Ethno 50

Ragtime, Blues and Jazz Whenever we think of classical music, Jazz will always came up to our mind and when we talking about Jazz, we somehow always relate it to Blues and Ragtime since they are the ones that gave birth to Jazz. The similarities between Ragtime and Blues are that they both came from African American background, but they are not related. They are two different style of music The Blues came before Ragtime, it was born during the days of slavery and more likely playing as church hymns. Blues is considered as a sad and melancholy type of music. It "reflect the city of the forgotten man and woman, the shout for freedom...and the hunger of workless."(pg 53) and the very few of them are fast and happy. Unlike Ragtime, they are more of a happy and lively type of music for military marching and 'a never before heard "swing"'(pg 61). Ragtime music helped the many Americans to strive out of depression of 1890.
Since they are different type of music, their main instruments are different, too. For Blues, their main instrument is the human voice. The people at that time focuses more on the singing than the actual instruments that are playing. A time when many famous vocalists were born, like Bessie Smith. Many people think that "vocal are what makes music so great to listen to." And for Ragtime, it is a piano dominated era. A time when the first piece of piano music was written down. Musician use ragging and reinterpret the melody by adding their feelings into the melody.
On the other hand, Ragtime and Blues has different musical characteristics. Blues has a informal structure of adding beats that sometimes causes the singers to extend the phrases or the instruments goes out of tune. Ragtime is more formal than Blues, it is played as it is written on the paper. Blues shows more expressions or feelings in the lyrics, but Ragtime don’t have them. As you can tell, from Joplin’s' "Maple Leaf Rag" and Bessie’s "St. Louis Blues", Joplin’s' music does not have