As far a I'm concerned the blues is still a living music form. It's up to musicians to stretch its limits. This tune uses the third position concept of min6 chord but applies it to the changes and uses min7 chords. This is a very minor blues with a Latin feel and strings. It draws from Jazz also with solos on the changes.
This tune is a straight blues but borrows from the George Martin Beatles vibe.
@jinx are you a player or just like to hang here? You have strong opinions but I have no idea were your coming from.
The first tune was described by my friend Buddy Rizzo as beautiful and haunting. Buddy is a studio player in LA having played guitar on the Jackson's victory tour and with Sergio Mendez. He has tons of studio credits. He's also Michael Sembelos cousin. He doesn't give out complements easily. ----------
Good stuff.. Love how you did it. Very interesting.. although maybe not something we would sing in the shower..
I like that you are exploring different sound and chord structures...
Pretty interesting, although I can see that it might not be suited for the 12 bars and a head shake crowd ---------- Greg Jones 16:23 Custom Harmonicas greg@1623customharmonicas.com 1623customharmonicas.com
I like the music for what it is. It reminds me of stuff a friend of mine composes for Brasilian TV.
Of course we could get into " labeling" the type of music. But I would not call this blues
I also dont believe that blues needs to be stretched outside its form. Music can use elements of the blues and create new things but its not blues per se. Maybe blues influenced is a better term
You can use elements of haiku or sonnets to stretch boundries but if you add lines or syllables you went outside the definition .
If blue notes are used anything can claim kinship to the blues but it doesnt mean it is blues anymore than a song like Del Shannons Runaway is Flamenco because it uses a Flamenco chord progression.
Again - I really like your pieces here
I lived for years several blocks from Frank Rizzo near St Monica church--I have no idea who Buddy Rizzo is
I really like these peices. I don't care what you call it. This is an acomplished player, playing music with a harmonica. Both peices would go over very well at the open mic I attend. I don't understand why we restrict our instrument to blues. Harmonica can do so much more and Diggs is out there doing it. Thanks Diggs... Beautifull...BN
@Barley Nectar Appreciate your thoughts. Working in radio, I've had the opportunity to interview hundreds or perhaps thousands of people, and when I ask anyone the question, "What type of music do you like?", inevitably the answer will always be, "I like a little of everything...except..." And the exception will usually fall into one of a few categories: rap, hip-hop, country, classical. Blues are great, after all look at all of the musicians names who come up regularly in this forum who not only have a love for the genre, but also have made a living with it. But there is more to music, and to the harp than just 12 bars. I realize that there are a number of members who will get very defensive and say, "Hey! This is a Blues Harp Forum!" But look at all of the recent postings about favorite gigs that couldn't be technically classified as "blues." There really isn't any need for us to compare harp and sax anymore than comparing a grand piano with an elementary student's recorder. They are two different instruments and each has its place. Heck, look at the Blue Man Group playing PVC pipes...maybe someone will say that bores them too, but if you're honest about it, you'll probably say you find it intriguing. Just imagine if Les Paul had been a purist who only believed in playing classical acoustic...what would have ever happened to rock? And, by the way, for those who didn't realize it, Adam also has a country harp forum.
Not to piggyback on your thread, but it reminded me a little of something I did a few years back, with chromatic harmonica and orchestral instruments (harmonica unison at 2:20):
Okay, JInx's vague comments have forced me to clarify a thought I've been working on for a while. I've been trying to figure out what it is I have against specific sorts of jazz, and I have a hard time defining it. I guess it's what I imagine myself doing when I would be listening to it. With blues, I think I'd be getting over a heartbreak, wallowing in sorrow, which oddly, in my brain is a positive thing. Hard rock I'd be thrashing in a club or barreling down the highway with the music blaring. That to me seems cool. In that scenario I'm doing something cool. With most jazz all I can think is that I'd be maybe tapping my toes but wearing stuffy clothes. And so much of it doesn't have a sharp hook. Sometimes I need something slow to calm my mind, but often find just going to bed is more effective.
Now, these two pieces- I'm wearing stuffy clothes, but it's a ruse, because I've got my black burglars suit on underneath them and I'm about to step out of the party and steal a priceless diamond. That would definitely be cool (at least as a fantasy).
