Re: Blues scale: is this accurate?

"Steve Latham" <llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:4Bj7k.165$cv5.10@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> And he's right.
>... The "most common" version of a Blues Scale is 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7.
>...
> But most blues uses a scale more like:
>
> 1 2 b3 3 4 b5 5 6 b7
> ...

An illustration of my problem with elevating the hexatonic blues scale too

much:

A lot of early blues would finish a chorus with the sequence of notes

b3 2 1

You can argue it is (by now) a cliché, but you can't argue it away.    You

can possibly argue in some cases that the 2 is a passing note, but
"scales" 
contain passing notes - that's their point.   Arguing too strictly in
favour 
of the hexatonic blues scale is like arguing that it cannot happen.

You can modify it to

b3 1 1

(which is perhaps to argue in favour of the 2 being a passing note) but I 
find it difficult to believe that anyone who was capable of the latter 
wasn't also occasionally capable of the former.

Dave
-- 
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
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