blues intervals

Blues has been popping up on the list lately, and I have a comment or
two. First, after playing this style for over 30 years, I've come to
believe that the so called "blue third" (or b5 or whatever note we are
referring to) actually does not have one fixed position...the placement
of the note is totally intuitive, and is done according to one's feeling
at the time. When teaching, I can show my students how to do it, but I
cannot intellectually tell them. It is a fluid situation, and is one of
the things that gives blues it's charm and mystery...it's very difficult
to learn to negotiate those bends in a truly convincing way.( Also, no
offense meant, it's only folks who don't play the style that use terms
such as "blue third;" I have never heard a practitioner of the blues use
that term...we just do it.) I have the feeling that in Indian and
Turkish music, for example, many notes have an "area" where they exist,
and the 3rd or 2nd or whatever changes according to what is being
expressed. Can Akkoc is doing research on this phenomenon in Turkish
music...maybe he would care to talk a bit about his research to date.
I'm always happy to see blues discussed...it's one of the great musical
forms...if you want to hear killer string bending, check out "Going Down
Slow" by Howlin Wolf...Hubert Sumlin does some truly astounding playing.
Anything by Albert King is superb as well, and Roy Buchanan was another
monster...check out "Pete's Blues" from his first album...Hstick PS of
course, there's manymany others as well...

At 08:01 AM 3/2/00 -0700, you wrote:
>From: Neil Haverstick <STICK@USWEST.NET>
>
> Blues has been popping up on the list lately, and I have a comment or
>two. First, after playing this style for over 30 years, I've come to
>believe that the so called "blue third" (or b5 or whatever note we are
>referring to) actually does not have one fixed position...the placement
>of the note is totally intuitive, and is done according to one's feeling
>at the time. When teaching, I can show my students how to do it, but I
>cannot intellectually tell them. It is a fluid situation, and is one of
>the things that gives blues it's charm and mystery...it's very difficult
>to learn to negotiate those bends in a truly convincing way.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is precisely the phenomenon that prompted me into research on the
sound structures of Turkish music. My gut feeling is 'the placement of the
note' at any step is a non-deterministic function of the progression of
pitches that precede the said 'note'. That is, the melody line has a 'fuzzy
memory' that calls for variations in the actual pitches used, requiring a
fluid underlying scale as a whole. When put in these terms, I am inclined
to think there must be a mathematical pattern, waiting to be captured, that
will accomodate such fuzzy scales together with the memory mechanism
driving the deviations from a set of 'anchor' sounds. Such a mathematic
should accomodate the performer's 'feeling at the time' by determining the
proper pitch bends at every instant as the musical journey evolves in the
spiritual universe of the musician.

.
Dr. Can Akkoc
Alabama School of Mathematics and Science
1255 Dauphin Street
Mobile, AL 36604
USA

Phone: (334) 441-2126
Fax: (334) 441-3297

Jerry claimed that the blue third "is" 7/6, but in actual blues music you'll
find not only the 7/6 but also (more often) neutral thirds (between 6/5 and
5/4). Same goes for sevenths. I agree that there is great fluidity in the
intonation of these intervals but these seem to me to be two completely
different categories of "blue thirds".

Neil Haverstick posted:
>
> Blues has been popping up on the list lately, and I have a comment or
> two. First, after playing this style for over 30 years, I've come to
> believe that the so called "blue third" (or b5 or whatever note we are
> referring to) actually does not have one fixed position...the placement
> of the note is totally intuitive, and is done according to one's feeling
> at the time.

Your take on this subject is very interesting to me, Neil. In the few months
I've been "hanging around" here, I have a renewed respect for intuitive
and/or "expressive" tuning. What is interesting is that this sort of
"freedom" appears to be used in most musical styles, including traditional
classical music. Your feeling about the flexible "blue third" may in fact be
reflected in classical string player's tuning of an "urgent" leading tone.

My experience with the "blue third" as both performer and theorist is that
it does seem to approximate the 6:7 harmonic ratio. Of course, this interval
only appears in the blues scale "naturally" between scales steps 5 and b7
over tonic; however, it seems to me quite obvious that blues players/singers
hear something in the vicinity of this same 6:7 ratio in the tonic to b3
position.