I think music has to evoke a response in your brain that takes you to a place where you feel like it belongs to someone you want to be. Right now I have a bit of a problem listening to 80s rock. 90s rock, no problem. 90s rock reminds me of when I was just heading out into the world, staying up late, exploring the world. 80s rock was the soundtrack of my youth. I start remembering which songs were on the top 40 right around when I was in 5th grade. In my brain, that makes them sort of cotton candyish, kids stuff. It's not fair to the decade, but that's how I associate with them. I still tap my toe to them, but I haven't sorted through them all in my brain to figure out what I liked because I was a dumb kid and what I liked because it was actually good.
Slow jazz, at least large swaths of it, (and I know this is unfair) makes my brain think of middle aged guys trying to hold onto their youth, but not middle aged guys like me, middle aged guys like my dad was when he was my age. To me, that's not escapism- that's like staring down a bleak future and trying not to blink (to be fair, I have no indication, other than the messy divorce with my mother that my dad wasn't enjoying that portion of his life, but I guess I was at the stage where parents weren't cool.)
Blingty, that also has the sound of some high intrigue going on, although it's less spritey and darker. I think maybe yours belongs in a spy chace where our hero is trying to avoid someone in an exotic marketplace!
Maybe we need a sub-genre of 'albums for movie that don't actually exist'. That could be a pretty fun marketing hook. :)
I liked them both (OP), particularly the call and response interplay between the harp and strings. Very nice composing, arranging and playing!
I'd like to hear them with a fatter bass though, maybe an upright acoustic with slaps and squeek's for effect or a fatter one like in this:
re: Genre and Tagging
I wouldn't call these blues at all. The only thing in common with the blues is harmonica, but you could have a guitar in it as well and it would mean just as much.
As someone who also experiments a lot with blues cross genre mashups (and usually finds the branch breaks after climbing out too far) I partly agree with Goldbrick.
ie: Goldbrick "If blue notes are used anything can claim kinship to the blues but it doesnt mean it is blues anymore than a song like Del Shannons Runaway is Flamenco because it uses a Flamenco chord progression."
I'm not really hearing much blues, it's closer to what harpdude/goldbrick says ie: "The first one reminds me of a cross between spaghetti western music and jazz. Jazz on the second one too." to my ears.
World music more than blues. Lots of minor music in roots/worlds genres. Modern Harmonica, but not Modern Blues Harmonica.
Is that such a bad thing?
Barley also nails it "I don't understand why we restrict our instrument to blues. Harmonica can do so much more and Diggs is out there doing it."
As to what defines the blues for new forms of blues?
Goldbrick is getting there with "I also dont believe that blues needs to be stretched outside its form. Music can use elements of the blues and create new things but its not blues per se. Maybe blues influenced is a better term"
Nacoran also makes a great point about what associations are immediately triggered upon hearing a song as a guide to what you might tag it. Granted that depends on your musical history *waves at iceman rolling his eyes* but if you do have a wide range then it may not trigger blues at all.
I tend to call my mash ups (bluestronica, blues reggae, grunge blues) blues influenced rather than pure blues or new blues per se. I don't see anything wrong with that if there is some immediately identifiable blues element that stands out. ie: The blues form (8/12/16 bar or 1 chord vamp) with different instrumentation, a different groove with readily identifiable guitar or harp blues lines and tone or vocals or ?
Slo Leak did this pretty well imo.
But most of all trying to impart emotion. That above all is the essence of the blues (and a lot of world music "blues" like flamenco, fado, gypsy etc)
Like in this from Ali Farka Toure tune with UK Harp Player Little George Sueref (from album Savane)
ps: I'd apply what I wrote above to Blingty's track as well Reminds of Man From Uncle darting around backstreets in Prague
Yeah, mine isn't blues at all - just Diggs' piece reminded me of my own one a little - I hope I didn't come across as trying to steal Diggs' thunder by posting my own. I always like him for his arrangements and his playing.
Nate, you're exactly right... probably the flat 9 chord (that chord can imply phrygian) and that along with the frame drums (probably a Tar, from North Africa) go some way towards what you're describing.
Overall, I liked the piece... it was a product of its time in one way (2008) - I was not completely happy with the very straight harmonica on my own one there but it had to match the string melody which was pretty straight. I've played a lot more chromatic harmonica since so I'd like to think I'd do it differently but I won't go back now...
