Montunoman, we will start here and build.
I have written many papers on this subject; you will find it exciting.
John C.
Let’s bass the study in the key of C major. We will use roman numbers for the steps of the scale.

C D E F G A B C
I II III IV V VI VII VIII

A basic Blues scale uses the C F G
CHORDS I IV V

MAJOR SCALE C D E F G A B C
BLUES SCALE C Eb F G Bb C

What is a blues note? It is a note which makes you uncomfortable, and when you get off it we go aaaaah.
Example: C chord being played C E G Blues note is Eb – it is against the harmony we understand.

C Minor chord: C Eb G
We are playing Minor against Major.
Blues chord progression:
C C C C F F C C
I I I I IV IV I I
G F C C
V IV I I

Chords in the key of G major are
G C D I IV V of the Major scale.
Enough for the first step.
John C.

PS, keep in mind that jazz is played --- Chord and single notes againct that chord. Change the chord and the impro notes must change.

Paul,

Check your mailbox.

Taike

Gracias amigo : )

The pleasure's all mine.

Thank you John for sharing your knowledge. I'll add two other blues scales:[/b]

Major Blues Scale 1, 2, b3, 3, 5, 6 ( like a major pentatonic with a b3, which resolves the major 3rd.

[b]Minor Blues Scale 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7 ( like a minor pentatonic with an added b5 or #4)

A good jazz/blues player knows how to weave in and out of these scales and even add more tones outside of the scale. Look at Charlie Parker's "Billies Bounce" for example.

A simplified explanation which has helped me, is to use the major blues scale on the " I" chord and minor blues scale on the IV chord. The V chord has lots of options but I tend to favor the minor.

A jazz/blues will have all sorts of turn around changes like
iii /VI on bar bar 8 or iii, VI , ii V on bar 11 and 12. the iii chord can be half diminished and the VI chord altered dominant ( #9 or b9, #5 or b5) which all contain notes from the minor blues scale.

For years I mainly used the minor blues over the whole 12 bar cycle but I am enjoying expanding beyond that.

Paul, I'm not an expert but I do tend to play more blues than most here, and by blues I'm including taking a blues(y) approach to tunes that may not necessarily be thought of as blues (ie. Standards, Pop, Rock, etc.). And of course, 'blues' comes in many forms, from the very primative (simplistic?) 'Mississippi Delta blues, to very sophisticated modern variations. There's (obviously ) a world of difference between B.B. King's 'The thrill is gone' and Monk's 'Round Midnight' but I consider them both 'blues'. But I digress. I don't want to get into what defines a particular song or playing style as 'blues', that would be way too subjective. But I think we would all agree that the one thing that all blues forms share is the ability to elicit strong emotions. Towards that end, I think that unless an artist has the ability to 'feel' and project those emotions outside of themselves, it will hard for them to give a convincing blues performance. Certain life experiences can make projecting these emotions (through music) either harder or easier. A look back at it's origins and at some of it's greatest players is a testament to that.

One thing that has not been stressed in this post is the importance of LISTENING. Blues is a case where the emotional is more important than the cerebral; where 'soul' outweighs technical skill or ability. LISTEN; listen intently to the (blues) artists that move you emotionally. Try to figure out WHY they move you like they do. See if you can incorporate those things into your own music and see if you can recreate the same kind of emotional response that they did. In the end, Blues is all about feeling. If you can feel it you can play it; conversely, if you don't or can't feel it, you will be hard pressed to produce a convincing blues performance. Chords are great, improv is great, feelings are great-er.

Just my .02 worth.

chas

I’m with Chas here. And, to be quite honest, the listening thing goes for just about any genre. You want to play great salsa, you listen to nothing but salsa for a few months, you are going to feel it and consequently play it much better. Want to play reggae? Same deal. Like bluegrass? Like zydeco? Like bigband?

A few month letting just about any genre seep into your soul, worm its way under your skin, and I guarantee you’ll play it better than any amount of study while you continue to listen to a potpourri of music genres. If you think about it, the people who you want to sound like mostly listened to just one genre. Worked out pretty well for them didn’t it?!

Two or three months of nothing but the blues, you ain’t gonna need no book! 😎🎹

I absolutely agree with Diki and Chas about listening to music that we want to perform. Music is an aural art form after all. Have you ever tried to learn a language just from a book? It doesn't work!

Books won't hurt though, they can help you learn things like grammar, syntax, form and analysis ( both in music and language)


Even though I am a somewhat proficient music reader, I try to learn everything by ear first. Sometimes I even transcribe the parts for later reference or analysis.

Just this morning while taking a walk I listened and scatted along with this Chalice Parker recording ( I didn't look at the notation) Later when I got home, I sat at the piano and SLOWLY picked out the head/melody- by ear. It helped that I knew the changes, and what notes logical "fit" over certain chords.

After several listens this song going to be stuck in my mind for a long time, which is a good thing!

So many great points, Chas. I am not any kind of expert musicologist, but I believe blues can be traced back to African slaves in the United States. Singing was a way for them express themselves, connect, and suffer together as a community.

The closest thing that can be found to the slaves songs are field recordings made by folklorist/musicologists in from the 1930's in Southern jails.

Here's a recording of "work" songs from a Mississippi prison during that time period. One can assume that most of the prisoners in this recording are sons and grandsons of slaves, so they may have actually learned these songs from former slaves.

Paul, it's great that these historic recordings were made and preserved. It's important to learn and observe the history of what has become so much of America's musical landscape (especially blues, jazz, gospel, afro-cuban, etc.). I'm guessing there is a pretty good catalog of these works in the Library of Congress.

Below is a clip I just keep going back to. Not blues, per se, but interesting nonetheless. The entire clip is very interesting and entertaining but if you can't listen to the entire clip (you really should, for context), at least listen to his magnificent solo starting at about 6:10.

chas

[video:youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNuQbJst4Lk&ab_channel=GaitherVEVO
[/video]

BTW, try to listen with headphones or good monitors, and also, what am I doing wrong that this clip doesn't show up in this post as a composite video? If you know what's wrong, please fix it. Thanks.