What is Blues?

25 Mar 00 - 06:48 AM (#201209)
Subject: What is Blues?
From: The Shambles

I have seen many 'What is folk' threads on The Mudcat but I cannot remember seeing too many 'What is blues' ones. Maybe on other sites, a furious debate goes on about this subject but I think not to the extent that we seem to here, about folk. Why might that be?

You look at a music that had its beginnings in a US, black culture and is now championed by just about everyone, except, possibly now the black culture that spawned it. It produced a strange effect where the originators or the music in America, were to influence performers in Europe (the UK especially), who in turn influenced a whole new generation of (mainly white) American ones. I am thinking of people like Stevie Ray Vaughan, who in turn went on the inspire even more.

The music has gone through a lot of changes but still can be pretty easily recognised and appears to be in a pretty healthy condition?

Do the disputes and definitions that divide folk music not exist with the blues?

If they do not, could it be that blues music in firmly in the hands of those that just get on, make and listen to it, rather than at the mercy of collectors, scholars and experts, who feel they have to categorise, and to constantly defend and preserve some idea of purity?

And yes, this could be seen as another means of starting yet another 'What is folk' thread, but do not most of our discussions tend to end up as that anyway?

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25 Mar 00 - 08:11 AM (#201222)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow

The thing about blues is that there is a common identifiable tradition here - there could be arguments about the boundaries and whether something can properly be classified as blues, and about White Blues, and Country Blues and where it shades into Jazz and so forth but I think there'd be a general agreement that all blues had to have their roots in a particular tradition.

And you can't do that with folk really, for the roots of what gets called folk are all over the place, in all minds of unrelated traditions. Chinese music, Irish music, Indian music, Romanian music, English Music Hall.The list goes on for ever...

I suppose the next logical move in the discussion would be "Are all blues folk?" And if some blues aren't folk would that mean they aren't really blues? (My answer to both questions would be No, for wehat it's worth.)

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25 Mar 00 - 10:29 AM (#201244)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Caitrin

Hmmm...interesting question.
There are places where The Blues crosses over with jazz and rock, as well as with folk. For instance, there are Led Zeppelin and Cream songs that could be considered blues by some. Covers spark still more questions...Is Cream's cover of "Crossroads" still blues, or is it rock?
I have a hard time trying to define the blues. For me, it seems to have more to do with the feeling that inspired the music, and the feeling it leaves the listener with than with any specifics.

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25 Mar 00 - 10:40 AM (#201246)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos

This is the question to which one constant answer is "If you need to ask, you wouldn't understand", which is not addressed to the music of the blues but the condition. It helps to keep in sight that in its roots blues was music generated by an condition -- having the blues. The condition is similar but I would argue different from classic depression. But the blues instead of generating analytical polysyllables and pharmacutical fortunes, generated music. I genuinely think it might be best left not further analyzed (the condition).

The roots of the music are that it was the music generated by that condition.

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25 Mar 00 - 11:29 AM (#201257)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: BlueJay

As David Bromberg said: "You've got to suffer if you wanna sing the blues". I'm no expert on the blues, but I think it's expanded from the "suffering" aspect; not entirely "cry in your beer music", (which is my definition of commercial country/western, but that's another thread). What about "talking blues"? Some of those are hilarious, e.g. "Talking Candy Bar Blues", "Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" and the "Vietnam Potluck Blues". The crossovers to jazz and rock are plentiful, hmmmm... I think you just know it when you hear it. I don't think I can exactly define it, but as I said, I'm no expert. Click here for a perfect definition. (;

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25 Mar 00 - 11:46 AM (#201261)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: BlueJay

Oh yeah, once when a friend and I played a blues set on live radio, we threw in a bluegrass song. The DJ asked, "What's the difference between Blues and Bluegrass"? Like an idiot, I responded, "I don't know, it must be the grass"! Pretty tame stuff in a big city I know, but down here? No proven cause/effect, but so far we haven't been asked back.

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25 Mar 00 - 11:52 AM (#201265)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos

THere's a lot more grass in Blues than in Bluegrass, I would guess - traditionally, anyway.

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25 Mar 00 - 11:55 AM (#201267)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: BlueJay

Amos- I agree, but it was the best I could do off the top of my head. I'm not used to playing on the air.

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25 Mar 00 - 01:00 PM (#201283)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: McGrath of Harlow

There's always been happy blues as well as sad blues. But maybe there's an element of "if you don't laugh, you'll cry".

You can find the emotional attitudes that characterise blues in other types of music - they are to do with being beaten down but not defeated, and you can find it everywhere it's needed. But that doesn't make the music blues. Blues is to do with a particular set of musical conventions combined with and expressing that attitude.

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25 Mar 00 - 01:03 PM (#201286)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos

I think you did real well, Bluejay. Maybe the difference is in who gets to do the suffering -- in blues, its the singer! :>)

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25 Mar 00 - 03:23 PM (#201322)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Biskit

I don't know who originally said it,..more than likely someone with'em But the Blues ain't nothin' but a good man feelin' bad.-Biskit-

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25 Mar 00 - 03:59 PM (#201337)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Clinton Hammond2

Blues??
The opposite end of the visible spectrum from the reds...
{~`

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25 Mar 00 - 04:11 PM (#201343)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: ZzJjzZ

I like what John Hurt says in CC Rider about what the blues is.

"The blues ain't nothin but a good woman on your mind."

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25 Mar 00 - 04:25 PM (#201347)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: catspaw49

I thought that was just being horny.