Jazz players have a long standing and annoying habit of noodling blues forms and calling them "The Blues".
I love Coltrane, Davis and the rest but I wouldn't even consider most of their so called "Blues" tunes as BLUES at all. Musically they are generally outstanding but emotionally they have 0 per cent blues.
I'm all for mashing up genres and pushing boundaries, but that has always annoyed me about Jazz players claiming something is "A Blues".
I know other people might disagree with this heretical music view, especially if they worship at the alter of [insert name player here who can do no wrong], so I'll just agree to disagree on that without getting into a flame war!
"I love Coltrane, Davis and the rest but I wouldn't even consider most of their so called "Blues" tunes as BLUES at all. Musically they are generally outstanding but emotionally they have 0 per cent blues."
Huh??? Isn't emotional response subjective? I certainly don't find EQUINOX, AFROBLUE, ALL BLUES, or FREDDIE FREELOADER to lack emotional content. and, btw, each of those tunes are playable on diatonic.
Just because they're playable on a diatonic doesn't make them blues. They can also be played on guitar, or piano and that doesn't make them blues either.
Also just because something is played in minor key doesn't automatically make it "A Blues", even though it has that sad minor flavor.
Sure, emotional response is subjective and there is an emotional response to them...I just don't get a BLUES emotional response from them (generally speaking).
Which to me is what really defines the blues. It's inherently not a complex music form or about showing technical chops.
I did not mean to suggest that minor key or play-ability on a diatonic are definitional characteristics of blues.
Most musicians I work with would describe the SWEET CHILD OF MINE arrangement as "second line" which is another term for New Orleans style. Is Herbie Handcock's CHAMELEON a blues?
Komuso I think what jazz musicians call these tunes is "a blues" as opposed "the blues".
It is abbreviated form of "a blues progression" in their vocabulary reference is made to a blues chord progression that follows I,IV,V of a scale of chords.
Most of their progressions are non-blues and follow the ii V I as the tunes modulates through the circle of 5ths.
This is probably right up Kuds' expertise in his day job, but I am thinking the terms "a blues" and "the blues" have slightly different meanings.
Either way, the reference to their "annoying habit" is 100% correct.. it does grate on me when I hear the phrase..
---------- Greg Jones 16:23 Custom Harmonicas greg@1623customharmonicas.com 1623customharmonicas.com
How about PURPLE RAIN (the Prince tune)? Is that a blues? It's a I, IV, V progression. But the solos are essentially major pentatonic.
Last Edited by hvyj on Mar 25, 2015 7:55 PM
There's an amazing amount of truly excellent music offered up in this thread. Also a surprising and disappointing degree of spiritual constriction revolving around what some people mistakenly feel to be a clear line between blues and jazz.
Those are just words. They don't have any ontological reality. They're marketing categories. They certainly didn't mean anything to people like Robert Johnson, B. B. King, and Bessie Smith. (B. B. King insists in his autobiography that he's a rhythm and blues musician, not a blues musician. But Django Reinhardt and Arthur Godfrey were two of his chief influences.)
They're marketing categories, guys. What was Nat King Cole? Was he a blues artist or a jazz artist? What was Dinah Washington? Johnny Shines insisted that RJ was "a polka hound." A polka hound? And that's from the guy who spent more time with him on the road, arguably, than any other guitarist.
Please don't let marketing categories determine the "heartfelt" judgment that you make about good music.
Blues is whatever you want it to be. But it's almost certainly not what you insist that it be. It's always more than that.
Bobbie Gentry singing that song feels like blues to me. But that's surely because I played that song a thousand times, literally, as Mr. Satan's sideman. HE thought it was blues. I mean music. He didn't use labels like that.
Amen! ---------- "You can't just copy somebody. If you like someone's work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to."
This I agree with, on a high level: "Blues is whatever you want it to be. But it's almost certainly not what you insist that it be. It's always more than that."
but this I can't: "Those are just words. They don't have any ontological reality. They're marketing categories."
But they do have reality, and they are far more than marketing categories (though that has been a major purpose as well). Music is a cultural product first, and has defining characteristics that are used to differentiate it from other styles. The brain is a patterning machine and we need grouping and segmentation to make signal from noise. I hate that oft used phrase "perception is reality" but it holds a large degree of truth at time.
