The ska stroke up or ska upstroke, skank or bang, is a guitar strumming technique that is used mostly in the performance of ska, rocksteady, and reggae music. [5] It is derived from a form of rhythm and blues arrangement called the shuffle, a popular style in Jamaican blues parties of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
As evidenced by musicologist Bruno Blum in the Jamaica–USA – Roots of Ska – Rhythm and Blues Shuffle 1942–1962 scholar anthology, [6] the shuffle's offbeat/upbeat stroke ("chuck", "skank") was originally played on the piano in U.S. groups like Louis Jordan & His Tympani Five ("It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame", 1942; "G.I. Jive", 1944; "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie", 1946; "Boogie Woogie Blue Plate", 1947), Gene Philips and the Rhythm Aces ("Rock Bottom", 1947), T-Bone Walker ("T-Bone Shuffle", 1947), Gene Coy & His Killer Dillers ("Killer Diller", 1948, Professor Longhair ("Willie Mae", 1949), Fats Domino ("Little Bee", 1950), Rosco Gordon ("No More Doggin", 1952) and B.B. King ("You Upset Me Baby", 1954), all popular records on 1950s Jamaican dancehalls.
The shuffle's upbeat stroke was played and recorded on the guitar as early as 1950 by U.S. guitar player Robert Kelton with singer-pianist Jimmy McCracklin and his Blues Blasters ("Rockin' All Day"). Jamaican musicians copying this style for the early Jamaican R&B shuffle recordings of the late 1950s played the shuffle either on the guitar and the piano or both, as heard in recordings such by The Duke Reid Group ("The Joker", Duke Reid, 1959), Theophilus Beckford ("Easy Snappin', "Worldisc, 1959), Clue J & His Blues Blasters ("Silky", Coxsone 1960), Count Ossie & the Wareikas ("African Shuffle", Moodies, circa 1960) and on Bob Marley's debut single "Judge Not" (Beverley's, 1962). [6]
By late 1962, a slight change in Lloyd Knibb's drum rhythm was the landmark for the birth of ska, but the shuffle played on the piano and guitar remained the same. Theophilus Beckford is often credited as the piano player on early Jamaican R&B recordings; Ernest Ranglin and Jerry Hinds as guitar players. The shuffle shifted to ska in 1962, then to rocksteady by 1965 and reggae in 1968. "Reggae is most easily recognized by...the skank." [7]
Ska strokes serve as a rhythmic base to a song, and may be doubled by the drums. This style of playing has a dance associated with it, the skank. In reggae, the guitar usually plays a short, percussive, "scratchy chop sound [chord]", on beats 2 and 4 (1 2 3 4), often supported by staccato piano (late 1960s to the early 1980s) or synthesizer. [8] Ska strokes create a bouncing rhythm, going up then down in pitch. [5] Played in 4
4 time (𝄆1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 𝄇), the chosen guitar chord is played on the downbeat (indicated by numbers), and then a ghost note is played on the upbeat (indicated by ampersands) by lifting the left hand off the fret a few millimeters. [5] However, most traditional ska is focused on the upbeat; playing on the downbeat is more closely associated with reggae, where the ska strokes are played much more slowly as opposed to ska.
Double-time: ||:1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & :|| Common-time: ||:1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 :|| Half-time : ||:1234123412341234:||
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Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first popular song to use the word reggae, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. Reggae is rooted out from traditional Jamaican Kumina, Pukkumina, Revival Zion, Nyabinghi, and burru drumming. Jamaican reggae music evolved out of the earlier genres mento, ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political commentary. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.
In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section ; and to provide all or part of the harmony, i.e. the chords from a song's chord progression, where a chord is a group of notes played together. Therefore, the basic technique of rhythm guitar is to hold down a series of chords with the fretting hand while strumming or fingerpicking rhythmically with the other hand. More developed rhythm techniques include arpeggios, damping, riffs, chord solos, and complex strums.
Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.
The music of Jamaica includes Jamaican folk music and many popular genres, such as mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub music, dancehall, reggae fusion and related styles.
