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Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm,Burrows, Terry (1995). ''Play Country Guitar'', p.42. Dorling Kindersley Limited, London. . "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
and feel of the boogie was then adapted to
guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
,
double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...
, and other instruments. The earliest recorded boogie-woogie song was in 1916. By the 1930s, Swing bands such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller,
Tommy Dorsey Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-toned trombo ...
and Louis Jordan all had boogie hits. By the 1950s, boogie became incorporated into the emerging
rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blu ...
and
rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...
styles. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s country bands released country boogies. Today, the term "boogie" usually refers to dancing to pop, disco, or rock music.


History

The boogie was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music and adapted to
guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
. Boogie-woogie is a style of blues piano playing characterized by an up-tempo rhythm, a repeated melodic pattern in the bass, and a series of improvised variations in the treble.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company, Updated in 2009, and Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003 CITED I
"Boogie-Woogie"
''FreeDictionary.com''.
Boogie woogie developed from a piano style that developed in the rough barrelhouse bars in the Southern states, where a piano player performed for the hard-drinking patrons. The origin of the term ''boogie-woogie'' is unknown, according to ''
Webster's Third New International Dictionary ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (commonly known as ''Webster's Third'', or ''W3'') was published in September 1961. It was edited by Philip Babcock Gove and a team of lexicographers who spent 757 ...
''. The ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
'' states that the word is a redoubling of ''boogie'', which was used for rent parties as early as 1913. The term may be derived from Black West African English, from the Sierra Leone term "bogi", which means "to dance"; as well, it may be akin to the phrase "hausa buga", which means "to beat drums". In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the term "could mean anything from a racy style of dance to a raucous party or to a sexually transmitted disease." In Peter Silvester's book on boogie woogie, ''Left Hand Like God — the Story of Boogie Woogie'' he states that, in 1929, “boogie-woogie is used to mean either dancing or music in the city of Detroit.” Boogie hit the charts with
Pine Top Smith Clarence Smith (June 11, 1904 – March 15, 1929), better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith, was an American boogie-woogie style blues pianist. His hit tune "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" featured rhythmic "breaks" that were an essential in ...
's ''Pine Top's Boogie'' in 1929, which garnered the number 20 spot. In the late 1930s, boogie became part of the then popular Swing style, as big bands such as "Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Louis Jordan...all had boogie hits." Swing big band audiences expected to hear boogie tunes, because the beat could be used for the then-popular dances such as the
jitterbug Jitterbug is a generalized term used to describe swing dancing. It is often synonymous with the lindy hop dance but might include elements of the jive, east coast swing, collegiate shag, charleston, balboa and other swing dances. Swing danc ...
and the
Lindy Hop The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the Black communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many danc ...
. As well, country artists began playing boogie woogie in the late 1930s, when
Johnny Barfield John Alexander Barfield (3 March 1909 - 16 January 1974) was an American country and old-time music performer, best known for his 1939 recording of "Boogie Woogie", the first country boogie. He was born in Tifton, Georgia, and in his youth playe ...
recorded "Boogie Woogie". The
Delmore Brothers Alton Delmore (December 25, 1908 – June 9, 1964) and Rabon Delmore (December 3, 1916 – December 4, 1952), billed as The Delmore Brothers, were country music pioneer singer-songwriters and musicians who were stars of the Grand Ole Opry in the ...
"Freight Train Boogie" shows how country music and blues were being blended to form the genre which would become known as
rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blu ...
. The
Sun Records Sun Records is an American independent record label founded by producer Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee in February 1952. Sun was the first label to record Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny ...
-era
rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blu ...
sound used "wild country boogie piano" as part of its sound.Hoffmann, Frank
"Rockabilly"
''Survey of American Popular Music'', modified for the web by Robert Birkline.
By the early 1950s, boogie became less popular, but the new rock and roll sometimes incorporated its patterns. In the 1960s, a new form,
boogie rock Boogie rock is a style of blues rock music that developed in the late 1960s. Its key feature is a repetitive driving rhythm, which emphasizes the groove. Although inspired by earlier musical styles, boogie rock has been described as "heavier" or ...
, emerged. However, it did not rely on the same patterns as the earlier styles. By the mid-1970s, the meaning of the term returned to its roots, in a certain sense, as during the disco era, "to boogie" meant "to dance in a disco style" with one hit song in particular sung by the Euro disco group
Silver Convention Silver Convention were a German Euro disco recording act of the 1970s. The group was originally named Silver Bird Convention or Silver Bird. Career The group was initiated in Munich by producers and songwriters Sylvester Levay and Michael Kunze. ...
, "
Get Up and Boogie ''Get Up and Boogie'' (sometimes also known simply as ''Silver Convention'') is the second studio album by the German disco group Silver Convention, and perhaps best known for including the song " Get Up and Boogie", which hit #1 on June 15, 197 ...
".


Usage

The boogie groove is often used in
rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...
and
country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
. A simple rhythm guitar or accompaniment boogie pattern, sometimes called country boogie, is as follows: The "B" and "C" notes are played by stretching the fourth finger from the "A" two and three frets up to "B" and "C" respectively on the same string. This pattern is an elaboration or decoration of the chord or level and is the same on all the
primary triad In music, a primary triad is one of the three triads, or three-note chords built from major or minor thirds, most important in tonal and diatonic music, as opposed to an auxiliary triad or secondary triad. Each triad found in a diatonic key co ...
s (I, IV, V), although the dominant, or any chord, may include the
seventh Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven. Seventh may refer to: * Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution * A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts Film and television *"The Seventh", a second-season e ...
on the third
beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery (c ...
(see also,
degree (music) In music theory, the scale degree is the position of a particular note on a scale relative to the tonic, the first and main note of the scale from which each octave is assumed to begin. Degrees are useful for indicating the size of intervals a ...
). A simple
lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featu ...
boogie pattern is as follows:Burrows (1995), p.43. Boogie patterns are played with a swing or
shuffle Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome. __TOC__ Techniques Over ...
rhythm and generally follow the "one finger per fret" rule, where, as in the case directly above, if the third finger always covers the notes on the third fret, the second finger going only on the second fret, etc. The swung notes or shuffle note are a
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
ic device in which the duration of the initial
note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...
in a pair is augmented and that of the second is diminished. Also known as "
notes inégales In music, ''notes inégales'' is a performance practice, mainly from the Baroque and Classical music eras, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short. The pra ...
", swung notes are widely used in
jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a maj ...
and other jazz-influenced music such as blues and
Western swing Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance ...
. A swing or shuffle rhythm is the
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
produced by playing repeated pairs of notes in this way.


See also

*
Boogie-woogie Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities since 1870s.Paul, Elliot, ''That Crazy American Music'' (1957), Chapter 10, p. 229. It was eventually extended from pi ...
*
Boogie rock Boogie rock is a style of blues rock music that developed in the late 1960s. Its key feature is a repetitive driving rhythm, which emphasizes the groove. Although inspired by earlier musical styles, boogie rock has been described as "heavier" or ...


References

{{Street dance 20th-century music genres Blues music genres 1970s slang Rhythm and meter Slang