Blue notes

Hey Jon...this is a very interesting subject, and Carl is right, nobody really knows exactly just what/where those blue notes reside. And, one of the reasons is that, for the most part, they really aren't in the same place every time...they are very flexible, and that's because blues is done totally from a feeling state...so, depending on a player's mood at the moment, the blue notes may wind up in various positions. Actually, I was just working on this yesterday with a student...and to my way of thinking, the space between two notes is vast, and you can do a lot with bending/sliding. And often, a player/singer will hit a note a bit flat to the fretted note, and this is where the deep tension and feeling of the blues resides.
What's really fascinating is how the blues scale (C Eb F Gb G Bb) pits a minor third and flat 5 against a dominant 7th chord, which has a natural 3rd and 5th...and because of the great rock and blues guitarists (and others of course) that we've all heard many times, we're used to this sound. But, in terms of traditional European based "classical" music, it's a really whacked concept...and, if you examine traditional European based music, you won't find the blues/minor pentatonic type sound anywhere. It's definitely African based, with a strong dose of Arabic influence, especially in the vocals.
If you asked me to show you, on guitar, some bends, I can put a note exactly where I want it every time...but, I don't know, intellectually, the ratios I'm hitting...and, I don't care much, either...it's the doing of it that's important. I'm reading a very interesting book on blues, by Gerhard Kubik, "Africa and the Blues," which not only delves into the African (and Arabic) roots of blues, but has a lot of info on how African musicians perceive pitch, and it's way different from European based music.
In all the years (35) that I've been playing blues, and after reading hundreds of interviews with manymany blues musicians, I've yet to see one of them talk about pitch, or where they put notes, in ratio terms. Oops, one exception was Mike Bloomfield, who, although he didn't mention ratios, did talk about string bending (referring to Ravi Shankar and Hendrix), and how there were numerous microtones between the frets, and a good player could hit those teensy notes...it was many years ago that I read this, but Bloomfield was super hip, and could talk in great depth about complex subjects, I learned a lot from him as a kid getting started.
Perhaps the greatest string benders on guitar were Albert King and Roy Buchanan...get Albert's "Live at the Fillmore," and Roy's 1st CD for some hair raising string bending. It's a great topic, glad you brought it up...HHH
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