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

[martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

Zvi is making a good point. Perhaps should "the blues scale" not so much be revised, but rather avoided as a term. For teaching purposes etc, we should be aware that there are several blues scales -- with certain (microtonal) inflections more or less in common.
    I´d say it´s perfectly possible to play "bluesy" and stay on the natural 3rd. And, for that matter, the major 7th. The bluesiness is often a product of your various emphasis-es .. (or however you put that in plural). 
    Practising bluesy stuff in the middle octave on a standard diatonic, sans OB:s, can be a useful way to get a grip on it.
  /Martin
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: Zvi Aranoff <zviaranoff@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Should the blues scale be revised?

  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.


       
---------------------------------
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.