Spaw

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25 Mar 00 - 04:56 PM (#201364)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Gary T

I don't have his exact words in front of me, but John Lennon said something like "The blues is a chair. It's not a design for a chair, or a blueprint of a chair, it's the chair itself." I gathered he was saying the blues is (are?) what it is and has to be played/sung/heard, rather than defined.

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25 Mar 00 - 05:06 PM (#201367)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Lonesome EJ

Sounds like old John being Platonic again. Of couse, he's right.

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25 Mar 00 - 05:13 PM (#201371)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: catspaw49

Whoever said it, its a great quote! Makes total sense, which is probably why someone will want to argue about it!

It would be nice if it applied to folk. I don't want to get that discussion going here either, but I think that's a good explanation as well for a lot of the "folk-style" songs we talk about. Ashoken Farewell doesn't meet the purist definition, but it sure as hell 'sounds' like folk.

Spaw

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25 Mar 00 - 10:57 PM (#201536)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: rangeroger

Big Bill Broonsy made the quote about a good man feeling bad.
rr

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26 Mar 00 - 01:38 AM (#201591)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: The Beanster

The blues to me, are songs that tell such a sad tale, no matter what your own problems are, they're not THAT bad, in comparison.

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26 Mar 00 - 01:50 AM (#201593)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: bseed(charleskratz)

Actually, Jimmie Rodgers put it in one of his blue yodels in the late twenties. I don't know if he originated it or heard it from someone else.

--seed

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26 Mar 00 - 05:59 PM (#201810)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: ddw

I think one of the reasons blues has a little better definition than "folk" is that it is a musical form (usually eight bars of lyric over 12 bars of instrumental, tho' that can vary considerably and there is a 16-bar form) that is as identifiable as certain other forms — jigs, reels, etc. spring to mind; my understanding of those is that they're defined by the rhythm patterns.

But then things start to get muddy. John Hurt is generally tho't of as a blues man, but he played a lot of other things too. So did Mance Lipscombe, Leadbelly, Blind Boy Fuller, Bo Carter and just about every other blues great you could name.

But then you could bring in the "feeling" argument — that it's not the song or the form, but the emotion it conveys. Trouble with that is that there are songs in blues form that run the entire range of conditions/emotions.

As for the rock/blues and jazz/blues cutoff lines, it's every man for himself on where you draw the line. Personally, as soon as they start adding synthasizers, screaming electric guitars, screaming vocals and too much drum, it's crossed the line in to rock. Jazz is a little harder to pin down, so I don't have any real clear line of demarcation on that.

And all that said, I usually come full circle and agree with definitions like "blues ain't nothin' but a good man feelin' bad" and "blues is just a good woman on your mind."

Besides, I have to go to work now.

cheers,

david

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26 Mar 00 - 06:12 PM (#201813)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Mooh

The Shambles,

Hmmm...

What is blues? The answers depend on the parameters of the moment. I usually think of all music as somewhat derivative so at least I can trace their roots to a more common form. Maybe the blues in its most recognizable form of today comes from the U.S. but I've heard forms of it being championed as African, which is (I think) a little more honest. However it is defined, it's the difference in definitions that make it so much more than we often expect. So long as every definition of it is legitimatized by honest practitioners, the definition can evolve.

Just thinking about defining it is giving me the blues.

Mooh.

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26 Mar 00 - 11:41 PM (#201914)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: The Beanster

I'm sure it was merely an oversight, lads, but the way that definition goes is also "blues ain't nothin' but a good woman feelin' bad" and "blues is just a good man on your mind." Just keeping you on the straight & narrow...

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26 Mar 00 - 11:49 PM (#201916)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: MarkS

"If you want to know the blues, I can help you understand"
"Its a ten dollar woman, with a two dollar man"
Patrick Sky

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27 Mar 00 - 12:09 AM (#201920)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: catspaw49

Hi Mark....I think he picked that line up from Mississippi John Hurt who he had played with a lot.

Spaw

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27 Mar 00 - 01:01 AM (#201928)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Mbo

I'll tell all you arguers what my ethnomusicology teachers said:

Blues is not a style, but a state of mind

And that's all I'm gonna say, cause I believe, to me very heart.

--Mbo

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27 Mar 00 - 10:27 AM (#201962)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop

Most of these answers seem to be defining the blues by the type and quality of emotion it conveys. However, I have to agree with McGrath, that these emotions are more universal than that, and appear in musics of all kinds that otherwise have nothing to do with the blues. To be meaningful, I think you need to define the blues historically and musically, rather than just emotionally. The historical part of the definition involves where the music came from -- black slaves, ex-slaves and descendants of slaves combining African elements from their cultural past with the musics they encountered and assimilated after their arrival in America. A lot has been written about this, and rightly so -- the "roots of blues" is a fascinating topic for the musicologists among us.

For me, the musical part hinges on the amibiguity of the third step of the scale -- where other western musics had increasingly moved in the direction of a definitive major or minor tonality (pick one -- can't have both), the blues mixed major elements with minor, playing a flatted third against a major chord progression, etc. This is more significant than it sounds, because it very effectively conveys a complexity of emotion that often is not present in other musics that are based on a more definitive major/minor choice. Where a simplistic view would consider major scales/chords to be "happy" and minor to be "sad," the mixing of the two allows both emotions to be present in varying degrees -- which allows joy to triumph over anguish, or sadness to exist in the midst of happy circumstances, etc. I believe that this is the essence of the blues, and some of us might argue that it more truly reflects "real life" than the more stark choice offered by defined major and minor tonalities in some other musics.

