The twelve-bar form is a central convention of the blues. It’s so closely associated with the blues generally that jazz musicians use the term “a blues” to mean any tune using the twelve-bar form. However, it is surprisingly difficult to define what the twelve-bar blues actually is. That’s because there is no such thing as …
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Led Zeppelin and the folkloric integrity of the blues
There is a fascinating moment in “When The Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin where Robert Plant plays a very flat ninth on the harmonica. I love this note, because there is so much music theory and history encoded within it. Listen at 0:41. Before we can get into the details of this note and what …
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