Tony Jackson Journal #10 (Music Rhetorical Analysis)

The guitar in Jimi Hendrix’s in the driving and dominant factor of every song, which is a common characteristic of rock and roll music. The Jimi Hendrix Experience does have lyrics in the songs but because the guitars (and the more nominal percussion) are so central to the genre and feel of the body of work, I think that the removal of the words from some of the songs would do the album almost the same amount of justice.

The lyrics are pivotal to the entire feel of the Avett Brother’s sound and the banjo and other instruments in the songs seem to be their secondary support. The high pitched and ranging chords and melodies make the majority of The Carpenter’s songs fit into the blue grass and folk genres. With the Avett Brothers originating in Concorde, North Carolina, the indigenous Appalachian banjo sound, discussed in “Give Me the Banjo”, is clearly an influence on their sound. Although banjo sound is the defining instrument in most of the music, the orientation of the other instruments is what makes The Carpenter a genre-crossing album.

The two albums are related to blues through their genres origins with blues, slave music, and African American instruments. The respective chord progressions in the two albums’ songs also lend themselves to the evident roots in the Blues genre. Hendrix also incorporates the common blues practice of call and response between his speech and guitar or guitar chord progressions that is a very unique and interesting interpretation with Blues pedigrees. The last obvious Blues related feature I see in Hendrix’s music is his rhythmic sing-talking that is extremely popular in both Rock & Roll and Blues music. The way that the use, orientation, and sounds of the different instruments categorizes the genre of each album, and even more so each song, is yet another characteristic that stems from the Blues genre.