At such time, the ragtime music genre came to be. During the Reconstruction period, black musicians started to use pianos (a European concept), which started to appear in juke joints and social halls across the South (Larson 25). The players in the string ensemble jug bands used banjos, fiddles, foot stomping, and washboards. The genre’s songs bemoaned politically the destitution, difficulties, despair, and depression the African Americans experienced before, during, and after slavery.ĭuring the antebellum period, slaves played music that was syncopated in string ensembles. The blues were created for the urban black population. Spirituals are also songs of justice and expectation to help the slaves deal with the oppressive and social evils of hegemony and racism (Kirk-Duggan 504). Spiritual music – a combination of Afro-American folk music elements and European Christianity – was created as a way for the slaves to find meaning in their lives. Thus, African American culture assumed various forms in Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, and Jamaica, with each country’s music shaped by a set mix of European and African source traditions and by local prevalent social conditions. African slaves were not only brought to North America, they were also taken to other areas in the Americas. Syncretism is the selective integration of traditions derived from Europe – with established musical traditions – and Africa. Central and western Africa, from where most of the slaves were taken, were home to numerous distinct languages, societies, and musical traditions.Īfrican American musical origins involved the processes of syncretism and the creation of institutions that soon became the foundations of black music: the church, the family, the school, the voluntary association, and many others. They were brought forcibly between the 1600s and 1800s, according to Starr and Waterman’s book (9). However, the early African Americans did not come willingly to the new lands. Immigrants are the driving force in the creation of American cultural aspects, one of them being music.
All three forms also found various ways to achieve European and African traditions’ cross-fertilization. Each of genres were created to meet the performers and the audience’s particular needs.
Spirituals, the blues, and ragtime are three musical genres that are were developed in America during the 18th and 19th centuries, each of them being vital for the inception of jazz (Larson 13).
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