Appalachian Blues Tennessee

Kelle Jolly and Nayeema Hoffman were awarded the 2022 Tennessee Arts Commission Traditional Arts Apprenticeship. You can read more by following the link below.  Twelve Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Projects Awarded Across the State - Tennessee Arts Commission (tnartscommission.org) You can follow this team's progress through this blog.  *These teams are funded through a special partnership with the  South Arts’  initiative  In These Mountains: Central Appalachian Folk Art & Culture .

 Today we discussed the chords that are used in a basic 12-bar blues, the I, IV, and V chords. We listened to a recording of "Backwater Blues" by Bessie Smith. It is a good example of blues songwriting that was popular in the 1920s. The verse consists of 3 lines. The first 2 lines are the same and the 3rd line is different. We will use this form to brainstorm lyrics for our original blues songwriting. We do have performances in the Spring. Maybe you'll get to hear them live! You can work with us. Leave your own blues songwriting lyrics in the comments. 

 Let's start from the beginning. To make sure we are both speaking the same language, we started with a basic music theory review. We built scales from the root and discussed chords. We played the scales on ukulele so that we could hear them and see the interval distance between the notes. From here we can only go higher! Thankyou WUOT for allowing us to use the studio for lessons. It was the perfect setting to discuss the popularity of blues music. Maybe we'll return to the studio for some on-air work? Who knows! Stay tuned!