I find it interesting that you evidently assumed that the reference to "blue
third" has to do with b5. I have toyed with the idea that the b5 seems to
connect expressively to something lower than itself--possibly directly to
the "blue third" on scale step b3 as an _additional_ 6:7 third. It seems
evident (from a stylistic standpoint) that "flat five" does not relate
upward to scalestep 5 (since it almost never goes there). To me, its best
connection to the blues scale, as a whole, is through its relation to b3.

> When teaching, I can show my students how to do it, but I
> cannot intellectually tell them. It is a fluid situation, and is one of
> the things that gives blues it's charm and mystery...it's very difficult
> to learn to negotiate those bends in a truly convincing way.

It _is_ true, I believe, that _real music cannot be learned from a theory
book--be it classical, Indian, gypsy, blues or any other expressive style.
Nevertheless, there are generalities that can be abstracted that will help a
novice to get started. As maturity grows, the "rules" fade. And, as you
point out, it is possible to bypass generalities altogether by immediate
communication from teacher to student. But you will have to make room for
those of us who search for the generalities that will help those not
fortunate enough to have gifted performing teachers.

> ( Also, no
> offense meant, it's only folks who don't play the style that use terms
> such as "blue third;" I have never heard a practitioner of the blues use
> that term...we just do it.)

No offense taken, but some of us who use the term _do_ play/sing the style,
and do it very well. You may want to rethink your use of words such as
"only" in regard to those who use the term. Some of us who use the term in a
meaningful way also "just do it."

Jerry

To Neil Haverstick's post:
>>
>> Blues has been popping up on the list lately, and I have a comment or
>>two. First, after playing this style for over 30 years, I've come to
>>believe that the so called "blue third" (or b5 or whatever note we are
>>referring to) actually does not have one fixed position...the placement
>>of the note is totally intuitive, and is done according to one's feeling
>>at the time. When teaching, I can show my students how to do it, but I
>>cannot intellectually tell them. It is a fluid situation, and is one of
>>the things that gives blues it's charm and mystery...it's very difficult
>>to learn to negotiate those bends in a truly convincing way.

Dr. Can Akkoc added:
>
> This is precisely the phenomenon that prompted me into research on the
> sound structures of Turkish music. My gut feeling is 'the placement of the
> note' at any step is a non-deterministic function of the progression of
> pitches that precede the said 'note'. That is, the melody line has a 'fuzzy
> memory' that calls for variations in the actual pitches used, requiring a
> fluid underlying scale as a whole. When put in these terms, I am inclined
> to think there must be a mathematical pattern, waiting to be captured, that
> will accomodate such fuzzy scales together with the memory mechanism
> driving the deviations from a set of 'anchor' sounds. Such a mathematic
> should accomodate the performer's 'feeling at the time' by determining the
> proper pitch bends at every instant as the musical journey evolves in the
> spiritual universe of the musician.

Your post is very timely for me, Dr. Akkoc. I had said, in a recent book,
that it seemed logical to me that the expressive tuning of Middle Eastern
and Indian styles were, to a large extent, deviations from a norm. Since
these styles seem to have roots in basic acoustic simple ratios (the 2:3
"fifth" seems rather universal--except for Balinese type artificial
divisions of the octave), it seems appropriate to assume that simple
acoustical intervals were likely the _original "norms." Through the
centuries, the stylistic deviations themselves have likely become second
degree "norms" which provide the bases for further expressive deviation.

Does this in any way relate to your idea of "fuzzy memory"?

Needless to say, my reason for being here on the List also began with the
notion that "there must be a mathematical pattern, waiting to be captured,
that will accommodate" the phenomenon I have called the "high third." At
this point, I'm not nearly so confident that such an explanation is there
"waiting to be captured."

There are so many variables at work here--not the least of which are
personal taste, poor intonation, wild imagination, and who know's what
else--that I suspect that art will win out over science in both of these
regards. (However, check with me in the morning after I've had a good
night's sleep.)

Dr. Gerald R. Eskelin

Gerald!
This i think is a very dangerous assumption to make. There are those who see
it as not artifical at all!

Gerald Eskelin wrote

-except for Balinese type artificial

> divisions of the octave),

> -- Kraig Grady

North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
www.anaphoria.com