Skank quarter note harmonic rhythm sounds as

The ska stroke up or ska upstroke, skank or bang, is a

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

strumming technique that is used mostly in the performance of ska,

rocksteady Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish ...

, and

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

music.(2013). ''Smithsonian Music: The Definitive Visual History'', p.349. . It is derived from a form of

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...

arrangement called the shuffle, a popular style in Jamaican blues parties of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

History

Origin

As evidenced by musicologist Bruno Blum in the ''Jamaica–USA – Roots of Ska – Rhythm and Blues Shuffle 1942–1962'' scholar anthology,''Jamaica–USA – Roots of Ska – Rhythm and Blues Shuffle 1942–1962'' https://www.fremeaux.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.livrets&content_id=7466&product_id=1471&category_id=128, scroll for English booklet text. the shuffle's offbeat/upbeat stroke ("chuck", "skank") was originally played on the piano in U.S. groups like

Louis Jordan Louis Thomas Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was an American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "Honorific nicknames in popular music, the King ...

& His Tympani Five ("It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame", 1942; "G.I. Jive", 1944; "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie", 1946; "Boogie Woogie Blue Plate", 1947), Gene Philips and the Rhythm Aces ("Rock Bottom", 1947), T-Bone Walker ("T-Bone Shuffle", 1947), Gene Coy & His Killer Dillers ("Killer Diller", 1948,

Professor Longhair Henry Roeland Byrd (December 19, 1918 – January 30, 1980), better known as Professor Longhair or "Fess" for short, was an American singer and pianist who performed New Orleans blues. He was active in two distinct periods, first in the heyday o ...

("Willie Mae", 1949),

Fats Domino Antoine Caliste Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017), known as Fats Domino, was an American singer-songwriter and pianist. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orl ...

("Little Bee", 1950),

Rosco Gordon Rosco N. Gordon III (April 10, 1928 – July 11, 2002), sometimes billed as Roscoe Gordon, was an American blues singer, pianist, and songwriter. He is best known for his hit songs "Booted," (1952), " No More Doggin'" (1952), and " Just a Littl ...

("No More Doggin", 1952) and

B.B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, sh ...

("You Upset Me Baby", 1954), all popular records on 1950s Jamaican dancehalls.

Early recordings

The shuffle's upbeat stroke was played and recorded on the guitar as early as 1950 by U.S. guitar player Robert Kelton with singer-pianist Jimmy McCracklin and his Blues Blasters ("Rockin' All Day"). Jamaican musicians copying this style for the early Jamaican R&B shuffle recordings of the late 1950s played the shuffle either on the guitar and the piano or both, as heard in recordings such by The Duke Reid Group ("The Joker", Duke Reid, 1959), Theophilus Beckford ("Easy Snappin', "Worldisc, 1959), Clue J & His Blues Blasters ("Silky", Coxsone 1960), Count Ossie & the Wareikas ("African Shuffle", Moodies, circa 1960) and on Bob Marley's debut single " Judge Not" (Beverley's, 1962).

Development and genres

By late 1962, a slight change in Lloyd Knibb's drum rhythm was the landmark for the birth of ska, but the shuffle played on the piano and guitar remained the same. Theophilus Beckford is often credited as the piano player on early Jamaican R&B recordings;

Ernest Ranglin Ernest Ranglin (born 19 June 1932) is a Jamaican guitarist and composer who established his career while working as a session guitarist and music director for various Jamaican record labels, including Studio One and Island Records. Ranglin pl ...

and Jerry Hinds as guitar players. The shuffle shifted to ska in 1962, then to rocksteady by 1965 and reggae in 1968. "Reggae is most easily recognized by...the skank."

Musical features and impact

Ska strokes serve as a rhythmic base to a song, and may be doubled by the drums. This style of playing has a

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

associated with it, the skank. In reggae, the guitar usually plays a short, percussive, "scratchy chop sound hord, on beats 2 and 4 (), often supported by

staccato Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of Articulation (music), musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and ...

piano (late 1960s to the early 1980s) or synthesizer.Hombach (2010), p.21. Ska strokes create a bouncing rhythm, going up then down in pitch. Played in time (), the chosen

guitar chord In music, a guitar Chord (music), chord is a Set (mathematics), set of Musical note, notes played on a guitar. A chord's notes are often played simultaneously, but they can be played sequentially in an arpeggio. The implementation of guitar chor ...

is played on the

downbeat ''DownBeat'' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm that it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1 ...

(indicated by numbers), and then a

ghost note In music, notably in jazz, a ghost note (or a dead, muted, silenced or false note) is a musical note with a rhythmic value, but no discernible pitch when played. In musical notation, this is represented by an "X" for a note head instead of ...

is played on the upbeat (indicated by ampersands) by lifting the left hand off the

fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical inst ...

a few millimeters. However, most traditional ska is focused on the upbeat; playing on the downbeat is more closely associated with reggae, where the ska strokes are played much more slowly as opposed to ska. Double-time: , , :1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & :, , Common-time: , , :1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 :, ,

Half-time In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...

: , , :1234123412341234:, ,

Sources

External links

Basic Ska Strokes
{{Ska Guitar performance techniques Ska Reggae