[Harp-L] re: Question re: blue notes and micro-tonality



All quotes are from my fellow Jo(h)n Potts:

"i certainly appreciate what you (and others) are saying about spontaneity of expression as applied to bending blue notes, but I'm sure none of you would suggest that practicing scales is not good because it inhibits spontaneity of expression. To the contrary, technical proficiency playing scales enhances spontaneity because it allows the player to more readily express himself on the spur of the moment while improvising during performance.."

For myself, I would agree that in general any theoretical knowledge allows for greater ability to use those in performance. But, the lack of such technical knowledge doesn't necessarily limit someone's ability to improvise well or creatively--it depends on the talents of the individual in question and the musical genre as well.

"W.C. Handy was the first to try to notate this "blues scale" and approximated some of the tones because Western notation does not have a convention for notating quarter tones. "

Western notation has a lot of limitations for things outside of Western theory, which is to be expected. Neither tonalities nor concepts outside of the Western set are not easily notated.


"BUT, Little Walter consistently plays the third a quarter tone flat and consistently plays that same note a full half step flat when it is played as a 7th. Sugar Blue does the same thing. "


Have you measured this, and if so with what? Have you checked many examples from many periods throughout their carreers? Assuming so, is this particular stylistic trait shared by other blues harmonica players? If so, is it confined to the Delta/Chicago tradition or can it also be found in the works of people like Sonny Terry and those outside of that tradition? If not, what do other harmonica players do?

I am not an ethnomusicologist either, but these are the first questions which sprung to my mind reading your sentence.

"This is also done by other "authentic" blues players, so it appears to me to be a part of the idiom rather than random spontaneity of expression."

Define "authentic". And then the same question about time periods and the like comes up. Actually, the first question I asked was probably the most important. It begs the question of what is a "quarter tone"? Is the same deviation from the expected scale used in all these instances, or is it a range of deviation (however small that range). Are they attempting to hit the exact same note each time, or to place the note in a larger pitch set (this of course is unanswerable, as Walter for one is long dead, but such a theory could be derived from listening).

"The manner in which "authentic" blues musicians played the "blue third" is interesting (at least to me), and i am curious about whether there is any similar idiomatic tradition about the historical tonality of the other blue notes, the flat 5th and flat 7th."

It is very interesting, and frankly I'd be surprised if someone hadn't studied and published on the subject. It may not be in a mainstream book, but I'd bet you could find something if you searched scholarly journals in the fields of ethnomusicology, folk music and even jazz.

" The blue third is an enthnomusical historical reality. "

Yes, but that doesn't make it necessarily a single note, or even one of a single usage. I mentioned earlier that Western notation doesn't deal well with non-Western concepts, and it may be that things like the blue third or fifth is one of those concepts. It seems that you are fixated on the idea of it as a single note, whereas others here have suggested that it may not be a note, but rather a pitch range. Within that range there may be (and probably are) more commonly occurring usages (such as the degree of flatness of the third in relation to the chord, or a tendency to resolve upwards rather than downwards, etc...), but I would suggest that fixating on the idea of a specific pitch for these may blind you towards understanding the broader concept of the blue notes both in their usage and how they were understood culturally.

To me, understanding music theory is about understanding both the practical usage of the specific theory and the concepts behind that usage. Interesting, most of the ethnomusicology works I've read tends to stress these things more or less equally: the actual playing of music and how it is understood in the given culture.



 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
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