a reputation for warping after a few years of use. (This is less of a problem in modern instruments, built after 1970.) Until
4066-451: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to
4173-601: The African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues . The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only
4280-520: The African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots . Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on
4387-516: The Heartbreakers often chose 12-strings (particularly Rickenbackers) for many songs. In the 1980s John C Hall, president of Rickenbacker , invited Roger McGuinn to participate in a limited-edition signature model. McGuinn was delighted. Roger McGuinn's signature model Rickenbacker 12-string was introduced in 1988 as the 370/12 RME1. The strings are placed in courses of two strings each that are usually played together. The two strings in each of
Fender Electric XII - Misplaced Pages Continue
4494-516: The Room." The electric 12-string gained prominence with the introduction in 1964 of the Rickenbacker 360 , made famous through George Harrison 's use of it on The Beatles ' album A Hard Day's Night and many subsequent recordings. In 1965, inspired by Harrison, Roger McGuinn made the Rickenbacker 12-string central to The Byrds ' folk rock sound, further popularising the instrument. By
4601-420: The back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey , sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had
4708-401: The bass courses of their 12-string guitars to the upper fifths and trebles to the lower fourths instead of octaves and unisons; Michael Gulezian tuned strings in the top two courses to whole-tone intervals (and possibly some of the other strings an octave lower) to achieve a very rich, complex sound. The greater number of strings offers almost endless possibilities. Nashville Tuning is
4815-544: The beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon , who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to
4922-441: The blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community, the spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery , with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music
5029-647: The blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people , and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people , but not as much of the Mandinka people . Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as
5136-568: The blues in the same year in Missouri ; and W.C. Handy , who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi , in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum , who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi , and Newton County, Georgia , between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver , were made by Odum for research purposes at
5243-460: The blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863 , between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post- emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African-Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and
5350-516: The blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta . Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as " songsters " rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as
5457-411: The blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns , in particular those of Isaac Watts , which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on
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#17330861180955564-479: The boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner , based in Kansas City, Missouri , influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker , who
5671-479: The emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals , torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel , rhythm and blues , and eventually rock and roll ." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red , Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr . An important label of this era
5778-609: The end of the American folk rock scene in the late sixties; Fender and Gibson ceased production of the Electric XII and ES-335 12-string variant respectively, in 1969. However, from the 1970s, some progressive rock , hard rock , and jazz fusion guitarists, most notably Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin , Don Felder of the Eagles , John McLaughlin of The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Alex Lifeson of Rush used double-necked guitars such as
5885-410: The end of the sixties, and this became the instrument of choice for Lockwood thereafter. In the later 20th century, however, a number of players devoted themselves to producing solo performances on the 12-string guitar, including Leo Kottke , Peter Lang , John McLaughlin , Larry Coryell , Ralph Towner , Robbie Basho , Roger Whittaker , Jack Rose , and James Blackshaw . Electric 12-strings became
5992-429: The expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon
6099-614: The first mass-produced electric 12-strings was the Bellzouki. Introduced by Danelectro in 1961, from a design by session guitarist Vinnie Bell , it was initially considered a cross between an electric guitar and a bouzouki rather than an electric version of the traditional 12-string guitar. In the UK in 1963, JMI briefly produced the Vox Bouzouki, later produced in Italy as The Vox Tempest XII, which
6206-494: The following ways: Twelve-string guitars are made in both acoustic and electric forms. However, the acoustic type is more common. The double ranks of strings of the 12-string guitar produce a shimmering effect, because even the strings tuned in unison can never vibrate with precise simultaneity—that is, they vibrate out of phase . The result to the ear is a sound that seems to "shimmer", which some describe as resembling strings that are slightly detuned. The interference between
6313-410: The four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa . The origins of
6420-417: The genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues
6527-414: The heavy strings that were commonly available (14-70). Some 12-string guitars have nontraditional structural supports to prevent or postpone warping, at the expense of appearance and tone. To additionally reduce string tension, 12-string guitars built prior to 1970 typically had shorter necks and scale lengths than six-string guitars, which made frets more closely spaced, with some notable exceptions such as
