Re: [Harp-L] head shake music theory

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I replied to this yesterday but it never appeared on the list.

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, rainbowjimmy@... wrote:

> Yesterday I took my harp out to try and 
> figure out how to play a harp head shake 
> on the piano. I'm playing the draw 5 and 6 
> on a D harp so that's a G note and a
> B note right? 

Correct.

> Plus I alternate between 
> straight and bent so that's Gb and Bb.

Not quite. Gb is the same as F# (no quibbling, please, anyone).
And F# is Blow 5. So the the G bends down maybe a quarter tone.

> Those aren't notes I usually associate with 
> an A blues scale yet I've used that
> headshake over the A chord in 2nd position 
> for more than 30 years.

The thing most peple call a blues scale has little to do with reality.
It's a scale that distills all the blue notes in one place and leaves
out most everything else that's possible to leave out. Very seldom does
anyone play this actual scale for more than a few second at a time.

The A Blues scale:

A C D Eb E G

Now look at the three basic chords in the key of A:

A major chord: E C# E

D major chord: D F# E

E major chord: E G# B

You can see right away that the three fundamental chords of the key of
A contain several notes not included in the so-called blues scale.
Guitarists use these chords all the time in A blues. And the A and D
chords are the draw and blow chords on a D harp.

You can play the blues scale over those chords and it will create
clashes of the kind that help give blues its unique identity. But
you're not obliged to restrict yourself to those notes or even use them
at all.

 
> So am I playing the right notes?

Do they sound right? Did they sound right at the beginning of Little
Walter's solo on Blues with a Feeling"?

> Am I doing the head shake correctly?

Does your neck hurt? Do the notes alternate at a rate you like?

> Why would a blues musician use a Bb note 
> in the key of A? Or a B for that matter.

B is part of the A major scale. It's built into an A harp and a D harp.
It's also an extension of the basic A chord:

A-C#-E-G-B

The basic three note chord counts up 1-2-3 from each scale tone to the
next: A-B-C#, C-D-E

You can extend it to create a 7th chord:  E-F#-G

and even a 9th chord: G-A-B

Result: A-C#-E-G-B

That 9th chord is a lush sounding chord very much in keeping with the
sound of the blues, as is the 7th chord. When you do a shake of G-B
over an A chord, you're playing a chord extension consisting of the 7th
and 9th.

But what about Bb? That's a flat 9, and as a chord element not in
character with the blues. Yet as a bent note it can sound great. Why?

Bb creates tension when you play it against A (the key, the note, the
chord). If you resolve the tension to a chord note or even a scale
note, you release that tension. Hence Bb can be very expressive.

Some moves where Bb is introduced, tension created, then resolved:

A-Bb-A

A-Bb-B

B-Bb-B

Bb-B

Bb-A

If you look at the E blues scale:

E G A Bb B D

You see that this could be seen as a fragment of the blues scale of the
V chord (E). It still creates tension, but you could extend a lick that
includes this by putting it in the context of the E blues scale.

Winslow


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