How would you musically identify blues and/or country music?

Here’s a start (just a start).

The blues chord progression would the 12 bar blues. A bar (in this case) is four notes. Think of tapping your foot with music, 1 – 2 – 3 – 4. That is one bar.

1)
Watch the video linked below from 3:06.

2)
Count along with the music
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
etc

3)
Notice the guy plays 12 bars.
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4
1 – 2 – 3 – 4

Guitar Lesson: How To Play Old School 12 Bar Blues EASY Prt 2 Beginners Moving Chords Up The Neck

Here’s an explanation of Blues Chords

Here’s an explanation for Country

Here’s an explanation for Bluegrass finger picking

Here’s anexplanation of Rock and Roll progressions

Country is almost always played in a major key, and nearly always G.
The lyric pattern is invariably Verse, chorus, Verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, end song. Very simple music, very predictable, very comfortable for those who are fans.

Hubby agrees with Jay’s partial description of the Blues, but also states that it’s too broad of a question to be answered simply.

guitar/banjo noise and redneck accent

^ It can’t all be Rammstein.

Rammstein sucks. The only good thing they did was that airshow crash in 1988.

I’ve played a lot of blues, and I’ve played a lot of country, as well as some rock & roll, folk, “roots”, and a few other genres and sub-genres. There is a lot of cross-over. I don’t have the time right now to give my definitive answer, but I’ll be back soon to do so.

Structurally Blues and Country are near identical. For the most part, both employ 3 chord progressions but the Blues will utilize minor chords to emphasize the suffering a true Blues artists has had to live or endure that gives them currency to “play the blues”. Yet Country shares the same been hammered upon and risen above all sorts of hard times as the blues artists but is written around mostly major chord progressions. Country songs are mostly written about broken hearts and as an escape from the hard times they endure…blues is all about hard times they know they will never escape.

@Cruiser But you’re talking more about content which I know; I want to know what distinguishes each musically.

It is structural. The classic blues song has been standardized over the last 90 years or so, on a 12 or 24 bar structure (sometimes referred to as A – A – B). Typically, the first line of the lyrics is sung twice, followed by the next line. It is usually played in a major key, with what’s referred to as a I – IV – V progression, although some artists are more progressive, using minor chords, as well as substitute and leading chords.

Country (also known as Country-Western) is more likely to be constructed in a 16 or 32 bar pattern. without the repeated first line.

There has always been a lot of crossover influence between the two genres, as far back as Jimmie Rodgers and his Blue Yodel #1

@janbb In my answer I did offer that blues employs minor scales and chording where Country typically is written around major scales. Stylistically blues speaks to keeping your head above water despite everything and anything that is weighing you down. To me Country is a very similar form of folk music that gives voice to the triumph of man in the face of adversity that is heard in blues music except they yell “Yee HAW” somewhere in the song in country music.

Again, the OP concerns structure, not content.

Blues might have what might be considered a minor scale feel, but the majority of blues songs that I have played and/or heard are in a major key. What makes the blues so unique is that the blues scale can be described as a minor scale, but it is technically considered a major chord, with a flat (or minor) third and seventh played against a major chord. The resulting discord approximates the “blue” note, which is actually somewhere in between. this is also achieved when the note is “bent” from the minor chord to somewhere between the minor note and the major note.

Musicologically, both genres have related but separate folk roots. Some think the blues can be traced back to work songs and field “hollers” sung by slaves, including some scales and notations that are actually native to Africa. That is why the “blue” note is so difficult to approximate using western instruments.

Country music, by contrast, has a strong tradition, leading back to such things as jigs and reels brought to the southeastern part of the US by Irish, Scottish and Scotch-Irish immigrants. It has a more “traditional” feel, by western music standards.

I generally musically identify Blues as the one of the progenitors of jazz.

I generally musically identify Country and Western as fit for the nearest corner trash barrel here in NY and as a perversion of Appalachian folk tradition music.