On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:07:51 +0100, "David Webber"
<dave@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>"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.
that's why I conceptualize it as the relative major pentatonic juxtaposed
with the "true" "minor" (those quotes are my caveats) blues scale. A truly
skilled blues guitarist knows how to make the transition between the two.
>
>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.
I don't know. whatever music I may elsewhere play in the course of mylife,
I consider myself a bluesman first and formost, and shall always be so
IMO.
Enlighten me with some examples where thye blues scale "doesn't fit",
with
the understanding that I am not interested in any "flaming" , just wanting
to know better where you are coming from.
>
>> 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).
I am not familiar with either Bessie's or Jelly Roll's output, actually.
I AM familiar with the early blues guitarists from, say, the late '20s -
early '30s upward, and their legacy regarding the more modern players
influenced by them, and I hear this scale as the basis of their
expression.
Bessie and Jelly Roll were JAZZ, right? Not Blues.
So I would reckon that there is a "something other" that departs from
straight blues.
If you say those two flattened ^3 and ^7 by less than a semitone, I have
no
choice but to take you at your word. I am not on a "first name basis" with
that music.
But It brings to mind, for me Robert Johnson, who altered all the degrees
he sang as a means of expression. there's a website somewhere which
actually shows in cents how much he deviated from the norm,expressively.
The starting point, though, was those six notes in contention.
>
>> 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,
deriviative of what? (just curious)
> 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.
Again - the usuage precedes do***entation. You can bet your bottom dollar
that Muddy Waters used these notes exclusively in the '50's, at least -
the
people who noted it and cataloged it came after the fact.
Danny
>
>Dave
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