"Danny Schorr" <.@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:df0t54pnha4191fah30d13opjnejjt2srf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Crossroads. I know you've heard it a million times. EC starts out in the
> major pentatonic - A,B,C#,E,F# - for his first few phrases. then he
ramps
> it up by switching to the true A minor pentatonic - A,C,D,E,G for the
> follw-through on his first solo. The second solo is all A blues scale -
> A,C,D,E,G.
Wait, you just called A pentatonic and A blues scale the same thing.
I think the "white man's blues scale" was meant to point out a subtle
distinction here - though we know Clapton is well schooled the 60s rockers
who had some blues influence also - especially in Britain - seem to have
just as much influences from Isles music, Amercian Country music (with
blues
influences too) and even Hymns/Anthems. They seem to have "pentatonicized"
the blues scales such that C Eb F Gb G Bb was the "go to" "blues scale"
for
them and for the people who later analyzed their works. Countless
guitarists
are taught daily that "if you learn the pentatonic you can play anything"
-
and as a result, we end up with a lot of guitarists playing "just"
pentatonic minor over progressions - look at the "riff" bands of the 70s
like Skynyrd - but even the Page licks in Zep.
I think the "white man's blues scale" comment is meant to be understood as
"this is not true blues, but these Elngish bloke's interpretation of it".
That's not to denegrate what Clapton and company did (obviously they
helped
Americans rediscover many of our forgotten blues artists) but I think we
can
say that they were "influenced", not necessarily trying to promote a
"historically accurate" performance practice.
C D E G A to me is Pentatonic Major
C Eb F G Bb is Pentatonic Minor
C Eb F Gb G Bb is a "blues influenced Pentatonic Minor", or at best, a
"Pentatonic-based Blues Scale" (Dave I think used Hexatonic but Hexatonic
frequently refers to C D E F G A C - pentatonic with added 4).
In a sense, we could call it a "blues scale for dummies" - at least in the
way it's taught to and approached by many guitarists.
And again, that's not to say that Major, Minor, Pentatonic Major,
Pentatonic
Minor, or the Pentatonic-based Blues Scale aren't used in blues music,
they
certainly are.
But I think you agree - if not on 9/2 then at least on the inclusion of 6
that ANY thing we're going to call a blues scale should at least include
6.
C (D) Eb E F Gb G A Bb.
If you take out the 6, and the b3-3 pair, you really don't have a blues
scale anymore, simply a "blues-inflected" scale.
You might not have 6 in a phrase, but that doesn't mean it's not in the
scale. We don't say the scale to "Ode to Joy" is C D E F G just because it
never touches A or B for a couple of phrases!
> I have a hard time conceptualizing this as anything but a change of
scale.
> If you want to view it as all one big gamut of notes, fine, but the
actual
> playing clearly shows the artist switching between the use of two
scales.
Agreed - but this is a special case - this is not "blues" - it's Eric
Clapton's interpretation. I think you'll agree that the Robert Johnson
version is substantially different.
After all, really, we're all playing the entire chromatic collective -
it's
just a matter of what notes we're focusing on. Major scales focus on 0 2 4
5
7 9 11 with other notes thrown in for flavor or functional reasons. Blues
scales tend to focus on 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10. Major melodies do not need to
include all 7 tones, and blues melodies do not need to include all 9
tones.
And in modern contexts we are free to include whole tone scales,
diminished
scales, and pentatonic scales. But I don't think it's fair to call a
pentatonic with an added note a "blues" scale any more than calling a
Major
scale with an occaisional #4 as some kind of Lydian/Ionian hybrid (though
I'm sure some jazz theorists try).
[snip]
>
> As far as I can tell, yes.Though I have not done a controlled study of
> the
> problem, of course :-)
I think we could probably find plenty of blues that have at least 2, if
not
9. As Tom pointed out, b3-2-1 is a common melodic cadence and the harmony
being V makes the 2 the "im****tant" note and the b3 more decorative in a
sense.
hold on... I'm looking at west End Blues from King Oliver, 1928 - In Eb -
we
want an F in the melody (it's a vocal) - bar 9, bar 16 (as a b3-2-1
cadence) - same thing happens in 27 and 28 - 3-2-1-b7 - b3-2-1. The final
melodic cadence is b3-3-5-2-1
>
> hey - two music theorists agree on something. Alert the media!
>
Well, I think we also need to separate our guitarist selves from our blues
selves, our theoretician selves and classical selves. Yes, Clapton is
using
two different Pentatonics in a blues-rock (which is what the genre is
called
after all) context. In other tunes (Hideaway) he uses a "more strict"
blues-based approach like the originator (Freddie King in this case IIRC).
Yes, guitarists are frequently taught that a minor pentatonic with an
added
b5 is "the" Blues Scale - but we have to remember it's partly for
pedagogical simplicity, and partly to help us better tackle the
guitar-oriented rock that most of us desired to play.
But historically speaking, if we are to "narrow down" a set of notes that
are "most im****tant" in blues music, we will likely find a pattern more
closely resembling C D Eb E F Gb G A Bb with variables. And teaching that
to
a student - use b3 over the IV chord but 3 over the I chord is bound to
cause too much confusion, from which we can't get no relief.
Steve
|