GMaj7's point about chord progressions re: my blues annoyance is an excellent example.
There's a reddit thread on this, from which I quote this bit: "Genres serve an obvious purpose of grouping things together based on common elements. Yeah labels can get uselessly general or hopelessly nebulous or bizarrely specific, but I think those are issues of poor application rather than being a fundamental problem with labels... and even if it is a fundamental problem I still think labels help more than they hurt." Labels or Genres often seem irrelevant
Being a newbie here I don't want to tread on anybody's toes. Though I had trouble making it to the end of the two pieces that started the topic by Diggsblues I just wanted to say the Mozart one the other day (on a different thread) was very enjoyable and one of the main reasons I joined the forums. thanks
Last Edited by Spderyak on Mar 26, 2015 6:31 AM
My favorite horn player and one of the three giants (Coltrane, Gilmore and Von) of the post modern tenor sax, the late great Von Freeman. Post bop modern jazz meets the blues--if this doesn't grab you then I feel sorry for you:
I dig Sun Ra--very strange dude I lived near him on Germantown ave in the 70's. He had the whole band crashing in the same house- they used to play all over often opening for rock bands and freaking out the audience with Ra's intergalactic stories
Jimmy Bruno going thru blues motions-technically super- but I dont feel it and I dont think he did either
this guy is one of my favorites for incorporating blues into jazz
and an awesome jazz/blues guitarist here who CAN feel it
Adam, I don't think people are putting a label on it, at least in this thread, to exclude certain styles from a playlist. I think, and I know this is what I'm after, we are looking to find and quantify elements of music so we can use it as a common language.
At my level of music theory I can understand the blues scale and 12 bar, but I have a really hard time describing why Digg's piece doesn't sound 'bluesy' to my ear. (Keeping in mind that I still always enjoy his stuff).
There is something in my brain, some rubric that my brain is using to identify blues, but it's a subconscious rubric. I've got a couple guitar players I play with occasionally. One is a much better all around musician, but the other one, when I ask him to play something bluesy, comes up with something much closer to what I am thinking of in my head. That's fine. A lot of the time what the better player comes up with is great and we go with his idea. That's part of collaborating on songwriting, but there are other times when I've already got the idea in my head of what it should sound like and I can't explain to him what I mean by 'bluesy'.
For that purpose, I think it's worth defining 'blues' or at least defining the different sounds that make it up.
-on a side note, we seem to have two or three threads going on basically the same topic. It sure is making it hard to discuss it coherently. I wish we had a thread merge ability. Diggs, you started a couple of them. Which one do you think the discussion should continue on? ---------- Nate Facebook Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
@ nacoran re: your previous posts about instrumentation + tone being core of blues is true but I'd also add phrasing. All three combined with an emotional driver (anywhere along the sad-happy continuum) seems to have that's "blues feel" that distinctive. Though I'd also add tone is more important than instrumentation, as with modern technology the ability to generate and play new sounds extends old instruments and creates new ones with novel interface tech.
Maybe that's why the OP videos's don't work as blues for you? I think that's why for me. Musically they work, but I don't get a "blues feel" from them, even if that was Digg's intent.
I didn't get the splitting off to multiple thread thing (What is blues and blues emotion) as they are related as you point out.
@Diggsblues Nobody, least of all me, is saying you don't play emotionally or at a great level of musicianship or can't play blues (especially that). While your intent was to introduce a new form of blues (Cool Blues) I don't think you should be too upset if some people don't agree. I still think they are great musically, just call them something else. or don't! My blues influenced mashups are nowhere near your level of musicianship and would no doubt make 99.9% of MBH members scratch their ears off and run screaming from the room, but it doesn't bother me;-) I'll just keep hacking away at it.
re: examples above All great music, some work for me emotionally blues wise, some not
hmm interesting thread .. being kind of old school , adhere to the song/saying Muddy brought to us ..
The Blues had a Baby and They Named it Rock and Roll
When "boundaries get stretched" too far , for me the music changes genre .. it changes shape ...
folks call allot of music these days 'Blues' .. I just can't buy into that, which is, what they are trying to sell , if , the music .. 'doesn't make sense' to my ears, heart, body and soul ...
