"Danny Schorr" <.@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:4avp54p17a0va9ji6ei4p790htvg003sna@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>"BestStudentViolins.com" <SunMusicStrings@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>news:ac92f971-6a70-43da-bc62-9eb7b7b4bb61@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>>I have an online friend, a working jazz pianist, who wrote me the
>>> following:
>>>
>>> This blues scale is entirely inaccurate because there's really no such
>>> thing as a blues scale. At best, certain cheap book authors have
>>> touted the minor pentatonic as a blues scale, possibly adding the
>>> diminished fifth or augmented fourth. But, actual blues music rarely
>>> uses this combination of notes in a recognizably scalar fa****on.
>
> Bull****.
>>This is essentially true, as I mentioned in different words in my
earlier
>>post. The "blues scale" is a modern construct. (I'd be interested to
>>know how modern. It's possible it was never mentioned before the
1980s,
>>but if there is earlier do***entation, I'd definitely be interested in
>>it.)
>
> You must be either kidding, or not looking hard enough.
Or expressing myself poorly.
>>It does provide a simple way of sounding "bluesy", but yes "actual blues
>>music" does not restrict itself to this palette of 6 notes.
>
> No music really restricts itself to *any* palette of notes, if you take
> expressiveness into consideration.
Agreed.
I think the root of our disagreement lies here: I am happy that the notes
1
b3 4 b5 5 b7 are indeed prominent in blues playing, but I don't hear the
other notes which are used as particularly subsidiary to these (or as
being
extra to any equivalent of a tonal centre). For example, if a 2 or a 6
turns up, it isn't really possible (I would argue) to hear it as a
chromatic
modification of a note which lies on the scale. And therefore it calls
into question exactly what you mean by "a blues scale". Even worse is
the
concept of "*the* blues scale" as it is hardly possible to identify only
one.
And if you take the most bog-standard blues progression
I I I I7 IV7 IV7 I I V7 IV7 I I
there are notes in the harmonies which just don't occur in the "blues
scale". And for some blues, this blues scale might fit, and for others
it
sounds just wrong. So it is not really possible to argue that it is any
form of basis for the blues.
> Albert, BB, Freddie, Robert Johnson, Jimi, Jimmy (Page), Dylan, Muddy,
> Duane (Allman), Buddy (Guy), Lennon/McCartney- when they did a blues
> tune,
> Clapton, John Lee Hooker, Earl Hooker - the road goes on forever.
> When the masters play the blues, they use this scale as a basis.
Again I would argue (in common possibly with Mr Violin's pianist friend)
that (especially earlier) blues singers didn't "use this scale as a basis"
but rather played blues the way they felt it and the notes of this scale
were prominent in their output. In any event, the flattened 7th and 3rd
were originally sung as flattened by rather less than a semitone. I
don't
really hear this scale when I listen to Bessie Smith or Jelly Roll Morton
(for example).
> There may be chromatic alterations, sure - usually the m3-M3
> interpolation, and ^5-^-6 ^8 ( relative major/minor juxtapositioning)
but
> this IS what it is - the blues scale is REAL - and REALLY used IN
> PRACTICE.
I am aware that it is really used in practice these days, but would argue
that if you start fom this set of 6 notes and work out from there, then
your
playing is going to be rather derivative, until you free yourself from it.
I am not criticising - I use it myself as a shortcut to approaching
various
solos (but not every blues solo) - but I am conscious of the need to
play
what I feel, and my occasional better efforts, at least, go way beyond it.
As I say, I am not sure when someone first wrote down these 6 notes and
called it a "blues scale". I suspect it is rather recent. I'd be
interested in any do***entation.
Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/sup****t see
http://www.mozart.co.uk/mozartists/mailinglist.htm
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