Re: Fwd: Re: [Harp-L] Should the blues scale be revised?

[Mike Fugazzi <mfugazzi67@xxxxxxxxx>]

In my world the blues scale of the I chord is the same
thing as the chromatic scale minus the #4.  ;)

There are no such things as wrong notes...we might say
there are or perceive notes as not fitting in certain
place, but only because we have been told to do so. 

Mike
www.myspace.com/mikefugazzi 

> --- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Winslow
> Yerxa
> <winslowyerxa@...> wrote:
> 
> No-one should be saying that when you play the blues
> scale you should
> shun all other notes. (My prescription: don't
> prescribe!)
> 
> The so-called blues scale is a distillation of the
> so-called "blue"
> notes - b3, 5b, b7, with the addition of 1, 4, and 5
> to make them into
> a freestanding scale.
> 
> You do hear jazz musicians play the blues scale as a
> *scale* but it's
> really a construct designed to isolate those
> 'special" notes that
> deviate from the major scale. The blue notes occur
> organically in many
> musical contexts without reference to any special
> scale (and not
> always in reference to the blues or even anything
> derived from the blues).
> 
> The blues scale is really the minor pentatonic
> (five-note) scale with
> the b5 added:
> 
> 1 b3 4 5 b7
> 
> And the minor pentatonic is the same as the major
> pentatonic, just
> centering around a different note.
> 
> Now, at this point I'm going to start talking about
> an actual key to
> make it *slightly* less confusing. That key will be
> C.
> 
> C major pentatonic scale: C D E G A
> 
> A minor pentatonic scale: A C D E G
> 
> Same scale just started on a different note, yes?
> 
> So let's take the A blues scale and start it on C:
> 
> C D Eb E G A
> 
> Noe you've got the b3, one of the blue notes.
> 
> Let's say we combine that scale with a C blues scale
> of C Eb F Gb G
> Bb. We get:
> 
> C D Eb E F Gb G A Bb
> 
> If you played this scale in second position on an F
> harp, you'd get
> the same scale as already exists on the harp, with
> bent notes needed
> for Eb (draw 3) and Gb (draw 1 and 4). A decent fit.
> 
> If you do this same scale combining exercise for the
> IV and V chords
> (in this case, F, incorporating F and D blues
> scales; and G
> iincoroprating G and E blues scales), you end up
> with a complete
> chromatic scale - nothing is excluded!
> 
> 
> 
> Zvi Aranoff <zviaranoff@...> wrote: The Blues Scale
> is typically
> described thusly, in degrees from the
> tonic: 1, 3b, 4, 5b, 5, 7b.
> 
> What about the natural 3rd? Why isn't it part of the
> scale? It seems
> that there are good reasons to include it in the
> scale.
> 
> 1) The natural 3rd is commonly used in blues. For
> instance, a Boogie
> does not have a flatted 3rd but a natural 3rd, and
> yet is considered
> blues. In fact, in early blues the flatted 3rd was
> hardly used. The
> natural 3rd was far more common.
> 
> 2) The natural third is part of the chord triad. How
> could it/why
> would it be eliminated when playing 12 bar blues?
> 
> 3) The flatted 3rd anyway tends to resolve to the
> natural 3rd, which
> means that often when the flatted 3rd is played
> we'll also find a
> natural 3rd.
> 
> Since a scale is defined as �a group of musical
> notes that provides
> material for part or all of a musical work�
> (Wikipedia), would it not
> make sense to include the natural 3rd in the scale,
> since it's part
> and parcel of Blues?
> 
> If the natural 3rd is included, would we need to
> drop a note to keep
> it hexatonic? (e.g., the natural 4th?)
> 
> -Z
> 
> 
> 
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> --- End forwarded message ---
> 
> 
> 


Mike Fugazzi
Harmonica/Vocals
http://www.myspace.com/mikefugazzi


"Music should be healing; music should uplift the soul; music should inspire. There is no better way of getting closer to God, of rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection than music, if only it is rightly understood."
-Hazrat Inayat Khan


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