What is Blues?
{{otheruses}} [[File:Bessie Smith (1936) by Carl Van Vechten.jpg|thumb|Early blues musician Bessie Smith]][[File:Muddy Waters.jpg|thumb|Muddy Waters-Chicago Blues musician Mid 70´s]] The '''blues''' is a form of [[music]] that started in the [[United States]] during the start of the [[20th century]]. It was started by former African [[slavery|slaves]] from [[spiritual (music)|spirituals]], praise songs, and [[chant]]s. The first blues songs were called [[Delta blues]]. These songs came from the area near the mouth of the [[Mississippi River]]. Many African Americans migrated to the northern part of the United States to find work. They took the blues with them and developed it into new styles. The most important is the Chicago Blues, which is played with electric amplified instruments. But other cities and states have their own form of Blues developed from the Delta Blues (f. e. Texas Blues, West Coast Blues and others). == Chord pattern == Blues is based on a simple pattern. ''“Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel”''-[[Jimi Hendrix]]. A common form for the blues is a repeating 12 bar form (each bar has 4 beats). This is put together as 3 phrases or sections, each being 4 bars long. The basic blues only needs 3 [[chord]]s, one based on the first note of the [[scale (music)|scale]] - the [[tonic]] chord, one based on the fourth note of the scale - the [[subdominant]] chord, and one based on the fifth note of the scale - the [[dominant]] chord. The first section or phrase of 4 bars only uses the tonic chord. A common variation is to use the subdominant chord in the second bar. The second phrase has 2 bars (8 beats) of subdominant chord then 2 bars of tonic chord. The third phrase has 1 bar (4 beats) of dominant chord, 1 bar of subdominant chord and finishes with 2 bars of tonic chord. In a scale based on the note C (C is the 1st or tonic, F is the 4th or subdominant, and G is the 5th or dominant), the chord pattern of a 12 bar blues would be like this: C C C C |C C C C or F F F F |C C C C |C C C C |<br /> F