I may not have expressed this very well, but I hope it makes sense to other Mudcatters. I'd be interested in people's reactions.

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27 Mar 00 - 10:57 AM (#201971)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST

There is no simple, pure 'truth' about the origins or meaning of the blues. It is impossible to precisely define the blues, just as it is impossible to precisely define folk, because there are too many blurred boundaries between genres, styles and understandings of the music. The 'roots' of the music are important, but cannot be traced back along a single pathway to a single 'authentic' or 'pure' point of origin. Although I believe a knowledge of the history of the music, and the material conditions under which it was developed, are useful in aiding our understanding of the music.

We should also be careful not to reduce the form to some single characteristic. A number of people seem to believe that the 'essence' of the music is in its emotional qualities (which are clearly important). Here, however, we should be particularly careful; it is all too common to describe (originally) 'black' cultural forms in terms of emotion, spontaneity, rhythm, purity, etc. in (an implied) opposition to 'white' musical forms which are, therfore, rational, composed, melodic, etc. There are obvious racist implications to this. Although I hasten to add that I'm not suggesting that any of the above contributors is being in any way racist. Hang on whilst I try and get the lid back on this can of worms . . .

Brian

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27 Mar 00 - 10:57 AM (#201972)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Fortunato

The blues is/are like zen. Words alone cannot capture it. Yet we have only words here on the mudcat. We have inference: "Have you ever been mistreated?" "My door key don't fit no more.", etc. We have diagrams: "12 bars,..", etc. We have John Lennon's "chair".

I have seen a dredlocked, technically adequate, young man play a National guitar and sing in the Taj Mahal manner. Yet his voice did not convince me that he had lived the emotionality he portrayed. He may in time.

Some are actors when they sing the blues. In all art there is the artist and the audience. Both must know and feel the blues for the transmission to reach. Arbitration is not possible. IMHO fortunato

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27 Mar 00 - 01:11 PM (#202040)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop

All true, I suppose, but if you're looking for a definition of blues, it helps to give some thought to the history and form as well as the content. We seem to be putting the blues on a pedestal here, and using its exalted status as an argument against examining its roots and structure. Admittedly, like a lot of music, it doesn't lend itself to being fully explained in just a few sentences. But I will confess that all this talk about "if you have to ask, you don't know" or the "zen-like" aspect of the blues really doesn't explain anything to me.

You can't sum up a Monet painting by analyzing the brush strokes, or a Shakespeare play by counting the words. But while I would acknowledge that these were inspired works by true masters, I don't think it is inappropriate to look at the forms and structures that were employed in their creation. Shouldn't we do the same with the blues?

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27 Mar 00 - 03:16 PM (#202120)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: M. Ted (inactive)

I am with Whistlestop on this, all the way (sorry, I know it would be more fun if we disagreed, but...)

I have sat through enough blues Festivals to seriously question the insights of anyone who thinks that is is hard to define what the blues is--or what it is not--it seems pretty clear to me--

As a musician, I am fascinated by the each of the elements of the the blues, and especially by the way that complex music can be created by interlacing such simple elements--

The blue note, or notes, (because there are several tasty little intervals that you can bend) open up a different world when you understand the simple tricks that dictate the way they are used--

And of course, the blues bass figures, which seem to have re-defined all of popular music--

Mostly though, blues is a system that gives you the tools to be creative with musical ideas in a way that is difficult with other musical forms--

Mbo, sorry to disappoint your ethnomusicology instructor, but blues is not a state of mind, is is a set of rules that almost anyone can use to create and express musical ideas--

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27 Mar 00 - 04:02 PM (#202150)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Easy Rider

Doesn't Blues have a specific form or form type? There is 8 bar blues and 12 bar blues, and they each follow a certain structure in their chord progressions. There is also a Blues scale. Certain notes in the standard scale are flatted or sharped. The theorists could tell us more about that.

If a piece follows a certain structure and scale, then it is a Blues, whether it is "Folk" or Jazz, traditional or commercial.

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27 Mar 00 - 04:53 PM (#202196)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Froodo

You either have the blues or not. If you got the blues, you sing and play the blues.

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song...

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27 Mar 00 - 05:04 PM (#202202)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Caitrin

This reminds me of an argument we've had many times over in my English lit. class..."What is poetry?" Ask 3 people, you get 6 or 7 opinions. Many of the same arguments about form and feeling have been made in the poetry discussion. I had never thought of the blues and poetry having that particular sort of connection. Thank you, Mudcat, for making me think a bit more.

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27 Mar 00 - 05:17 PM (#202211)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos

Whistle, that was elegant and beuatiful piece of analysis. The thrust of these multicolored threads, it seems to me, is that the Blues is the music of a uniwue moment of historical convergence -- where the big rivers of Africa, Dixie, and the industrial revolution collide with the Cotton Belt and bounce back up into the cities from natchez to Greenwich Village... and that is the confluence in which the Blues is defined. Not the emotion alone, not Africa alone, not slavery alone, and not just the cotton gin and the disruptive economic shifts that began then. But it's a frozen, arbitrary snapshot about where it was born, because they're still being played today. When M. Ted says it is pretty clear what is and isn't It, he's (I imagine) talking about the threads and resonances of that time, being brought forward, regardless of other spinoffs such as rockabilly and rock-and-roll and Gershwin and camp-meeting numbers. The blues _is_ a clear voice when it carries that convergence forward, including the emotional and musical components.