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#17330861180956634-751: The hell out of me. Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom 's " It's Tight Like That " (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being " tight " with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues . The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played
6741-454: The huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve- , eight- , or sixteen-bar . The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of
6848-434: The individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because
6955-427: The instrument. In the 1950s, Lead Belly's protégé, Fred Gerlach , brought the instrument into the American folk music world. Initially, it was primarily used for accompaniment, owing to the greater difficulty of picking or executing string "bends" on its double-strung courses. The Delta Blues guitar virtuoso Robert Lockwood Jr was presented a handcrafted acoustic 12-string guitar made by an outstanding Japanese luthier in
7062-437: The instrument; players such as Ralph Towner have applied classical playing techniques. Roger McGuinn developed his own style of playing a 12-string guitar. The neck of a Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string guitar is as wide as the 6-string guitar. Solos are therefore easier to play and he used his banjo techniques to play chords. In addition to applying a compressor , this determined the sound of The Byrds. Lead Belly adapted both
7169-611: The instruments made by the Oscar Schmidt company before their bankruptcy, which usually had scale lengths of around 26.5". Their bridges, especially in acoustic guitars, had a larger reinforcement plate for the same reason, and tailpiece and floating-bridge setups were far more common than on six string instruments as another way to combat the effect of the high tension. Advances in materials, design, and construction in such guitars made after 1970 have eliminated most of these accommodations. Contemporary 12 string guitars are commonly built to
7276-638: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing
7383-420: The lower four courses are normally tuned an octave apart, while each pair of strings in the top two courses are tuned in unison . The strings are generally arranged such that the higher string of each pair is struck first on a downward strum. However, Rickenbacker usually reverses this arrangement on its electric 12-string guitars. The tuning of the second string in the third course (G) varies. Some players use
7490-416: The lower four strings (E, A, D, and G) have octave pairs, while the top two (B and E) have unison pairs. However, for Regional Mexican styles, all strings are set up with identical unison pairs instead of the traditional octave courses. This configuration yields a resonant timbre reminiscent of the venerable bajo sexto, but adds significantly more tension on the bridge and neck. Furthermore, it usually requires
7597-543: The lowest course two octaves above instead of one, producing a third string in unison with the top course, and some stringing the third course in unison as well, and some others all courses except the top in octaves. Some performers use open tunings and other non-standard guitar tunings on 12-string guitars. Some performers have experimented with tuning the two strings within a course to intervals other than octaves or unisons: jazz guitarists such as Ralph Towner (of Oregon ), Larry Coryell , and Philip Catherine have tuned
7704-680: The mid-1960s, most major guitar manufacturers were producing competing instruments, including the Fender Electric XII (used by Roy Wood of The Move ), and the Vox Phantom XII (used by Tony Hicks of The Hollies ). Gretsch , Guild , and Gibson also produced electric 12-string models from the mid-Sixties and following decades, with Gretsch promoting theirs by supplying a number of custom made 12-strings for The Monkees guitarist Michael Nesmith , for use on The Monkees TV series. Standard electric 12-strings became less popular with
7811-516: The music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include " How Long Blues ", " Trouble in Mind ", and Big Bill Broonzy 's " Key to the Highway ". There are also 16-bar blues , such as Ray Charles 's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock 's " Watermelon Man ". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as
7918-432: The nut to be modified, the neck compensated, and the bridge to be reinforced. The 12-string guitar's greater number of strings and higher cumulative string tension complicates playing, in both hands. Fretting chords requires greater force, and the width of the neck and the added string tension combine to make soloing and string-bending challenging. The gap between the dual-string courses is usually narrower than that between
8025-510: The out-of-phase vibrations produces a phenomenon known as a beat that results in a periodic rise and fall of intensity which is, in music, often considered pleasing to the ear. Pete Seeger described the distinctive sound of the 12-string guitar as "the clanging of bells." The origin of the modern 12-string guitar is not clear, but it arose in the closing years of the 19th century. The most likely ancestors using courses of doubled strings are some Mexican instruments of Spanish ancestry such as
8132-489: The propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The " territory bands " operating out of Kansas City , the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann , and
8239-458: The religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music
8346-423: The same dimensions and scale as their six-string counterparts, albeit still usually with heavier build and bracing. The most common tuning, considered standard today, is a variation on the standard six-string guitar tuning: E 3 •E 2 A 3 •A 2 D 4 •D 3 G 4 •G 3 B 3 •B 3 E 4 •E 4 , moving from lowest (sixth) course to highest (first) course. Lead Belly and some other players have doubled
8453-456: The savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver , "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather... the blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and
8560-510: The single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa . That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor , from his African Suite for Piano , written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes . The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of
