Musical improvisation, melody and harmony of sound, rhythm are the main characteristic features of the jazz style. As a result, jazz can be easily distinguished from any other music.
What is jazz
Jazz is a direction in music, characterized by a combination of rhythm with melody. A separate feature of jazz is improvisation. The musical direction gained its popularity due to its unusual sound and combination of several completely different cultures.
The history of jazz began in the early 20th century in the United States. Traditional jazz took shape in New Orleans. Subsequently, new varieties of jazz began to emerge in many other cities. Despite all the variety of sounds of different styles, jazz music can be immediately distinguished from another genre due to its characteristic features.
Improvisation
Musical improvisation is one of the main features in jazz, which is present in all its varieties. Performers create music spontaneously, they never think in advance, they don't rehearse. Playing jazz and improvising requires experience and skill in this area of music making. In addition, a jazz player must be mindful of rhythm and tonality. The relationship between the musicians in the group is of no small importance, because the success of the resulting melody depends on understanding each other's mood.
Improvisation in jazz allows you to create something new every time. The sound of music depends only on the inspiration of the musician at the time of the game.
It cannot be said that if there is no improvisation in the performance, then this is no longer jazz. This kind of music-making went to jazz from African peoples. Since Africans had no idea about sheet music and rehearsal, music was passed on to each other only by memorizing its melody and theme. And each new musician could already play the same music in a new way.
Rhythm and melody
The second important feature of the jazz style is rhythm. Musicians have the ability to spontaneously create sound, as the constant pulsation creates the effect of liveliness, play, excitement. Rhythm also limits improvisation, requiring you to produce sounds according to a given rhythm.
Like improvisation, rhythm came to jazz from African cultures. But it is precisely this feature that is the main characteristic of the musical movement. The early performers of free jazz completely abandoned rhythm in order to be completely free to create music. Because of this, the new direction in jazz was not recognized for a long time. The rhythm is provided by percussion instruments.
Jazz inherited the melody of music from European culture. It is the combination of rhythm and improvisation with harmonious and soft music that gives jazz an unusual sound.
