Poetic Forms and Rhythmic Types

Abstract

Chapter 3 examines the poetic forms and rhythmic types of the “Sweet Thing” scheme in early blues, country, and gospel music. Approaching the scheme through its rhythmic profile and poetic form yields an accurate description of its consistent musical characteristics while simultaneously allowing enough flexibility to accommodate its substantial variation, especially with respect to its diverse harmonic progressions and melodic designs. Through a comparison of the rhythmic types identified in this chapter with the rhythmic characteristics of the earlier English, Scottish, Irish, and American sources, it becomes more apparent which ancient songs are the main sources for which modern variants of the scheme: “Captain Kidd” and “The Frog’s Courtship” each left their distinctive rhythmic fingerprint on the multitude of songs they each spawned, and this mark is still evident in many twentieth-century realizations of the “Sweet Thing” scheme.