If you want to play any kind of American vernacular
music - blues, jazz, rock, country, gospel, folk, etc -
then you're going to need to be able to use blue notes.
There are many different confusing and contradictary notions
of what a blue note is. I define a blue note as a microtonal
pitch in between a blues scale note and a neighboring major
scale note.
First of all, here's a comparison of the C major
scale and the C blues scale. Notes in red notes are 'non-diatonic',
meaning not native to C major.
| C |
-- |
D |
Eb |
E |
F |
F# |
G |
-- |
A |
Bb |
B |
| 1 |
-- |
2 |
b3 |
3 |
4 |
#4 |
5 |
-- |
6 |
b7 |
7 |
As you can see, there are three notes in the
blues scale not found in the major scale: the flat third,
the sharp fourth (or flat fifth), and the flat seventh.
(They're the red ones above.) The flat third and seventh
give the blues scale its tragic feeling, and the very dissonant
sharp fourth makes it unsettling and dark. Some people refer
to these notes as blue notes, but I don't think that's correct.
Blue notes are microtonal
pitches in between the three characteristic blues
scale notes and the nearest major scale pitches. They fall
between the piano keys.
|
C |
-- |
D |
blue
note |
Eb |
blue
note |
E |
F |
blue
note |
F# |
blue
note |
G |
-- |
A |
blue
note |
Bb |
blue
note |
B |
| 1 |
-- |
2 |
b3 |
3 |
4 |
#4 |
5 |
-- |
6 |
b7 |
7 |
The precise pitch of a blue note is up to the individual
musician, and it can be different every time, according
to the musician's emotion at that moment. Hitting a blue
note is almost always an intuitive and unconscious act.
All good blues, jazz, country and rock singers use blue
notes routinely. They're also bread and butter for guitarists,
especially slide guitarists. Other instruments that use
microtones in American music: bass, banjo, harmonica, the
various brass (especially trombone), reeds, strings, and
synthesizers with pitch bend wheels. It's impossible to
play blue notes on the piano, so pianists approximate them
by playing adjacent keys, for example F and F sharp.
The microtones between other standard pitches show up
very occasionally as well. Harmonica players sometimes use
a slightly flattened C, D or A in the key of C, and guitarists
will bend any note so that it's slightly sharp when playing
very emotionally and emphatically. Microtones are part of
many other world cultures, from Indian sitar players to
klezmer clarinetists. What's the difference between a microtone
and a note that's just plain out of tune? Let your ear decide.
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