What exactly is blues or why sound it that way??

willem
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 6:41 am

Lets start whit his simplist form ''the 12 bar bleus'''how do you get that bleus feel in these form and how does it look..and.. which key's are the best to use,,????

I know we must use chords 1-4-5 and follow 4 measers chord 1,then 2 measers of chord 4,then 2 measers of chord 1 again (we have now 8 measers) then 2 measers chord 5 and ending or returning with 2 measers of chord 1..

this all strummed in swingtime... and if we want play lead with or over the strumming we must use notes from the minor scale so it will clash with each other?????


IT looks that i understand the lesson but ????????


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daryl
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:56 am

Willem, "What exactly is the blues" is TOO hard of a question. To me it's like asking something like "What exactly does water taste like?" I'm sure others here will jump in and give you a technical explanation....


BigBear
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 2:02 pm

Willem- From a guitar perspective the blues starts with the standard major scale and then adds a flatted 3rd (and also 5th and 7th) note which gives that very distinct, almost dissonant sound. The blues can be played in every key but C, G and E seem to be particularly popular probably because 7th chords (harmonic sevenths) are easier to play in these keys.

Another important thing to learn with the blues is the "walking bass" line. To me, this is almost as important as learning the blues scale because almost every blues songs uses a moving or walking bass line at some point. We call this the "Groove" and this adds immensely to the bluesy feel.

It is really important in any discussion of the Blues to mention that no musical form relies more heavily on "feel" than the blues. Many people can play the blues but not everyone "feels" the blues!! When you hear a really good blues player you may be impressed initially by his/her techniques but listen longer and you will hear "The Feel", or maybe not. This is an interesting point because the Blues had a major revolution in the UK in the 60's and 70's. But while many of the great UK players learned to play the Blues, by their own admissions they had a tough time getting "The Feel". Many came to this country to work with famous blues artists, many of them black, just to try to get the feel. Check out Eric Clapton and B.B. King for just one of many examples.

Willem, you asked a huge question and this is a very short, simplistic answer. Hopefully, some food for thought.

Heb een geweldige dag mijn vriend! :cheer:


willem
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 4:53 pm

BigBear wrote:
Willem- From a guitar perspective the blues starts with the standard major scale and then adds a flatted 3rd (and also 5th and 7th) note which gives that very distinct, almost dissonant sound. The blues can be played in every key but C, G and E seem to be particularly popular probably because 7th chords (harmonic sevenths) are easier to play in these keys.

Another important thing to learn with the blues is the "walking bass" line. To me, this is almost as important as learning the blues scale because almost every blues songs uses a moving or walking bass line at some point. We call this the "Groove" and this adds immensely to the bluesy feel.

It is really important in any discussion of the Blues to mention that no musical form relies more heavily on "feel" than the blues. Many people can play the blues but not everyone "feels" the blues!! When you hear a really good blues player you may be impressed initially by his/her techniques but listen longer and you will hear "The Feel", or maybe not. This is an interesting point because the Blues had a major revolution in the UK in the 60's and 70's. But while many of the great UK players learned to play the Blues, by their own admissions they had a tough time getting "The Feel". Many came to this country to work with famous blues artists, many of them black, just to try to get the feel. Check out Eric Clapton and B.B. King for just one of many examples.

Willem, you asked a huge question and this is a very short, simplistic answer. Hopefully, some food for thought.

Heb een geweldige dag mijn vriend! :cheer:

Thank you Rick

Can we hear the feel by only playing a bleus scale over and over and maybe on diffrent places for example in C and is...C -Eb-F#-G-Bb- back on C again


tovo
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:10 pm

Hey Willem,

Right now I am shredding my fingers day after day by playing the extended blues scale in A. I guess A is the starting point because it's pretty much in the middle of the neck. That same scale can then be transposed to any root note.

