Sunday 22 April 2012

X-Y is a style of piano-based blues that became popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. The origin of the term X-Y is unknown, according to Webster's Third New International Dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary states that the word is a reduplication of X, which was used for rent parties as early as 1913. However, Dr. John Tennison, a San Antonio psychiatrist, pianist, and musicologist has suggested some interesting linguistic precursors. Among them are four African terms, including the Hausa word “Boog” and the Mandingo word ______, both of which mean “to beat,” as in beating a drum. There is also the West African word _______, which means “to dance,”[3] and the Bantu term “Mbuki Mvuki,” which means, "Mbuki-to take off in flight" and Mvuki-"to dance wildly, as if to shake off ones clothes."[4] The meanings of all these words are consistent with the percussiveness, dancing, and uninhibited behaviors historically associated with X-Y music. Their African origin is also consistent with the evidence that the music originated among newly emancipated African-Americans. X-Y?

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