# Classical music that used a blues shuffle beat

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-music-that-used-a-blues-shuffle-beat/1031802>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** music\
**Created:** [July 20, 2026, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-music-that-used-a-blues-shuffle-beat/1031802 "2026-07-20T11:05:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-music-that-used-a-blues-shuffle-beat/1031802/21 "2026-07-22T12:00:43Z")

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This is a really excellent point, and shows the blinders that I have about music throughout history.

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**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-music-that-used-a-blues-shuffle-beat/1031802/22 "2026-07-22T13:33:45Z")

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🙂

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**Author:** ![Disinfectus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/disinfectus/32/11085_2.png) [@Disinfectus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disinfectus)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2026, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-music-that-used-a-blues-shuffle-beat/1031802/23 "2026-07-23T16:53:41Z")

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> [@JKellyMap](#):
>
> I’ll find the recording of a Tikar woman singing as she uses a grinding stone to play a shuffle beat. It was recorded circa 1950, I think, but surely this sort of thing was being played for centuries.

According to your link, it was recorded in 1964. I suppose there is a small chance that swing music could have influenced it via a radio playing western music. Swing music was around for decades before that recording took place. Still, it is far more likely that it was a rhythm passed down through generations. And it is absolutely a shuffle. Really interesting link!

Edited to add: According to Wikipedia, “During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Tikar people suffered devastating losses due to the Atlantic slave trade.” So it is possible that rhythms like this were the early roots of what would become the blues.

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**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-music-that-used-a-blues-shuffle-beat/1031802/24 "2026-07-24T10:32:56Z")

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Yes. I recommend Kubik’s book. This Google summary is accurate:

> Africa and the Blues by Gerhard Kubik is a seminal ethnomusicological work that traces the African origins of the American blues,.. Published in 1999, the book draws on Kubik’s 40 years of fieldwork across Africa [the Sahel region, mainly] and the Americas, presenting musical notations, photographs, and a new theory on blue notes to demonstrate how African musical traditions were carried to the Americas and evolved into the blues.

To be sure, the influences eventually went both ways — see, e.g., the Putumayo compilation CD _Mali to Memphis_.

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