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27 Mar 00 - 07:06 PM (#202282)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,Lowcountry

Well, see, all instruments used to be blue. That was the blues. Then Buck Owens superimposed the white and red stripes upon the blue, and it's pretty much been downhill from there. At least that's my understanding.

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27 Mar 00 - 07:31 PM (#202297)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Barky

Blues: A style of music evolved from southern Black American secular songs and usually distinguished by slow tempo and flatted thirds and sevenths.

~Barky

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27 Mar 00 - 09:09 PM (#202366)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Guy Wolff

Hi Gang, Great thread Mr. Shambles...I guess figuring out how to play some songs from all the greats like Robert Johnson , Sun House <><><> gets people on the track of understanding the musical medium. So I guess we all need to start from somewhere, but there comes a moment when the earth quake has just gone off in ones life and then the very things you started with become a real life-line.I would say the talk about feelings is very pertenent to the question at hand..If any one has been lucky enough to be around someone working through child birth they have seen the sucsess that comes with not runing away from the pain but breathing though it;not wallowing in it by any means but understanding theres no place left to go.The real gift of the blues is it can give you a way to get through moments that are, and should be inpossable to get through.!!!!There is no harm in saying if you have'nt been there you wouldnt understand. If you have been there you wouldnt wish it to happen to anyone ever again!!<><><><><<>Blues is not running away from the pain of our lives but breathing through them and surviving. All my best to you all, Guy

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27 Mar 00 - 09:15 PM (#202368)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: ddw

Whistle, I'm not sure I understand. Are you arguing that mixing minors into major progressions is a defining characteristic of blues? If so, I have to take exception. I know bunches of blues songs that have narry a minor in sight, relying entirely on majors and sevenths. On the other hand I know bunches of songs — folk and otherwise — that use minors extensively in major progressions. Many songs in C major use relative minors — Am, Em, Dm. What am I missing in your argument?

And Barky, hundreds of blues songs are anything but slow tempoed. Some are, but I don't think it's useful as a defining characteristic.

david

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27 Mar 00 - 10:40 PM (#202408)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: M. Ted (inactive)

Blues uses blue notes--notes that are bent, damped, otherwise altered-, to accentuate rhythmic figures, as well as the concept of repeating a melodic phrase against chordal changes in order to achieve varying degrees of dissonance--

The minor against a major is a really typical way of doing this, Playing something like a "G" on the high e string against an E major chord-- as is the raised fourth against the fifth and the seventh against the octave--

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28 Mar 00 - 08:34 AM (#202555)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop

I'm enjoying this discussion, and getting a lot of insight from it. Ddw, I think the blues is a varied musical form, and like most music it can't be summed up completely by one or two "signature" characteristics. And I will grant you that there are blues that don't seem to emphasize, or even include, all of the defining characteristics. But you have to start somewhere, and for me the "minor against a major" tonality (as embodied in a minor third played against a major I-IV-V chord progression) is a good place to start. As M.Ted correctly points out, there are other "tasty intervals" (well said!) that also are characteristic of the blues, and can give other musics a "bluesy" quality. There's also the standard 12-bar structure, although I think most of us recognize that the 12-bar form isn't an absolute requirement by any means, nor is it limited to the blues. And I agree with you that the slow tempo is probably not something that should be seen as an essential element of the blues.

As for relative minors, that's really another matter. Western musics have made use of relative minors (the Am in the key of C, for example) as a basic building block for hundreds of years; this should not be seen as a defining characteristic of the blues. The blues took certain tonalities that would be considered "wrong" in conventional western music, and employed them to great effect. Then we all took that basic start and ran with it, adding in other elements that broadened the music -- a good thing, but it makes it harder for all of us to settle on a concise definition. That's why we're having so much fun now...

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28 Mar 00 - 09:02 AM (#202566)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Easy Rider

HERE is the RIGHT answer:

How To Sing The Blues

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28 Mar 00 - 10:17 AM (#202601)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Lady McMoo

Ah....the "boxes" again!

i.e. the "blues" box, the "folk" box, the "traditional" box, the "jazz" box and so on...

As I've said many times before...why DO we need to categorize music, art, etc. in this way?

I grew up in an "Irish music" playing household, played "rock music" at university, ran an acoustic music club for many years where most of the performers did "folk" (with "celtic (small c)", "blues" and the odd monologue or poem thrown in). Most of what I do now is a mixture of all of these (while respecting where all of these forms came from and the factors that influenced their development) with probably a fair bit of "jazz" influence for good measure.

So what do I play now...and does it really matter how it's categorized?

Am I still allowed to be in the Mudcat!

mcmoo

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28 Mar 00 - 10:28 AM (#202608)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Steve Latimer

I have to go with Mbo on this one. I've heard lots of people play the structure of the blues, but if you don't have the feel that comes form the state of mind, it's no the blues.

The Blues is Son House, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Willie McTell, Charley Patton, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howling Wolf, Billie Holiday, Taj Mahal, Johnny Winter and many others.

It is not seventeen year old white kids who've heard Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Regardless of what it is or isn't,thank God we have it, it's my favourite kind of music.