8667-482: The single-string courses of a conventional six-string guitar, so more precision is required with the pick or fingertip when not simply strumming chords. Consequently, the instrument is most commonly used for accompaniment, though several players have taken the time to develop the 12-string guitar as a solo instrument. Flat-picking solos are more frequently seen with electric players, whereas a few acoustic players, such as Leo Kottke , have adapted fingerstyle techniques to
8774-446: 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. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of
8881-406: The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver , Tampa Red , "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee ,
8988-528: The suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below
9095-507: The techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing a ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson 's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of
9202-407: The three bass courses simplifies playing running bass lines, but keeps the extra treble strings for the full strums. Some manufacturers have produced 9-string instruments based on this setup, in which either the lower three courses are singular, or the upper three courses are singular. Additionally; some players adapted more unconventional stringing: for example, Big Joe Williams used doubled strings on
9309-464: The traditional, simple strum style and the finger-style method that was becoming popular at the time as well; Blind Willie McTell also played finger-style 12 string. Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads from
9416-446: The trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove . Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music . The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&;B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff
9523-444: The trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues music is characterized by its lyrics , bass lines , and instrumentation . Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern , consisting of a line sung over
9630-455: The wide spread adoption by American makers of the truss rod after WWII, 12-string guitars were frequently tuned lower than the traditional EADGBE to reduce the stresses on the instrument. For example, Lead Belly often used a low-C tuning, but in some recordings, his tunings can be recognized as low-B and A tunings, partially due to the unusually long scale length (~26.5-27") of the particular models of guitar that he preferred in combination with
9737-524: The width of a classical guitar neck. The sound, particularly on acoustic instruments, is fuller and more harmonically resonant than six-string instruments. The 12-string guitar can be played like a 6-string guitar as players still use the same notes, chords and guitar techniques like a standard 6-string guitar, but advanced techniques can be challenging as players need to play or pluck two strings simultaneously. Structurally, 12-string guitars, especially those built before 1970, differ from six-string guitars in
9844-532: Was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been
9951-504: 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
10058-399: Was closely related to ragtime , which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as
10165-457: Was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers , expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and
10272-416: Was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues , Delta blues and Piedmont blues , as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues . World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to
10379-440: Was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". 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
10486-567: Was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers . Performers such as Frank Stokes , Sleepy John Estes , Robert Wilkins , Kansas Joe McCoy , Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard , fiddle , kazoo or mandolin . Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style
10593-449: Was introduced in late 1965 with the bulk of the production taking place in 1966 before it was discontinued around 1970. Unlike its competitors' electric 12-string models which were simply existing 6-string guitars with six extra strings, the Fender Electric XII was a purpose-built 12-string designed to capture a part of the folk-rock market. The bridge has an individual saddle for each string making precise intonation possible. The Electric XII
10700-659: Was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews ); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand ; and " The Memphis Blues ", by W.C. Handy . Handy
10807-517: Was not particularly popular during its run, and by 1969, it was dropped from the Fender line before being reintroduced as a part of the Alternate Reality series in 2019. The body overstock was used for the Fender Custom ( a.k.a. Fender Maverick). Twelve-string guitar A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar ) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses , which produces
10914-420: Was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as " dow , da dow , da dow , da" or " dump , da dump , da dump , da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues "
11021-430: Was published in 1912; W.C. Handy 's " The Memphis Blues " followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith 's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford 's " Crazy Blues ". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of
11128-507: Was replaced by the term rhythm and blues . This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart . This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle , which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music , became
11235-444: Was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in
11342-536: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style
11449-505: Was used by Vic Flick on the Peter and Gordon hit single " A World Without Love " in 1964. In late 1963, Burns developed the Double Six, supplying a prototype to Hank Marvin of The Shadows , who used it on a number of songs for the soundtrack of the 1964 Cliff Richard movie Wonderful Life ; the Double Six was also used on The Searchers ' cover version of De Shannon's "When You Walk in
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