Jazz was formed in the late 19th century and early 2th century. The recognized birthplace is New Orleans, a subtropical city in southern Louisiana.
Among many popular music, jazz is the earliest one and has a wide influence in the world. Jazz is actually American folk music. European church music, American black violin and banjo traditional music combined with African singing and American black labor horn formed the original "folk blues", while "ragtime" and "folk blues" formed the early jazz.
from the 17th and 18th centuries, western colonialists sold a large number of African blacks to America and became slaves of white people there. They were forced to work and suffered greatly. In the field, after work, slaves miss their hometown and relatives, and often sing a sad song to express their painful feelings. This kind of music also permeates some religious songs. Because blue is regarded as a melancholy color among the American people, this sad song is also collectively called Blues. China transliterated it as "Bruce". We often find songs with Blues in American music works, such as rhapsody in blue, Blue Tango and Blue Love.
Another origin of jazz comes from a kind of piano music called ragtime. "Ragtime" is a transliteration of the word ragtime. The word means "uneven beat". Therefore, it is also called "Sanpai Music". It is also developed from African folk music. At the end of the 19th century, a black pianist named Scott Joplin (1869-1917) created a new style of piano music: the right-hand treble played the main theme or arpeggio with a special syncopation rhythm. Generally speaking, 4/4 beats of music, one or three beats are strong beats, and two or four beats are weak beats. However, when he beats three octaves every half, there is a strong sound, while his left hand regularly plays the rhythm composed of the light and heavy notes of quarter notes, one or three beats are strong beats of bass, and two or four beats are chords and weak beats. In this way, the left and right hands form staggered beats, which makes the music humorous, joyful and lively. Because of this creation, Joplin is known as the "King of Ragtime".
Some people say that the word Jazz evolved from the African dialect Jaiza. The original meaning of this word is "to speed up drumming"; Another way of saying it is: in the early years, there was a musician named Jasper in New Orleans. Everyone used to call him Jas, but later he passed it on and on, and became Jazz. Others say that the word Jazz evolved from the word Chaz.
Most of the early black jazz musicians didn't know music, and they just changed the familiar tunes freely by inspiration when playing. So it has a strong impromptu nature. Due to the small number of musicians, three or five musicians often cooperate together, and after a long time, a tacit understanding is naturally formed between them.
Characteristics of jazz music:
(1) In terms of major scales, its third (Mi) and seventh (Si) tones are often lower (usually a semitone, but actually less than a semitone). Sometimes the fifth (Sol) tone also falls by a semitone. These falling notes are often supplemented by sliding and vibrato, thus strengthening the melancholy and sad color of the song; Because of these characteristics, the scale formed in this way is called "blues scale".
(2) syncopated rhythms and triplets are often used in melody, resulting in the inversion of light and heavy sounds;
(3) The rhythm is mostly double beat, usually 4/4 beat, and some are 2/4 beat;
(4) In terms of lyrics and melody structure, Bruce mostly uses two lines of words with symmetry and rhyme. Repeat the first sentence. There are 12 bars in each tune and 4 bars in each sentence, thus forming a three-sentence fixed musical structure: ‖: A: ‖+B
(5) Chords commonly use the main chord (I), the subordinate chord (V) and the subordinate chord. (Ⅳ), therefore, harmony sounds harmonious and simple.
The question of what rock music is has been puzzling people since it came into being. With the evolution of history, its original meaning has been far from today's meaning. If we talk about what rock music is, the first thing we should consider is the audience. Because in the ten-month interview, I feel that it is really necessary for the rock music appreciators in China to talk about the concept of rock music and its classification standards; But for the creators of rock music, it is more important to emphasize music and people than the concept of rock music.
Rock music came into being under the background of western culture and history. Since it came into being, western music critics and rock artists have given countless definitions of rock music for decades, but these definitions still can't be agreed by people. This kind of situation, also inevitably appeared in China. Because the rigor of any theory is relative, not absolute, Chinese rock musicians have different opinions on what is rock music.
There is no uniform measure standard for rock music, but there are different standards for musicians. Therefore, I want to present the respective understanding of rock music in mainland China through this book, which can make rock music appreciators in China form a rough measure. To say the least, whether it can achieve the purpose of providing standards or not, it can at least provide viewers with a practical thinking angle.
what is rock music? As far as its production is concerned, it is a musical form of the integration of black rhythm and blues and white country music; As far as the musical instruments used are concerned, it is mainly guitar, bass and drums, plus powerful acoustics and many effects to express music; As far as its style is concerned, it can be divided into Blues, Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal, Punk, Funk, Reggae, Rap and so on. In addition, rock music also has the characteristics of singing, stage design, lighting effects and so on. But these characteristics add up to only the form of rock music.
when it comes to rock music, it is inevitable that its content attribute, that is, rock spirit. When we say that there is confusion in our understanding of rock music today, what we actually mean is that our understanding of this spirit cannot be unified. No matter whether the band admits that they are showing the rock spirit or not, there is always spirit in music, but the understanding and performance of spirit are different. Liang Heping once stressed that this spirit is to resist everything that makes people lose themselves; Ding Wu, on the other hand, thinks that this spirit can be expressed through the mood of music, which does not necessarily make the lyrics so sharp. In fact, the statements of the three of them are not contradictory. When we look at these three points together, our thinking is clear.
The philosophy of rock spirit is a kind of spirit that human beings pursue freedom of existence. To put it bluntly, it is something that is anti-popular through music, because what obeys the public is the loss of individuality, kitsch and popularity. If people simply understand the rock spirit as anger and anti-tradition, it is not practical in China.
We combine the standard of rock music form with the standard of content, and get the standard of distinguishing rock music from pop music today.
As the ancients said, "Poetry is not accurate, and genre is not certain", which is the same for the classification of rock music. It is difficult to tell whether some works are rock music or pop music. Cang Tianshuo's "Prayer for the Heart", in terms of music components, has more pop music components, but when it is sung in a rock concert, it adds a rock component to the lyrics. In this case, it is more important to care whether music can really impress you than what kind of music a song belongs to.
any group of people can't be exactly the same, they must have various differences. There are also various differences among musicians who engage in rock music. Their attitudes towards life are different, even totally different. Among them, there are ascetics who bear the cross, and there are also those who bear the absurd happiness. Different attitudes towards life naturally produce different music. I just want to remind the audience that their music is fundamentally different.
Some of them use rock music as a tool to express their views. This kind of people will pick up another tool if they don't use rock and roll as a tool, because they have rich inner feelings of survival in this world, and often have a physiological melon that is hard to get out of their throat. This kind of person is not only a hero in rock music, but also an outstanding person among human beings.
others focus on music. They like this kind of music more than any other music form. They don't emphasize the ideological content of the work, but emphasize that music must be music. They seem to need this kind of music in the blood city, and they must soak and suck in this kind of music every day to feel their existence. Most of them are brilliant, and their persistence in music is admirable.
There are also some people who are suspected of following the fashion. Their works have no content and are poor in ideology and musicality. I'd rather think that their life feelings are still unclear and their music style has not been established, and I don't want to accuse them of using fakes and rubbish to cheat the world.
This book is in the form of a factual record, which is intended to be different from the current "rock-and-roll" stuff. Because we should have a responsible attitude towards a new culture. I hope this Record can be the first material to write the history of Chinese rock music in the future, and it will play a certain role in the formation of Chinese rock music audience. I also hope that after a while, the band will feel embarrassed or uncomfortable when they see their own mirror, and then Chinese rock music must have reached a higher level.