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28 Mar 00 - 11:08 AM (#202627)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,Neil Lowe

To me, the blues are embodied in the musician's approach to the instrument, especially (but not limited to)the guitar and harmonica, or in the case of a singer, the voice. It's a feeling that's magically imparted to the phrasing of the notes or the riff - the perceivable effort put into the way the notes are manipulated to make them "cry," expressively - that engenders the same feeling in the listener, as if the listener now "sympathizes" with the note or phrase. Sometimes it's in the way the musician extends one note, letting that note carry the feeling for what seems like an eternity, driving home the point. Sometimes it's in the intonation.

In this context, the blues aren't restricted to I-IV-V in 8, 12, or 16 bars, amplified or unamplified, fast or slow; nor are they dependent on the words being sung, but more on the sound of the words. Which is why "Sittin' On Top Of The World," with its affirming refrain, is still a blues tune. And why the stuff I consider "uptown" - the slick, refined and polished stuff - like Robert Cray, is blues. Also why technically gifted whiz-bang guitarists, like Eddie Van Halen, or any of the other speed demon "shredders" that readily come to mind, can never play the blues. Long on flash, short on feeling.

I know I'm speaking in abstracts, using terms like "feeling" without defining it. If it grabs me - if a riff or a vocal line makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck - and I have to stop what I'm doing and just listen, then to me it's blues. And a "keeper." No other genre of music has the same effect on me.

IMO, Neil

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28 Mar 00 - 11:40 AM (#202645)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: M. Ted (inactive)

There is a particular quality that makes blues work--you can hear two people play the same lick--when one person does it, it's blues, when another does it, it's just a lick--

I used to try and explain this to my blues guitar students, and the best that I could come up with was that they had to learn to touch their strings in the way that they touched a person that they really cared about--not necessarily like a lover(which is the first thing people always think of), but like a child that you were afraid for, or that you needed to be forceful with, or maybe that you were really proud of--

The important thing was that it could be all different sort of emotions--but the most important thing was that it wasn't just smash, thrash, bash, there is restraint and subtly to it--

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28 Mar 00 - 12:36 PM (#202669)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop

Mcmoo, I agree that we shouldn't be bound by the categories, and that it's not really necessary to even pay much attention to them. I play the music I want to play, whether or not it fits neatly into a defined category, and I would encourage others to do the same. However, if someone asks "what is blues?" I assume they want a definition of a category. If other people feel there's no value in this sort of analysis, they needn't participate.

As for a lot of the rest of the comments here, they seem more intent on defining blues as any music that is heartfelt. I think that does an injustice to other forms of music which might be just as emotional and sensitively performed, but do not meet the historical, technical or structural definition of the blues. In my world, heartfelt and sensitively played music is "good music," regardless of what genre it falls into. There's good blues, folk, jazz, rock'n'roll, classical, etc., and there are also plenty of examples of bad music in all of those categories. What constitutes "good" or "bad" music within any category is subjective, of course. But I don't think the "good music is blues, bad music is not" angle really makes a lot of sense.

Submitted for your consideration, with all appropriate humility.

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28 Mar 00 - 12:53 PM (#202679)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: M. Ted (inactive)

Duke Ellington said, "If it sounds good, it is good."

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28 Mar 00 - 02:22 PM (#202733)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop

Mr. Ellington was a musical genius if there ever was one.

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28 Mar 00 - 02:23 PM (#202736)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Bert

It's not just 'the condition' or 'depression', it's a particular culture's expression of those things. All cultures have 'the condition' and 'depression' but express them very differently. English Music Hall, from much the same era, dealt with the same emotions but expressed them with humour and satire. The stories in the songs 'Never let your Donah go upon the stage' and 'It's a great big shame' would have been handled quite differently by blues singers.

Perhaps the reason I don't (read can't here) sing the blues is because I was raised in London with it's singing heritage rooted in Music Hall and Parlour Songs. I just don't FEEL that way.

Bert.

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28 Mar 00 - 02:34 PM (#202742)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Steve Latimer

Does anyone else feel that there is a very close connection between blues and Bluegrass? I find they often deal with the same subject matter and some songs cross over (Sitting On Top Of The World springs to mind). I love both styles of music.

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28 Mar 00 - 02:39 PM (#202744)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Fortunato

whistlestop. You're right. The zen approach is no panacea. In the company of folks who emphasize form I put forward experential learning. I would as willingly emphasize form where needed. How else could we have so much fun talking about it? My true feeling is we must indeed beware of mistaking, as someone quoted John Lennon as saying, the diagram for the chair. Life brings us the emotional content, and the blues brings us the musical framework to express it's experiences in an unparalleled way. I love 'em.

Regards, Fortunato

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28 Mar 00 - 02:49 PM (#202755)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop

Well said, Fortunato. I didn't want to neglect the content by focusing on the form; both are essential elements.

Steve, I absolutely agree that bluegrass is closely connected to the blues. People tend to recognize that jazz has blues roots, and that rock'n'roll has blues roots, but I think a lot of folks don't recognize the influence the blues has had on other musics -- including bluegrass, and really on a lot of country music.

One thing that's great about all the cross-pollenation that has gone on between "white" musics and "black" musics over the years is that it has fostered respect and understanding among the people making the music -- who otherwise might not have had a way to relate to one another. And, as the music has been disseminated from musicians to audiences, so has some of the respect and understanding. The process isn't complete, or course, but I think the blending of musical forms has been a tremendous force for social good (on top of the intrinsic value of the music itself, of course).

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28 Mar 00 - 03:05 PM (#202770)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Steve Latimer

Whistle Stop, I forgot about the connection. Apparently Hank Williams learned to play from a black street musician, Willie Nelson is heavily influenced by Texas Blues and Old George Jones sure had the blues feel.

