Re: [Harp-L] Fwd: Question re: blue notes and micro-tonality

["lil Buddha" <ltlbuddha@xxxxxxxxx>]

It is my feeling that theory and expression should not be thought of as
mutually exclusive.
As to blue notes being a convention, of course they can be thought of that
way. It is the nature of our species to codify expression. This is simply an
extension of communication. It is how ones breaks/bends those rules that
adds "feeling".

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 10:06 AM, John F. Potts <hvyj@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>  From: "John F. Potts" <hvyj@xxxxxxx>
>> Date: September 5, 2008 9:32:11 AM GMT-04:00
>> To: turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Question re: blue notes and micro-tonality
>>
>> Mr. Hunter,
>>        i certainly appreciate what you (and others) are saying about
>> spontaneity of expression as applied to bending blue notes, but I'm sure
>> none of you would suggest that practicing scales is not good because it
>> inhibits spontaneity of expression.  To the contrary, technical proficiency
>> playing scales enhances spontaneity because it allows the player to more
>> readily express himself on the spur of the moment while improvising during
>> performance..
>>        With respect to blue notes, as I understand it, blues  was created
>> by West Africans who were transported to America as slaves as they adapted
>> their traditional West African tonalities to European melodies.  W.C. Handy
>> was the first to try to notate this "blues scale" and approximated some of
>> the tones because Western notation does not have a convention for notating
>> quarter tones.  BUT, Little Walter consistently plays the third a quarter
>> tone flat and consistently plays that same note a full half step flat when
>> it is played as a 7th.  Sugar Blue does the same thing.   This is also done
>> by other "authentic" blues players, so it appears to me to be a part of the
>> idiom rather than random spontaneity of expression.  Adam Gussow talks a lot
>> about the blue third and I've seen other references that  claim it is a
>> distinction of an authentic blues player to play the blue third a quarter
>> tone flat but play that same note a half step flat on the IV chord when it
>> is played as a 7th.  I'm not making this stuff up, nor have I been obsessing
>> over it--a player certainly  won't be struck by lightning or booed if he
>> doesn't follow these conventions.  But the convention apparently does exist
>> as part of the blues idiom.
>>        The manner in which "authentic" blues musicians played the "blue
>> third" is interesting (at least to me), and i am curious about whether there
>> is any similar idiomatic tradition about the historical tonality of the
>> other  blue notes, the flat 5th and flat 7th.  Satisfying this curiousity is
>> not going to stultify my playing or divest me of spontaneity or inhibit
>> emotional creativity in my performance.  The blue third is an enthnomusical
>> historical reality.  I just want to know if there are similar historical
>> idioms which applied to tonality of the other blue notes.  The question is
>> more of an historical (rather than a technical) nature.  I'm no
>> ethnomusicoligist, and I was hoping some others  on the list would know more
>> about this than I do.
>>        JP
>>
>
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