I think the minor pentatonic doesn't sound bluesy at all but once you add the 2 blues notes it starts to. The extended scale is just more fun because you use more of the neck, it's less repetitive. I don't think it really sounds like blues until you start to throw in some licks, which I guess are the phrases of the language of blues.

On the other part of your question, for me blues is all about the feel. It's the only music that really moves me, get's in my soul, without the need for lyrics. It's the feel. One of the most memorable moments of my recent trip to the USA was sitting in a blues bar in San Fransisco listening to a genuine Bluesman (Ron Hacker, look him up on the net). What a great night. I know I want to play that stuff.


willem
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:20 pm

tovo wrote:
Hey Willem,

Right now I am shredding my fingers day after day by playing the extended blues scale in A. I guess A is the starting point because it's pretty much in the middle of the neck. That same scale can then be transposed to any root note.

I think the minor pentatonic doesn't sound bluesy at all but once you add the 2 blues notes it starts to. The extended scale is just more fun because you use more of the neck, it's less repetitive. I don't think it really sounds like blues until you start to throw in some licks, which I guess are the phrases of the language of blues.

On the other part of your question, for me blues is all about the feel. It's the only music that really moves me, get's in my soul, without the need for lyrics. It's the feel. One of the most memorable moments of my recent trip to the USA was sitting in a blues bar in San Fransisco listening to a genuine Bluesman (Ron Hacker, look him up on the net). What a great night. I know I want to play that stuff.


Its great you met the bleus there and i think overall you had a great time there..

I also think that the pentatonic minor does not his bleusy work but has accordance with an real bleus scale, it looks as that scale with one or two blue notes add to it,,can you give me the notes of that A bleus scale(maybe i am lazy)

edit: with extended scale you mean the notes added to the pentatonic scale????


Chasplaya
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:22 pm

I think you can theorise all you like... But I believe the early Delta Bluesmen didn't know theory that well, just listen to the way Robert Johnson plays he chops and changes the tempo all the time. A very good vid from Clapton discusses that from his 'Sessions' DVD. So I think the theory in the case of the Blues came after, non Bluesmen did that to try and emulate it. So its been said it is all about the feel and playing from the soul, mostly about either their personal life experiences or experiences of the times. Clapton is good at Blues I think because he has experienced the Highs and Lows of life , probably more lows.


willem
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:31 pm

Chasplaya wrote:
I think you can theorise all you like... But I believe the early Delta Bluesmen didn't know theory that well, just listen to the way Robert Johnson plays he chops and changes the tempo all the time. A very good vid from Clapton discusses that from his 'Sessions' DVD. So I think the theory in the case of the Blues came after, non Bluesmen did that to try and emulate it. So its been said it is all about the feel and playing from the soul, mostly about either their personal life experiences or experiences of the times. Clapton is good at Blues I think because he has experienced the Highs and Lows of life , probably more lows.
Maybe they were more concentrate on the lyrics and played a kinda freely..refering to the early bleusman..


willem
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Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:49 pm

iT is so great to jam over a basic bleus acompaniment,, i love Daryl's thread but i wanna know more and see who is in for some bleus and knowledge






AndyT
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Sun Jul 03, 2011 3:48 am

Ask a thousand people and you will get a thousand answers.

To me, the blues is an emotion expressed through an instrument. It has little to do with theory or any of that stuff. Have you ever been really sad about something and just wanted to die? If you express that feeling through your guitar, then you are playing the Blues.

Its called the Blues because 'Blue' also means depressed, sad, moody, unhappy, dismal or depressing.
When you have a bad experience in life, then 'You got the blues'. And it's these experiences that were originally written about.

It's all about the feel because you are trying to convey the depressed emotion of being blue that you felt. That's why there's often no set tempo or anything to them. Tempos changed because the perception of the incident changed as the writer was drawn into it. Theory pretty much had no place in the Blues until musicians that had actually been taught to read music and understand theory tried to replicate what they heard. That's where we get the kinds of rhythms and melodies we now know as the Blues.


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