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28 Mar 00 - 04:51 PM (#202830)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: northfolk/al cholger

You've got to suffer, if you want to sing the blues... it could be argued (maybe it already has) that blues is a traditional music that evolved out of a shared experience specific to the Afro-American community... I've heard it said that the blues may not have been born in East St. Louis, Illinois...but that is where her mother got pregnant... tough people, tough places, tough times, a faustian bargain...pretty quick you got some blues.

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28 Mar 00 - 08:51 PM (#202979)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,Keb Mo

I, am the Blues.

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28 Mar 00 - 09:37 PM (#202998)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Caitrin

*L* TTCM, that's hilarious! (It almost makes me want to change my name to Blind Kiwi Jefferson.)

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29 Mar 00 - 02:36 AM (#203096)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Lady McMoo

Excellent TTCM!

mcmoo

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29 Mar 00 - 03:31 AM (#203110)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: bseed(charleskratz)

TTCM's posting has appeared in the Mudcat at least twice--I believe I was the first to post it, but it wasn't original with me, either. I got it from one of the people I play music with regularly, a couple of years ago. (speaking of TTCM, if he waddles and quacks, he's a duck)

About a year ago I started a thread wondering about the African origins of the blues, specifically about the classic 12 bar structure and the poetic structure, and it seemed to disappear about the time I had my first major hard drive crash and was off line for a while--it never seemed to go in the direction I was hoping: has any African ethnomusicologist found purely African origins for the harmonic and poetic structures we know of as the blues?

Another thing: whistlestop is right regarding the major/minor aspect of blues: while the rhythm instruments are playing major chords and dominant seventh chords, the lead instrument--guitar, voice, harmonica, trumpet, sax, whatever, or right hand over rhythm left hand on the piano--is playing minor runs. The lead figures for blues on guitar are minor: when the rhythm guitarist plays E-A7-E-E7-A7-A7-E-E-B7-A7-E-B7, the lead guitarist is working on runs built on the Eminor scale--or a pentatonic or hexatonic version of it. Of course, the flatted seventh of the IV7 chord (A7 in E) is the flatted third of the key scale, that is, the note that makes a scale minor.

Still one more thing: while blues and bluegrass share a lot, there is one place where they intersect little--bluegrass, like most music based on European traditions, is essentially well-tempered. Bent notes, Scruggs/Keith tuners aside, are not a major part of the bluegrass sound. But blues without choked guitar strings, bent harmonica reeds, voices slurring from one note to another, just ain't the blues.

--seed

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29 Mar 00 - 08:11 AM (#203145)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,Neil Lowe

--seed,

Your post made one of those little "Aha" lights go off in my head.

Your quote "...the flatted seventh of the IV7 chord (A7 in E) is the flatted third of the key scale, that is, the note that makes a scale minor..." provided a somewhat unrelated bridge to something I had puzzled over.

Some months ago I was working out the rhythm parts to a few Robert Cray tunes from "Some Rainy Morning." And I'm noticing more than a smattering of minor chords in his songs. Now I know that minor chords in blues are not unheard of, but it was more of a departure than I'm accustomed to, as I normally work out in that I-IV7-V7 pattern to which you alluded. It sounds like blues to my ear, but with all these minor chords I'm playing I'm thinking, Damn, this ought to sound more like folk. *BG*

Your comments above dovetailed with my random observations to provide me a coherent explanation of why the minor chords fit so well within the blues structure. That was better than finding a few crumpled dollars in my blue jeans survived the laundry. Thank you.

BTW, M.Ted says when I'm playing a pentatonic scale I only think I'm playing a pentatonic scale. I'm afraid to ask. But you, with your vast knowledge(ahem)and(ahem) adept skills at explaining things so that music theory challenged individuals,(cough,cough)such as myself (hint,hint)....

Regards, Neil (who can kiss up with the best of them when it serves his purposes)

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29 Mar 00 - 01:05 PM (#203333)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: The Shambles

More words of wisdom on the subject can be found here real blues

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29 Mar 00 - 01:45 PM (#203361)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Jim Krause

De blooze ain' nothin' but a good man feelin' bad C7, F, F#dim, C, G7

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29 Mar 00 - 03:25 PM (#203413)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,bseed(charleskratz)

a couple of other notes: the IV7 chord is perhaps the most important in changing a folk harmony into a blues harmony (mentioned in my post above as A7 in E). I7 and V7 are also important, but both are freely used in other folk--and pop--forms without providing a bluesy sound.

There are also some classic blues turnarounds, like /I-I7-IV-IVminor/I-V7- - / and /I-IIdim-IIbdim/Idim/I-V7- - /.

-seed

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29 Mar 00 - 04:37 PM (#203445)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Larry Boy

I'm new here in the Cafe. So be gentle with me. By way of intro, I'm a harmonica player, primarily Blues and Jazz. I'm also a student of its history, a collector of early, vintage free reed instruments, as well as an educator. (Not that I give lessons on how to play, rather as a speaker/player at children's venues. I'm always trying to stretch the harp into different musical forms, zydeco, classical, etc. This 'What is Blues' thread is a lot to bite off. First I'd share my observations about a few of the earlier posts. I haven't read them all, some of my opinions may be redundant.

I agree that blues as a musical form is easily recognizable. Technically, one can identify the flatted notes in a blues scale and viola, its the blues.

