We often hear praises, chants, spirituals, and narrative ballad songs. We find this songs boring because this kind of music is somehow old fashioned. Now I think we can only hear blues songs when we listen to radio on Sunday and by going to church but what does blues really mean?
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of the United States around 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines, and instruments.
According to an article that I've read entitled "Bach to the blues, our emotions match music to colors" by Yasmin Anwar of newscenter.berkerly.edu that tells people in both the United States and Mexico linked the same pieces of blues music with the same colors. This suggests that humans share a common emotional palette (when it comes to music and color) that appears to be intuitive and can cross cultural barriers. She also stated that "Using a 37-color palette, found that people tend to pair faster-paced music in a major key with lighter, more vivid, yellow colors, whereas slower-paced music in a minor key is more likely to be teamed up with darker, grayer, bluer colors. Surprisingly, we can predict with 95 percent accuracy how happy or sad the colors people pick will be based on how happy or sad the music is that they are listening to, who will present these and related findings at the International Association of Colour conference at the University of Newcastle in the U.K. on July 8. At the conference, a color light show will accompany a performance by the Northern Sinfonia orchestra to demonstrate the patterns aroused by music and color converging on the neural circuits that register emotion."
I think this is true. Most of us when we listen to fast tempos we want bright colors and when we are in parties when there is fast tempos then lights went lighter and when it slow tempo the lights went darker and it is pleasant for our feelings. In other way the blues music also have negative effect and causes trauma.
According to another article that I've read entitled "Kohut Memorial Lecture and Musical Performance: Blues and Emotional Trauma; A Musical Tribute to Kohut's Observations on the Psychological Functions of Music" by Robert Stolorow, Ph.D. and Ben Stolorow of psychologyofheself.com that tells blues are rooted in African American music, but have universal, cross-cultural, and cross-generational appeal. There is something in the music that all people relate to. The blues put us in touch with the universally traumatizing aspects of the human condition. This presentation described how the unity of its lyrical features and its musical qualities give us a visceral-linguistic conversation in which trauma can be communally-held and borne. They also stated that "focusing on the lyrics of blues music. I explored how the lyrics can provide a "relational home" or a context of human understanding, in which traumatic experience or emotional pain can be expressed and worked-through. The lyrics in the blues reflect themes of irony, the absurdity of existence, and hopelessness. Structurally, lyrics are comprised of the person's (or community's) traumatic, painful, or dreaded plight alongside the acceptance and resignation to the situation. Through this linguistic expression of pain and acceptance, comes a resilience and hope that pain can be communally held and lived through. The building of tension and subsequent release can be melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic. One way that tension is created musically is called "pitch-bending". Pitch-bending is a powerful way to communicate a visceral emotional experience because it creates ambiguity between major and minor keys (major keys invoke "happy" feelings and minor keys invoke "sad" feelings). The musician or singer uses tones that are "in between" and then bends them up or down until the target harmonious note is reached."
By the articles that I read. Blues music have effect in a group not in a single person but it differs from the tempos they used and the major and minor keys that they used. I don't really listen to blues music but I think when they use major keys i dont think that it would cause trauma.
No comments:
Post a Comment