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish reggae, including harmony groups such as the Techniques, the Paragons, the Heptones and the Gaylads; soulful singers such as Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bob Andy, Ken Boothe and Phyllis Dillon; musicians such as Jackie Mittoo, Lynn Taitt and Tommy McCook. The term rocksteady comes from a popular (slower) dance style mentioned in the Alton Ellis song "Rocksteady", that matched the new sound. Some rocksteady songs became hits outside Jamaica, as with ska, helping to secure the international base reggae music has today.
Studio One is one of Jamaica's most renowned record labels and recording studios; it has been described as the Motown of Jamaica. The record label was involved with most of the major music movements in Jamaica during the 1960s and 1970s, including ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub and dancehall.
Ernest Ranglin is a Jamaican guitarist and composer who established his career while working as a session guitarist and music director for various Jamaican record labels, including Studio One and Island Records. Ranglin played guitar on many early ska recordings and helped create the rhythmic guitar style that defined the form. He has worked with Theophilus Beckford, Jimmy Cliff, Monty Alexander, Prince Buster, the Skatalites, Bob Marley and the Eric Deans Orchestra. Ranglin is noted for a chordal and rhythmic approach that blends jazz, mento and reggae with percussive guitar solos incorporating rhythm 'n' blues and jazz inflections.
Bob Marley and the Wailers were a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae band. The founding members, in 1963, were Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer.
There are several subgenres of reggae music including various predecessors to the form.
Nerlynn Taitt was a guitarist born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, who later moved to Jamaica and became a pioneer of rocksteady music.
In music, strumming is a way of playing a stringed instrument such as a guitar, ukulele, or mandolin. A strum or stroke is a sweeping action where a finger or plectrum brushes over several strings to generate sound. On most stringed instruments, strums are typically executed by a musician's designated strum hand, while the remaining hand often supports the strum hand by altering the tones and pitches of any given strum.
Clancy Eccles was a Jamaican ska and reggae singer, songwriter, arranger, promoter, record producer and talent scout. Known mostly for his early reggae works, he brought a political dimension to this music. His house band was known as The Dynamites.
One drop rhythm is a reggae style drum beat.
Blue Beat Records is an English record label that released Jamaican rhythm and blues (R&B) and ska music in the 1960s and later decades. Its reputation led to the use of the word bluebeat as a generic term to describe all styles of early Jamaican pop music, including music by artists not associated with the record label.
The Rocksteady 7 also known as David Hillyard & the Rocksteady Seven, are an American Ska and Jazz band from New York, New York that formed in 1992. Since the early 1990s the group has consisted of tenor saxophonist and band leader Dave Hillyard as well as percussionist Larry McDonald. In live performances, they are supported by a rotating cast of musicians, including drummer Eddie Ocampo and Dave Wake on keys among others.
Theophilus Beckford was a Jamaican pianist and one of the pioneers of Jamaican popular music during the transition from rhythm 'n' blues to Jamaican ska.
Clue J & His Blues Blasters were a Jamaican band of the late 1950s and early 1960s led by Cluett Johnson, who were one of the first bands to play ska. Several of the band's members went on to join The Skatalites.
Damping is a technique in music for altering the sound of a musical instrument by reducing oscillations or vibrations. Damping methods are used for a number of instruments.
In music, a chop chord is a "clipped backbeat". In 4
4: 1 2 3 4. It is a muted chord that marks the off-beats or upbeats. As a rhythm guitar and mandolin technique, it is accomplished through chucking, in which the chord is muted by lifting the fretting fingers immediately after strumming, producing a percussive effect.
The chop is analogous to a snare drum beat and keeps the rhythm together and moving. It's one of the innovations bluegrass inventor Bill Monroe pioneered, and it gave the music a harder groove and separated it from old-time and mountain music.
"No More Doggin'" is a rhythm and blues song written and originally recorded by blues musician Rosco Gordon in 1952. The song featured Gordon's signature "Rosco Rhythm" piano style which became a precursor to Jamaican ska music.