Do disputes and definitions that divide folk music not exist with the blues? Au Contrair (sp?) witness a subscription to Blues-L, a List Service where only blues is discussed ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The hair splitting of what is, or is not blues, is like splitting an atom, and just as explosive. Difficulties arise where "true blues" overlap with other forms such as jazz, country, rock, and pop.

Is Blues Folk music? I think so, certainly in its origin. I think folk music is music of the people, until it becomes music of 'the industry'. To me folk music is when people decide what they want to play or listen to. Folk (and Blues and everything else) loses its vitality when the industry decides what will be played and listened to.

Caitrin............You nailed it. Blues has more to do with the feeling that inspired the music, and the feeling it leaves the listener with than with any specifics.

Who is to say that every "country" song about unrequited love is not blues. It may not meet the technical requiremnets of certain flatted notes, but the feeling is exactly the same.

Many posters, question whether we are talking about the musical form or the emotion involved. I'm not sure you can separate the two. Either one qualifies as blues.

Well that's it for my first official post. (I sent one earlier as a guest)

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31 Mar 00 - 11:13 AM (#204544)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: M. Ted (inactive)

Neil,

You sure know how to kiss up, and for that, you will get what you wanted!!

First, before I start, I am going to give my example in the Key of C, though it is not the most common Blues key, because it has no sharps or flats, so it is easier to see what is happening--

At first glance, it seems like a no brainer--you are playing a pentatonic scale, because you are jamming away on a scale that includes nothing but C-Eb-F-G-Bb (C)--the only thing is that you are playing this over a C chord, which has an E in it, which makes six notes, not five--and, when you think about it, you occasionally drop the E into the lead--

And, before you decide to just fudge and say you are alternating between two pentatonic scales--remember that you are also playing over an F chord and a G7, which include all the other notes in the diatonic scale, even the B which you thought you had replaced with a Bb--

So, instead of using a five notes, you are using, at minimum, the C diatonic scale, C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, plus Eb and Bb, giving you a nine note scale!!!!

And there is another note that you could stick in if you want a really hip, Delta sound--the flatted fifth or raised fourth(I have never figured out which one it really is)--

Anyway, this is what makes the blues so cool--you can play what seems to be a very simple part-but the music is polyrhythmic and polyphonic and all these simple piece interweave to make something very intricate--

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31 Mar 00 - 11:30 AM (#204559)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,Neil Lowe

M.Ted...

As usual, you deliver the goods -- in spades. Thanks. Have a bluesy weekend (I mean that in the best possible way)...

Regards, Neil

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31 Mar 00 - 12:26 PM (#204596)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: M. Ted (inactive)

I am glad that you think so highly of my explanations, such as they are--now you've got me in a "blues frame of mind"--not so good because I a trying to write something Latin concerning Elian Gonzales--though when you think about it, the Blues and salsa can be very close--*if* get the groove!! Maybe I will try writing "coplas"!!

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31 Mar 00 - 01:32 PM (#204624)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: The Shambles

A very warm welcome to Larry Boy. Look forward to hearing more from you. Thank you for answering the question about disputes and definitions on blues discussion groups.

I don't think that was not the answer I wanted to hear though.

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31 Mar 00 - 02:10 PM (#204652)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Steve Latimer

Another welcome to Larry Boy. Looking forward to hearing more from you.

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31 Mar 00 - 04:25 PM (#204746)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: The Shambles

Larry Boy, I hope you make more sense than my last post, which should have read: "I don't think that was the answer I wanted to hear though".

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19 Jan 03 - 01:20 AM (#869758)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Marion

I've been listening recently to Rev. Gary Davis, who I thought was a bluesman, but some of his stuff (Hesitation Blues, Right Now, I Didn't Want to Join the Band) sound more ragtimey/Travis-picky than bluesy to me.

Do you (gentle readers who know the songs I mean and are into blues) consider these to be blues songs? Are ragtime and blues more closely linked than I thought - or did Rev. Davis just happen to go back and forth between them?

Another song I'm wondering about is Merle Travis' "Re-enlistment Blues". I'm not surprised that it sounds Travis-picky, but again it sounds more country than blues to me (although it does have a 12-bar progression, if not other blues conventions). Do you think it's called a blues because of the subject matter rather than the musical elements?

M.Ted posted above:

" The blue note, or notes, (because there are several tasty little intervals that you can bend) open up a different world when you understand the simple tricks that dictate the way they are used--

And of course, the blues bass figures, which seem to have re-defined all of popular music-- "

By "blues bass figures", you mean alternating between a major and sixth chord, or between a major and sixth and seventh chord, right?

And just how simple are these blue note tricks?

Cough cough ahem ahem hint hint,

Marion

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29 Dec 04 - 10:05 PM (#1367261)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Azizi

Greetings!
I found this fascinating discussion about the blues while wandering through old Mudcat threads.

After reading this thread I am even more convinced that middle schools, high schools, and university educators are missing out on a tremendous learning opportunity if they do not consider Internet posts as literary products and if they do not incorporate into their curriculums course materials on "the art of blogging". It seems to me that posts from Internet discussion forums such as Mudcat should be used as resource material for such classes as English, Music, Sociology, and History and more. In these classes students could be encouraged to consider the insights and information given by various posters, as well as the way the posters write.

Quite a vew of the posts in this thread are proof of the fact that it's not just what you say but the way you say it. For example, on March 29, 2000, northfolk/al cholger wrote:

" I've heard it said that the blues may not have been born in East St. Louis, Illinois...but that is where her mother got pregnant"...

