re:Reading Music (much too long)

[Matt Gitchell <gi6075ma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 1 Jun 1995, conrad (c.) grant wrote:

> In message "Reading Music (much too long)", you write:
> [snippage]
> > Pentatonic blues
> > scales changed things. I find it's very hard to sound bad with
> > a simple jam off of the pentatonic blues scale. Being taught
> > the scale showed me what notes to avoid and which to follow
> > and improved my playing in one of those quantum leaps. I
> > know there are conventions for using certain scales for coloring
> > the music and but I am ignorant as to these modes. 
> 
> This reminds me of a question I have:
> I know there are blues riffs and blues scales, and I know blues music
> when I hear it, but how would a music student/theorist DEFINE 'blues'.
> When reading sheet music to a blues piece, can you/how do you recognize
> it as 'bluesy'?
> 
> conrad                        conradg@xxxxxx
> 
Being a music theory student of sorts, I guess you would define blues by 
the scales you use (I-bIII-IV-#IV-V-bVII), the key not being the sharp IV 
(F# if you're in C).
The whole I-IV-V chord progression thinkg comes into play as well, with 
substitutions allowable.
I guess that's about it.

--Matt