What instruments were used in blues music by the African-Americans slaves?
Early Afro-American music had no instruments, but was the harmonised voices of the slaves in the fields. These ‘field hollers’ soon became the basis of blues music. When military bands in the USA were dismantled after the Civil War, there were lots of cheap musical instruments on the market, so some of the richer freed slaves were able to buy and teach themselves instruments. Those less well off often made diddley bows, single string fretless instruments made out of whatever you can find and played like a slide guitar. When guitars reached the black community in the late 1880s, they began putting their musical techniques from African music, marching band music (more noticeable in jazz and ragtime) and what they developed from the diddley bow. The guitar became a staple in blues music, and soon this fusion of African and American traditions became the voice of the black community.
