Danny wrote:
>Dude, you need to cut that racist bull**** right now, quick. It's just
this
>sort of lowbrow mentality that was leveled against a monster musician
named
>Dave Brubeck which tried to complete disallow the public from truly
>appeciating the man's superior musicality.
> Ditto Bill Evans, although thankfully, time has rendered opinions such
as
>yours to be complete nonsense.
That poster was quoting what his college improvisation teacher told him.
So, there's no need to attack him as a racist. While I can see how the
"white man's blues scale" quip might ruffle some feathers, I understand
its intent. Generally speaking, blues musicians think melodically rather
than in terms of pitch cl*****, which is why endless noodling on the
blues scale can sound inauthentic. Rather than play random combinations
of pentatonic scales, blues musicians tend to decide what to bend,
sharpen or flatten based on melodic and even emotional concerns. It has
nothing to do with race as such, although there was a historical time
during which blacks were unfortunately much closer to near constant
blues than they should have been.
>The question of whether a white man can play
>the blues has no place in our small segment of society known as
>rec.music.theory.
>I WOULD HOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No one thus far has broached that question. In fact, I'd say that most
black musicians today have worked especially hard to erase the blues
pathos from their collective memory, which, IMO, has stripped black
culture of one of its most enduring legacies.
That said, any music can be reduced to a series of moves and an
underlying logic behind decisions regarding which moves to make at which
times. The blues scale as a construct is a misapplication of the
principle of logical derivation. True, blues musicians often used
pentatonic scales. In that sense, the blues scale is a code to making
some right moves in the blues. However, the aesthetic choices blues
musicians make regarding when and how to use those pitches is most of
what gives the blues its characteristic sound. Plenty of other musics
around the world use pentatonic scales, yet they don't sound like blues.
So, if the blues scale were truly unique to the blues, playing it up and
down should theoretically make music sound bluesy, which it definitely
does not.
Orlando
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