TUNING digest 767

John from UK said :
>>I read this message many times, and it just does not make sense to me.

>I would like to organize a GT for the North England region. I live in
Ooops, that's New England (North eastern USA)

>Quebec, I think the best place to meet would be Albany, NY. Anyway, all
>those interested should send me a email, stating where you live and your
>disponibilities for July-August 96. I will try to triangulate the* best
>place for all of us. It will be up the person living closest to this meeting
>point to find us a place to meet (a restaurant, whatever).


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An erudite Ohio bassist, student of La Monte Young, once cleared up the
difference between blues and jazz. Jazz involves the bending of notes
from agreed upon positions (you know, the 12-ET grid).

Blues, however, involves organic microtones - or "blue" notes - which
have their own distinct character and role in the blues scale (perhaps
better described as a mode). The blue notes can also be bent for
expressive reasons, but they are centered differently in the mind.

Johnny Reinhard
American Festival of Microtonal Music
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
(212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495
reinhard@styx.ios.com


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> as soon as you do this, all
> the rules change. For example, Albert King was a master at moving
> around in his bends from the flat 3rd of a scale up to the Ma.3rd;
> from a 4th to a 5th; and from a b7th to the root.

Regarding a flat-7 UP to 1, if I read you right, that would indeed be a
change of the classic rules. I presume you're describing what could well be a
rendition of a 7:4 in a 4:5:6:7 going up to 2:1? What sort of harmonic
progression would such a melodic movement be part of?

Sounds like that one would be fun to play with.


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Paul's notes on blues got me inspired to say a few things about it as
well...here goes:

1. The traditional blues scale, most agree, is 6 notes (in C): C, Eb, F,
F# (Gb), G, Bb, C(1,b3,4,#4 (b5),5,b7,1). This is unlike anything in
traditional Western theory, and to make it even weirder, this scale with
a b3 and a b5 is often applied to Dominant 7th chords with a MA3 and a MA
5. This creates a tension which is an integral part of the very root of
blues. This tension is dealt with by bending notes: the 4th (I'm using
the Major scale as a reference) is bent up to the 5th, passing through
the b5th on the way; the Dom 7th is bent to the Root; the b 3rd is bent
to the Maj 3rd, which means that it can be played very pure if so
desired. But, there's more; the Maj 6th is bent to the Dom 7th, which
also means a very pure b7th can be played; the Maj 2nd is often bent to
the Maj 3rd as well, passing through the b 3rd on it's way. And, most
players have their own ways of doing all these bends, with their own
variations. In other words, every blues player is a composer/arranger
automatically, again unlike the current state of Western classical
tradition (but, early European musicians were composers/arrangers too).
No one can say just when to play a given bend; that's always improvised.
It's more like probabilities of where notes will appear, which links
blues deeply to Indian and Middle Eastern music, as well as quantum
physics.

2. What further deepens the blues is something my teacher, master jazz
man George Keith, once said: "blues is a feeling, and a set of chord
changes." This is quite true; this means that we can have a wide range of
blues styles, from the 1 chord vamps of John Lee Hooker to the complex
bop of Charlie Parker, with many stops in between, and they're ALL valid
and real. This also means that the traditional blues scale is greatly
expanded to include advanced "jazz" chord substitutions...and it works.
Even BB King said that Parker was just as funky to him as Muddy. So, when
we say blues, it is actually much deeper and broader than most people
realize.

3. I can see why trying to write a book about Indian music is so
difficult...I have been playing blues for 30 years, in a variety of
styles, and I'm not sure if I could put on paper just what's going on,
because it varies so much from region to region, performer to performer.
I can SHOW you blues, but I'm not sure I could pin each note exactly down
to a certain ratio...it could be slightly different, depending on the
feeling of the moment. Again, this intonational flexibility is very
similar to Eastern/Asian forms of music, much more than European based
music. Even the time and number of measures per cycle is flexible;
Lightnin Hopkins was well known for stretching the traditional 12 bar
structure, which made it mighty hard for folks to play with him. He said,
"Lightnin change when Lightnin WANTS to change." So, how do you put that
in a book, on paper? You don't; you must somehow live the lifestyle of
the music.

The depth and complexity of the blues has greatly influenced much of 20th
century music. It fed the rock revolutions of the 1950's and '60's, and
is a common thread between rock, bluegrass, jazz, country, rockabilly,
folk, funk, and others. It is a great form of expression, and is quite
applicable to musics of the future as well. For example, 19 equal expands
very creatively and well on the 12 tone system of blues, and moves it
forward for the 1st time since Hendrix took Howlin' Wolf into the space
age.

And yet, after all these years of playing it, I don't think I really
know the exact origin of the blues scale. Is it African (very likely)? As
I said, it is very Middle Eastern in many ways...does anyone out there
know for sure? I would appreciate any info on this
subject...thanks...Hstick


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> Hstick wrote:
> after all these years of playing it, I don't think I really
> know the exact origin of the blues scale. Is it African (very likely)? As
> I said, it is very Middle Eastern in many ways...does anyone out there
> know for sure?

I don't know for sure either, but back when I took ethnomusicology
there was one particularly haunting African (Bambara) flute song that
used a pentatonic scale containing a neutral third, augmented fourth
and neutral seventh that sounded distinctly "bluesy" to me. When I
later tried to recreate the tuning from memory, this came close to
capturing the remembered effect:

1/1 11/9 11/8 3/2 11/6 2/1

To get this sound out of a Western instrument, an early African
American would have had to approximate the elevenal ratios by bending
adjacent notes of the Western scale: major-minor third for the 11/9,
fourth-tritone for the 11/8 and major-minor seventh for the 11/6
(blues pianists get the same effect by hitting both notes at once).
These are the three "blue note" areas whose pitch fluctuates and bends
in blues performance, and so could result from the effort to reconcile
an African and Western tuning.

The neutral thirds would also explain the resemblance to Middle
Eastern music. P.S. As Kathleen Schlesinger notes in _The Greek
Aulos_, primitive flutes drilled simply with equally-spaced finger
holes tend to produce undertonal scales, and it's been my experience
that such flutes often contain a neutral third -- possibly from the
undertonal sequence

11/10 11/9 11/8 11/7 11/6 11/5

which might be closer to what that Bambara flute was actually up to.

Anyway, this is just one speculation -- there are many theories about
the origin of the blues scale and we'll probably never know for sure.

-- Ken Wauchope


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