frozzen_butterfly
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 Posted: 10/11/2007 13:28 Post subject: Raggae music |
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Reggae's origins are in traditional African and Caribbean music; American rhythm and blues; and in Jamaican ska and rocksteady.
The word reggae may have been first used by the vocal group the Maytals, in the title of their 1968 rocksteady hit Do the Reggay. The Oxford English Dictionary says the origin of the word is unknown, but may be derived from the Jamaican-English word rege-rege, meaning quarrel. Other theories are that the word means torn clothes or that the term came from the word streggae (a Jamaican slang term for prostitute).
Music of Jamaica
Kumina - Niyabinghi - Mento - Ska - Rocksteady - Reggae - Sound systems - Lovers Rock - Dub - Dancehall - Dub poetry - Toasting - Raggamuffin - Roots reggae
Anglophone Caribbean music
Anguilla - Antigua and Barbuda - Bahamas - Barbados - Bermuda - Caymans - Grenada - Jamaica - Montserrat - St. Kitts and Nevis - St. Vincent and the Grenadines - Trinidad and Tobago - Turks and Caicos - Virgin Islands
Sound samples
Other Caribbean music
Aruba and the Dutch Antilles - Cuba - Dominica - Dominican Republic - Haiti - Hawaii - Martinique and Guadeloupe - Puerto Rico - St. Lucia - United States - United Kingdom
By the mid 1970s, reggae was getting radio play in the United Kingdom on John Peel's radio show, and Peel continued to play much reggae during his career. Reggae has always had a fairly large following in the United Kingdom, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. In the second half of the 1970s, the UK punk rock scene was starting to take off, and some punk DJs played reggae records during their DJ sets. Certain punk bands, such as The Clash, The Slits and The Ruts incorporated reggae influences into their music. Reggae includes several subgenres, such as, roots reggae, dub, lovers rock and dancehall.
[edit] Newer styles and spin-offs
The toasting style first used by 1960s Jamaican artists such as U-Roy and Dennis Alcapone influenced Jamaican DJ Kool Herc, who used the style to pioneer a new genre that became known as hip hop or rap. In Jamaica, the term Deejay or DJ is equivalent to the rapper or MC in American hip hop culture, while it is the selector who actually mans the turntables. Mixing techniques employed in dub music have influenced hip hop and drum and bass.
[edit] Dancehall
The dancehall genre developed around 1980, with exponents such as Yellowman, Mega Cat and Shabba Ranks. The style is characterized by a deejay singing and rapping or toasting over raw and fast rhythms. Ragga (also known as raggamuffin), is a subgenre of dancehall, in which the instrumentation primarily consists of electronic music and sampling. Reggaeton is a form of dance music that first became popular with Latino youths in the early 1990s. It blends reggae and dancehall with Latin American genres such as bomba and plena, as well with hip hop. Reggae rock is a fusion genre that combines elements of reggae and rock music. The bands Sublime and 311 are known for this reggae rock fusion, as is singer Matisyahu, a Hasidic Jew, who blends it with traditional Jewish music. Billboard magazine named him "Top Reggae Artist" of 2006.[1]
[edit] Musical characteristics
Reggae is always played in 4/4 time or swing time because the symmetrical rhythm pattern does not lend itself to other time signatures such as 3/4 time. Harmonically, the music is often very simple, and sometimes a whole song will have no more than one or two chords. The Bob Marley and the Wailers song "Exodus" is almost entirely comprised of A-minor chords. These simple repetitious chord structures add to reggae's sometimes hypnotic effect. However, Marley also wrote more complex chord structures, and the band Steel Pulse have often used very complex chord structures.
[edit] Drums and other percussion
A standard drum kit is generally used but the snare drum is often tuned very high to give it a timbale-type sound. Some reggae drummers use a separate additional timbale or high-tuned snare to get this sound. Rim shots on the snare are commonly used and tom-tom drums are often incorporated into the drumbeat itself. During the late 1980s and onwards, electronic instruments such as synthesizers and samplers were also used by reggae musicians for the same purpose, especially by reggae artists that write in the Stepper and Dancehall styles.
Reggae drumbeats fall into three main categories: One Drop, Rockers and Steppers. With the One Drop, the emphasis is entirely on the third beat of the bar (usually on the snare or as a rim shot combined with bass drum). Beat one is completely empty, which is extremely unusual in popular music. There is some controversy about whether reggae should be counted so that this beat falls on the 3 or whether it should be counted half as fast so that it falls on the 2 and 4. This article places the beat on the 3. Many credit Carlton Barrett of The Wailers as the creator of this style though it may actually have been invented by Winston Grennan. An example, played by Barrett, can be heard in the Bob Marley and the Wailers song, "One Drop." Barrett often used an unusual triplet cross-rhythm on the hi-hat, which can be heard on many recordings by Bob Marley and the Wailers, such as "Running Away" on the Kaya album.
An emphasis on beat three is in all reggae drumbeats, but with the Rockers beat, the emphasis is also on beat one (usually on bass drum). One example is in "Night Nurse" by Gregory Isaacs. The Rockers beat is not always straight forward, and various syncopations are often included. An example of this is the Black Uhuru song "Sponji Reggae."
In Steppers, the bass drum plays four solid beats to the bar, giving the beat an insistent drive. An example is "Exodus" by Bob Marley and the Wailers. The Steppers beat was often used (at a much higher tempo) by some of the 2 Tone ska revival bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Examples conține "Stand Down Margaret" by The Beat and "Too Much Too Young" by The Specials. The Beat and The Specials are both Ska bands, not Reggae. Another Common name for the Steppers beat is the "four on the floor".
An unusual characteristic of reggae drumming is that the drum fills often do not end with a climactic cymbal. A wide range of other percussion instrumentation is used in reggae. Bongos are often used to play free, improvised patterns; with heavy use of African-style cross-rhythms. Cowbells, claves and shakers tend to have more defined roles and a set pattern. |
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