Define Ska Music
With its catchy tempos and energetic guitar riffs, ska music is a genre that was created in Jamaica. Jamaican musicians gathered ideas from American music to form ska, which caught the attention of music fans around the world. The genre has a mixed-influences feel, drawing on punk, R&B, jazz and calypso.
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Definition
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Ska is defined as a style of popular music that originated in Jamaica in the 1960s, having elements of rhythm and blues, jazz and calypso. It is marked by a fast tempo and a strongly accented offbeat.
Characteristics
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Ska is a combination of other genres like Jamaican mento folk music and R&B. While the guitar lines play on the second, third and fourth beats of the measure (up-beats), the drums come in on the second and fourth beats only. The drums follow the blues and swing beats of American music as the guitar riffs carry the mento style.
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History
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During the 1920s, the local band scene in Jamaica was known as mento. Most of these bands would play at weddings and dances. By the 1950s, mento, a rural music, began to turn into ska. Ska bands would still play several mento numbers but changed the way they performed their music while traveling on the road. They developed new ideas from R&B, jazz and rock 'n' roll and created ska.
Ska Instruments
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Ska features a driving rhythmic section with guitars, keyboards and brass instruments (typically the trumpet and trombone). Known for its "scratchy" beats and fast tempo, ska was viewed as the precursor to reggae and was at its prime in the 1960s. Originally, it was a genre that appealed to the "Rude Boys" subculture in Jamaica, which helped propel the music's popularity.
Ska in America
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The 1990s featured ska bands like the Toasters, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Operation Ivy. These were punk bands that incorporated the sound of ska into their music. This created the ska punk genre. Towards the end of the millennium, mainstream ska bands began to fade away, and the popularity of the genre declined. However, some ska bands, such as Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish and the Slackers, are appreciated by music fans and continue to tour.
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References
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- Photo Credit Punk Girl image by Infs from Fotolia.com
