[Harp-L] re:was blues scale now illiterate

["Jim Alciere" <jim.alciere@xxxxxxxxx>]

Does anyone think blues musicians in the 50s didn't know the scales they
used were different than the scales Doris Day was singing on the radio?
Different than what Gene Autry was singing? Do you think if someone asked
Muddy Waters, he wouldn't have been able to sing the blues scale and the
regular scale? And of course he'd know where both scales were on the guitar.

People assume blues musicians were musically illiterate. Certainly Johnny
Johnson, Chuck Berry's pianist wasn't illiterate. He played in the Army and
played for a couple big bands. He could throw out jazz chords with the best
of them. Bo Diddley was a classical violinist before he got hurt. B B King
most certainly isn't musically illiterate. He has an extensive knowledge of
music theory and he's a top notch band leader. I don't believe these are
exceptions that prove the rule. It wasn't uncommon in the 50s and 60s to
find people recording for Motown during the day, playing jazz during the
evening, and touring with Muddy Waters for a couple of months in the summer.


People like the idea that blues is a simple, heart felt music. That's why a
lot of new blues is poorly played. People get a rudimentary idea of a
shuffle beat and wail away on the blues scale and think there must be some
magic "soul" that old players tapped into.

Blues music is melodically simple and rhythmically complex. That makes it
neither better nor worse than traditional Western music but it certainly
doesn't make it easier to play. To play well everyone in the band has to
know what they are going to contribute to the groove. This takes extensive
listening, as well as playing with a band night after night, year after
year.  And yes there is a subtle feel to the music, and a certain finesse
involved in bending notes, that is hard to write out in traditional Western
music theory. It doesn't mean the musicians are uneducated or illiterate.
There are some things that just don't translate well. The reason Muddy
Water's band sound so good in the 50s is because everyone in the band was a
top notch musician, with years of live experience, years of practicing, and
a lifetime spent developing a groove. They were sophisticated musicians
and many of them had knowledge of music theory and music notation.




-- 
Rainbow Jimmy
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