Seat Of Pity - Knife In The Water

The blues appeal to the emotions and also make listeners want to dance or move their body in time to the music. The music usually has an underlying feeling of sadness, yet it can be a positive, happy experience as well. In Mississippi blues guitar players often use a knife held in the left hand or bottleneck worn on a left hand finger. As the player slides up and down the strings, he simulates the sound of a human voice crying. In Piedmont blues the guitar is intended to highlight the party and dance feeling of the song. In other instances the guitar is played in a style called fingerpicking, where the guitarist keeps the rhythm and plays the melody at the same time. The first time that a listener hears this style of playing, it sounds as though two guitars are playing at the same time. Most of the early folk blues artists accompanied themselves by playing finger style guitar. Later many of the musicians started to wear fingerpicks, which are worn over the fingernails of the right hand. Fingerpicks allow a musician to play louder and faster, but they usually produce very little variation in sound. Playing with the right hand fingers enables the player to play with more variations in tone, but the volume is softer. As the electric guitar developed, many musicians started to use a flat pick held in the right hand between the thumb and the index finger. Using the flat pick enables the player to play rapid single note passages, or to play rhythm without much effort. The disadvantage of a flat pick is that guitarists can play only one note at a time. It is possible to use the flat pick together with the right hand fingers, but this is a difficult technique.

Blues are usually sung by a single vocalist, although in a number of instances there are two voices. When two voices perform a song, usually they do not sing in harmony, but one voice answers the other, or offers spoken comments to the first verse. When rhythm and blues began, the instrumentation changed. The harmonica and guitar were amplified, and bass and drums were added. As R&B, developed, the acoustic bass was often replaced by an electric bass, and piano became more common. The piano mostly played rhythm parts, with the occasional solo. Saxophone solos were also featured on many R&B records. In soul records the guitar often became reduced to a rhythmic role, although sometimes, as in the records of such artists as James Brown, the rhythm guitar was prominent.

Source: American Popular Music: Blues by Dick Weissman

Seat Of Pity - Knife In The Water

• From: Plays One Sound and Others album
• Written by: Aaron Blount
• Released: 1997

"Aaron Blunt is the band's primary songwriter and lead gutarist, along with Laura Krause who plays organ and often provides back-up vocals. Their line-up also include steel pedal player Bill McCullough and John Brewington on Bass."

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