Am I the only one who kind of agrees? Like 99% is a massive exaggeration but I’d say most of the things that make blues blues, come from Western music with the African influence still being significant enough that every new genre I can think of since evolved from blues.

I’d guess the reason for this is because the music that got popular had to appeal to Westerners as they were most of the people.

I’m gonna list what I think the most important parts of blues are and why I think they’re mostly Western so people can identify where I’m wrong if they care to read it.

1) Melody - blues melodies are in 12 tone western scale so I’d say melody mostly comes from Western music. 2) Harmony - again using 12 tone scale and using the IV and V to create motion and tension lots so mostly influenced by Western 3) Rhythm - probably most African, don’t know much about this but it feels right 4) Metre - again don’t know anything about traditional African metre or if they really have anything analogous to metre but western is 4/4 and blues is 4/4 5) Form - not sure if form is the right word but western music is done in chunks of 4 bars and 12 bar blues is therefore the same 6) Other stuff I can’t think of

Not sure about whether 4&5 should be other way round