And on that same day we find the wonderfully tongue-in cheek definition of blues that was submitted by TTCM [and previously by another poster?].

Posts like these deserve to be studied. Discussions like these deserve to be discussed.
---

That being said, my purpose for writing here [besides a desire to
re-introduce a thread on the subject of blues] is to respond to bseed's question posed on March 29, 2000:

"...has any African ethnomusicologist found purely African origins for the harmonic and poetic structures we know of as the blues?"

I have just had the pleasure of reading Samuel Charters' book
"The Roots Of The Blues, An African Search" {Boston, Marion Boyars Publishers, 1981}. Charters' book is about his experiences with the jalis {griots} of The Gambia, West Africa. Here is a brief excerpt from the back cover:

"This book details and analyzes the meeting between a Westerner and a thriving culture new to him. It reveals Charters' remarkable analytical talent in discussing African folk music and its relationship with American blues...His extensive quotations of lyrics from songs and wonderful photographs of the musicians make this a unique contibution to our understanding if a culture and its music."

end of quote

There is probably a lot of information on the Internet on this topic, but [in addition to those resources] I highly recommend this book for those who still like to do some things the old fashioned way...

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02 Sep 09 - 11:11 AM (#2714584)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: TinDor

Marion wrote:

"I've been listening recently to Rev. Gary Davis, who I thought was a bluesman, but some of his stuff (Hesitation Blues, Right Now, I Didn't Want to Join the Band) sound more ragtimey/Travis-picky than bluesy to me.

Do you (gentle readers who know the songs I mean and are into blues) consider these to be blues songs? Are ragtime and blues more closely linked than I thought - or did Rev. Davis just happen to go back and forth between them?"




Yeah, it's "East Coast BLues" or "Ragtime Blues". I consider it Blues because that's what it is. Infact, I would group acoustic Blues into 3 types that most are familiar with in this fashion....



Delta = riffs like the type you get in Rock music (Led Zeppelin, Cream, Black Sabbath, Hendrix etc..). "Dark" or "Sad" sounding

Mississippi Hill Country = hypnotic/trance like/chugging

East Coast = fingerpicking with a "happy" sound

.
.
.




Marion write:

"Another song I'm wondering about is Merle Travis' "Re-enlistment Blues". I'm not surprised that it sounds Travis-picky, but again it sounds more country than blues to me (although it does have a 12-bar progression, if not other blues conventions). Do you think it's called a blues because of the subject matter rather than the musical elements?"

That could just me the name of the song more than it relating to any specific genre of music (Blues in this case) although (someone can correct me if Im wrong), the Merle Travis/ModernCountry finger pickers seem to have picked up the fingerpicking styles from Blues players with the "East Coast" sound.

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02 Sep 09 - 02:53 PM (#2714792)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Richie

Hi,

Blues bass figures usual refer to a boogie pattern: 1 3 5 6 b7

There are also minor patterns. There are literally hundreds of differnt bass patterns.

Blues notes or blue notes refer to the chromatic noted in the scale usually the b3 or b5 but any note that lead to a chord tone can be a blue note.

There are 12 bar, 16 bar and 8 bar patterns and even some irregular patterns. Robert Johnson and many older blues players used irregular measures and patterns.

A "blues" song could be anything really. The white blues from the mountains refers to songs by artists like Dock Boggs and has nothing to do with 12 bar blues.

Richie

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02 Sep 09 - 03:59 PM (#2714864)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: olddude

One of my friends told me once and I thought it was a good one
"The blues is just a good man or woman feeling bad in song"

I liked that actually

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02 Sep 09 - 04:45 PM (#2714907)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos

The blues is JUST like being able to afford a yacht. If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand....


A

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02 Sep 09 - 04:46 PM (#2714909)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Folknacious

In recent years it has become quite fashionable to refer to musics from other cultures that carry the same feeling/ content/ origins as blues as "the xxxx blues". So what Ali Farke Toure plays is called "desert blues", and rembetika from Greece is called "the Greek blues" and portuguese fado is "Portuguese blues". Is this just journalists etc being lazy, everything getting cuturally American-centric, or does it make real sense?

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02 Sep 09 - 05:22 PM (#2714937)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego

One old cornet player I met years ago said, "If you have to ask what they are, you likely don't have them." That's good enough for me. I recall another musician who once identified disco music as "rhythm and blues for people who have neither."

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02 Sep 09 - 08:07 PM (#2715049)
Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: TinDor

Richie wrote:

"A "blues" song could be anything really. The white blues from the mountains refers to songs by artists like Dock Boggs and has nothing to do with 12 bar blues"

What they call "white mountain blues" is/was basically white countryish musicians that were influenced from blues and other black venacular music colorings more than the actual structure "12 bar blues". Frank Hutchison, Doc Boggs,Riley Puckett, Jimmie Rodgers etc..



.
.
.
.
.

Folknacious wrote:

"In recent years it has become quite fashionable to refer to musics from other cultures that carry the same feeling/ content/ origins as blues as "the xxxx blues". So what Ali Farke Toure plays is called "desert blues", and rembetika from Greece is called "the Greek blues" and portuguese fado is "Portuguese blues". Is this just journalists etc being lazy, everything getting cuturally American-centric, or does it make real sense?"


I think there is an obvious link between the music of the Sahel/Griot Africa, which is what is often refered to as "Desert BLues". I remember reading an interview where Ali Fourka Toure said that when he first heard John Lee Hooker, he thought it was music from Mali and wondered where Hooker got this music from.

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