"Danny Schorr" <.@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:hu3q54diuloqr72mnieobe1lsfflepod7q@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>...
> 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 in doing so - you're going beyond the "blues scale" essentially as a
necessity, rather than an optional add-on extra.
> 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.
Well the last time I fell over it myself was a big band chart called
"Emancipation blues" - I think it was by Oliver Nelson. I had 36 bars
for
myself in amongst other soloists, and the blues scale felt all wrong in
rehearsal. A more standard harmonic approach based on I IV7 and V7
chords
workd much better. I'll try and think of a more accessible example.
> 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.
Bess Smith's soubriquet - not unearned - was "Empress of the Blues". She
was first and foremost a blues singer who sang with pianists, small
accompanying groups and jazz bands in the 1920s. If you're a "blues man"
you *really* need to listen to her.
Jelly Roll Morton claimed to be the originator of jazz - a claim which
most
people take with a large grain of salt, as he was prone to hyperbole :-)
In many ways he was the first intellectual of jazz, making clear
distinctions between jazz, blues and ragtime. An his 1926 jazz recordings
with the red hot peppers are magnificent. However he was playing piano
around the South as early as 1904, (well before "jazz") and in those days
it was blues and ragtime. He was not at all at home with the strict metre
of written ragtime, but he was very much at home with the blues, and
composed quite a number of very fine blues. Including of course "Jelly
Roll Blues" :-) I was reminded of him because a week or so ago BBC
Radio
4 put on a program about the making of his 1938 Library of Congress
Recordings, where he was interviewed for about 4 days about his early
career. He spent the entire interview playing the piano and talking over
it, and when asked played some of his earliest stuff. Spine tinglingly
poignant blues. The way he sang the blue notes has never been bettered.
:-) Again if you get any of Jelly Roll's piano solo stuff (as opposed
to
the band recordings with the Red Hot Peppers) you may discover some real
blues which you like! it certainly presses all the right buttons with me
-
even after I have been listening to it for decades :-)
> So I would reckon that there is a "something other" that departs from
> straight blues.
I don't think there ever was a "straight blues". I think anything
straight
is an after-the-fact ad-hoc extraction :-)
> 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.
They all did.
> 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)
Derivative of the blues as played by the early masters.
>> 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
It's a while since I listened to him, probably time I did again, but I'd
be
really quite surprised if he used those 6 notes exclusively in ny piece.
I
reember him as being more imaginitive than that.
> - the
> people who noted it and cataloged it came after the fact.
I'm sure that's true, but I'm equally sure that it is only an
approximation
to the music it was taken from. Nevertheless one which makes getting
into
blues a lot easier when one is starting out.
Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/sup****t see
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