Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical context.
Origins and meaningEdit
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Like the blues in general, the blue notes can mean many things. One quality that they all have in common, however, is that they are lower than one would expect, classically speaking. But this flatness may take several forms. On the one hand, it may be a microtonal affair of a quarter-tone or so. Here one may speak of neutral intervals, neither major nor minor. On the other hand, the lowering may be by a full semitone—as it must be, of course, on keyboard instruments. It may involve a glide, either upward or downward. Again, this may be a microtonal, almost imperceptible affair, or it may be a slur between notes a semitone apart, so that there is actually not one blue note but two. A blue note may even be marked by a microtonal shake of a kind common in Oriental music. The degrees of the mode treated in this way are, in order of frequency, the third, seventh, fifth, and sixth.{{#if:p. 119Peter van der Merwe (1989)Origins of the Popular Style|{{#if:|}}
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries}}
{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}
The blue notes are usually said to be the lowered third, lowered fifth, and lowered seventh scale degrees.<ref name="Blue Notes">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> The lowered fifth is also known as the raised fourth.<ref name="Ferguson">Ferguson, Jim (1999). All Blues Soloing for Jazz Guitar: Scales, Licks, Concepts & Choruses, p. 20. Template:ISBN.</ref> Though the blues scale has "an inherent minor tonality, it is commonly 'forced' over major-key chord changes, resulting in a distinctively dissonant conflict of tonalities".<ref name="Ferguson" /> A similar conflict occurs between the notes of the minor scale and the minor blues scale, as heard in songs such as "Why Don't You Do Right?", "Happy" and "Sweet About Me".
In the case of the lowered third over the root (or the lowered seventh over the dominant), the resulting chord is a neutral mixed third chord.
Blue notes are used in many blues songs, in jazz, and in conventional popular songs with a "blue" feeling, such as Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather". Blue notes are also prevalent in English folk music.<ref>Lloyd, A. L. (1967). Folk Song in England, pp. 52–54. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Cited in Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Template:ISBN.</ref> Bent or "blue notes", called in Ireland "long notes", play a vital part in Irish music.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Theory and measurementEdit
Music theorists have long speculated that blue notes are intervals of just intonation<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":3">Kubik, G. (2008). Bourdon, blue notes, and pentatonicism in the blues: An Africanist perspective. In D. Evans (Ed.), Ramblin’ on my mind: New perspectives on the blues (pp. 11–48). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":5">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref> not derived from European 12-tone equal temperament tuning. Just intonation musical intervals derive directly from the harmonic series. Humans naturally learn the harmonic series as infants. This is essential for many auditory activities such as understanding speech (see formant) and perceiving tonal music.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the harmonic series, overtones of a fundamental tonic tone occur as integer multiples of the tonic frequency. It is therefore convenient to express musical intervals in this system as integer ratios (e.g. Template:Fraction = octave, Template:Frac = perfect fifth, etc.). The relationship between just and equal temperament tuning is conveniently expressed using the 12-tone equal temperament cents system. Just intonation is common in music of other cultures such as the 17-tone Arabic scale and the 22-tone Indian classical music scale.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In African cultures, just intonation scales are the norm rather than the exception.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As the blues appears to have derived from a cappella field hollers of African slaves, it would be expected that its notes would be of just intonation origin closely related to the musical scales of western Africa.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />
The blue "lowered third" has been speculated to be from Template:Frac (267 cents)<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> to 350 cents<ref name=":6" /> above the tonic tone. It has recently been found empirically to center at Template:Frac (316 cents, a minor third in just intonation, or a slightly sharp minor third in equal temperament) based on cluster analysis of a large number of blue notes from early blues recordings.<ref name=":8">Template:Cite journal</ref> This note is commonly slurred with a major third justly tuned at Template:Frac (386 cents)<ref name=":8" /> in what Temperley et al.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> refer to as a "neutral third". This bending or glide between the two tones is an essential characteristic of the blues.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" />
The blue "lowered fifth" has been found to be quite separate from the perfect fifth and clusters with the perfect fourth with which it is commonly slurred. This "raised fourth" is most commonly expressed at Template:Frac (583 cents).<ref name=":8" /> The eleventh harmonic (i.e. Template:Frac or 551 cents) as put forward by Kubik<ref name=":3" /> and Curry<ref name=":4" /> is also possible as it is in the middle of the slur between the perfect fourth at Template:Frac and Template:Frac.
The blue "lowered seventh" appears to have two common locations at Template:Frac (969 cents) and Template:Frac (1018 cents).<ref name=":8" /> Kubik<ref name=":3" /> and Curry<ref name=":4" /> proposed Template:Frac as it is commonly heard in the barbershop quartet harmonic seventh chord.<ref name=":9">Template:Cite book</ref> The barbershop quartet idiom also appears to have arisen from African American origins.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":9" /> It was a surprising finding that Template:Frac was a much more common tonal location although both were used in the blues, sometimes within the same song.<ref name=":8" />
It should not be surprising that blue notes are not represented accurately in the 12-tone equal temperament system, which is made up of a cycle of very slightly flattened perfect fifths (i.e. Template:Frac). The just intonation blue note intervals identified above all involve prime numbers not equally divisible by 2 or 3. Prime-number harmonics greater than 3 are all perceptually different from 12-tone equal temperament notes.
The blues has likely evolved as a fusion of an African just intonation scale with European 12-tone musical instruments and harmony.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":2" /> The result has been a uniquely American music which is still widely practiced in its original form and is at the foundation of another genre, American jazz.
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 46–52). Cited in Benward & Saker (2003), p. 39.
{{#invoke:Navbox|navbox}} Template:Jazz theory Template:Authority control