When most people hear "the blues", the first image that probably pops into their mind is a middle aged African American man plucking away at his acoustic guitar on a porch somewhere in Louisiana. While many of the genre's forefathers may have fit that mold, it is a restrictive and inaccurate view of a diverse and rich form of music that is the root for almost all modern music. Those that maintain this stereotypical view of the blues and assume it is "grandpa music" are missing out on a lot.

Since the electrification of the guitar shot it to the forefront of three and four piece bands, music entered an evolutionary time warp not unlike that the quantum leaps in science and technology occurring at the same time.

Some of the pioneers during the 50's were B.B. King, Albert King, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. Chuck Berry was among the first to take the blues and kick it up a notch, speeding up the tempo and creating many rock riffs and techniques that are standard vocabulary today.

By the 60's and 70's, the blues had traveled across the pond to Britain. Bands like Cream, the Who, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin all traced their roots back to the blues forefathers. Even Angus Young of AC/DC, considered metal by many(the band always maintains that they are a rock band, not metal) has a very bluesy style of playing.

By the 80's, "Blues-Rock" had become indistinguishable from "Hard Rock". It wasn't until artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan came along and took blues back to it's roots.

Some modern bands that have bluesy overtones include the Black Keys and the White Stripes.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

What are the Blues? Pt. 2

Now I will discuss some of the musical aspects that make the blues sound the way that they do.

Most music has a structure called a chord progression, that is, chords within the key that follow a certain pattern. The most widely used is called a I-IV-V (1,4,5) progression. For example, in th key of 'C':

C-I (root or tonic)
D-II
E-III
F-IV
G-V
A-VI
B-VII
C-VIII/I (root one octave higher

by counting off, F and G are the IV an V respectively. In the I-IV-V progression, the chords are C, F, and G. G is the last chord played and finishes or resolves the sequence and the progression will start over or end on the root chord (C in this case).

There are many different Chords out there, but called the "7" is most commonly used on the V chord of a progression. It is within the key signature of the key, and gives an extra bit of urgency in resolving the progression. Blues often use sevenths for the I, IV, and V, giving the blues their characteristic, edgier sound. slapping sevenths in all three chords goes outside the key signature and gives a more meloncholy undertone. Without going into every key, the seventh for F is E flat, which is the minor 3rd for C, the note that makes the chord a minor chord, or a "sad" chord. Normally this is E natural and makes the chord sound "happy". In addition, solos usually use the minor pentatonic (5 note scales) on top of this progression to further give a darker sound.
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3 comments:

  1. William B. KamfferMarch 2, 2011 at 9:21 AM

    Nicely put. Chords are at once incredibly complex and mathematical, and yet can be reduced to a deceptively simple description. I'm a bassist, and although I've never really tried my hand at blues tunes (being more of an indie rock fan), I can see perfectly what you're talking about with those sevenths. And i love minors! I do like to use both to vary the feel of the earlier chords in the progression, so perhaps I'm a little more bluesy than I realized....

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  2. Justin BrownMarch 2, 2011 at 7:38 PM

    Thanks! I started with some piano in grade school, but I didn't really get into music until I started w/ guitar. It's true that musical theory can't be reduced to one blog post, but I think any more would just go over most people's heads unless they play too.
    Did you start on bass or did you play anything before picking it up?

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  3. William B. KamfferMarch 13, 2011 at 4:12 PM

    I actually started on bass. I picked it up because I didn't want to live my life as a musical illiterate, but I also didn't have a lot of time to devote to learning something very complicated. The bass seemed like something I could get into quickly but that has layers of complexity that can be unlocked if/when I have the time to put in the effort. So far, I've not developed as far as I would have liked, but it's fun just to play around with scales and see what sorts of sounds you can make...

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