Essay About 2Jazz Music And Use Of Guitars

The Guitar: A Global Phenomenon
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The Guitar helped to define musical genres worldwide and many musicalcultures that involved the use of guitars, which in turn led to the instrument becominga global phenomenon.The blues guitar is one of the most established guitar playing forms, withnotable guitarists such as Eric Clapton; whose popular work include ‘Cream’, ‘Let itRain’, and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. 1 The ‘Father of Blues’, W.C. Handy,was the most important early composer of blues.The blues has had noticeable surges of popularity through time and is stillplayed by artists in the twentieth century, for various reasons including ‘utilitarianand aesthetic reasons’. One such reason includes the rendering of African-Americanartists from southern US, including Mississippi John Hurt who produced songs likeStack-O-Lee; for events such as concerts and workshops at folk fests for the whitemiddle-class blues enthusiasts, which in turn supported bonds of acousticity andsocial democracy. 2Jazz music used chord progressions that were simplistic 3, and its roots comefrom Africa and Europe; using playing styles like syncopation and swung notes.Guitars were considered ‘low-class’ as compared to the banjo and mandolin.However, it was discovered that guitars provided harmonic and rhythmic support tothese instruments and it also produced an attractive rhythm that enabled the artists to1 ‘Readers Poll: The 10 Best Eric Clapton Songs’,

the rock musical culture has been centered on the use of the electric guitar, whichimplements a pickup that then converts the vibration of the guitar strings intoimpulses that are electric. One of the factors that have contributed to the guitarbecoming a global phenomenon in this musical culture is the distortion that itgenerates in rock music. Rock music artists use distortion as a technique of processingsound, which in turn creates unique music. 5 One of the most renown and successful4 Jeffrey J. Noonan, The Guitar in America: Victorian Era to Jazz Age. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008), 41-60.5 ‘50 Years of Making Fuzz, the Sound That Defines Rock n Roll’,