Cool Blues , although it is a very cool name ... the music posted by Diggs doesn't make sense to me.. as Blues .. it is pretty music , it's nice to listen to ... it's just not 'Blues' music ..... imo ..
Last Edited by mastercaster on Mar 27, 2015 5:03 AM
Thanks everybody who participated in this lively conversation.
If I was to analyze the tunes this Is what I would see. They both use the 12 bars form. They both use the I IV V though one uses minor chords but you still get the root movement. The melodies have b3 and b7 in them. The solo use the blues scale as well as other scales. The grooves are not foreign to blues.
I can't help but wonder what the masters would comment after listening to Diggs music ? Would they be open to stretching the boundaries and still classifying those tunes as blues ? Does it matter ? We are in the year 2015 .. there has been allot of changes in life, world structure, society that are 100% modern ..
For me ,regardless of the songs 12 bar structure , chord progression , groove, I don't 'feel' the groove in these songs .. blues notes .. after listening again today ... they don't leave me Feeling the same as a blues tune ...
They sounds like jazzed up country ballad's ? Similar to Norton Buffalo's material , his older music .. I hear a few of his riff's as well ... meant to be a compliment ...still not the blues ....
Last Edited by mastercaster on Mar 27, 2015 7:38 PM
fwiw when I go far out on a limb from the "acceptable boundaries" I technically don't call my experiments "The Blues", they are closer to what GMaj7 says above as in " I am thinking the terms "a blues" and "the blues" have slightly different meanings."
I might use Blues somewhere in the title or description but that is more to indicate a blues influence, which to me is the emotional center I'm trying to draw from and the point I want to make, based on my white boy blues emulation style.
For example this track is called Deep House Blues with a bluestronica tag. Blues elements would be the ostinato type groove (I love the hill country trance blues style) with some blues influenced call and response, plus the feel behind the guitar licks (heavily effected) and maybe some harp licks (pardon the harp pig squeals and dodgy intonation! - I blame the harp rack - and bad technique!)
Would I call it "The Blues". No. But is it "a Blues"? Possibly, maybe. For me, yes, others probably no. Other people not into the blues probably couldn't care less. But how is that different from Blues Rock or Jazz Blues etc? They are not "The Blues" either, but blues influenced hybrids.
Or check this one from UK harp player harmonicagod I found on soundcloud (can't embed so you'll have to click link) Harmonica raga - Martin Fletcher solo Tagged as Indo-Blues and World among other things.
Very bluesy influence to me though, and an awesome piece of music to boot.
I don't think you can be too adamant about stamping your foot and saying "This IS Blues". It might be to you, but music is too subjective for that. The best you can hope for most times is to declare the influences and intent behind the composition, the interpretation is up to the listeners.
Personally I think the conversation would be more productive around hybrid blues as it removes the need to argue from a perspective that something is "The Blues" and is more about how much of a blues feel it has. It's a subtle distinction, but important.
Along the lines of what Mastercaster say re: "When "boundaries get stretched" too far , for me the music changes genre .. it changes shape ..." Goldbrick: " "I also dont believe that blues needs to be stretched outside its form. Music can use elements of the blues and create new things but its not blues per se. Maybe blues influenced is a better term"
Well said by Willie Dixon: That's the reason I always say about music, the blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. Without the roots, you have no fruits so it's better keeping the roots alive because it means better fruits from now on. I am the Blues: the Willie Dixon Story? (with Don Snowden, 1990), p. 4.
Plus don't forget Duke Ellington: "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind."
The roots are well solid and well established, and it's hard enough to play them even semi-authentically.
There's nothing wrong with being a fruit tree either though!
This same dialogue seems to be pervasive in every genre of music. Anyone remember the days when the juke box was limited to R&B, C&W, R&R, Jazz, Standards and Show Tunes?
Now we have a plethora of subsets in each category. When R&R had a baby called "Metal" there was just one title. Then along came all of the subsets: Death Metal, Thrash Metal, etc. C&W broke up into Classic Country, New Country, and who knows what else.
And the same holds true for both Jazz and Blues. Now we have a way to combine some forms by labeling them "Crossover." In each genre there are the "purists" who firmly believe that to receive a given categorical title, the music must follow a pre-designated structure, whether it be a 12-bar blues or a down beat accented reggae tune.
The purist country listener will readily tell you that what is called "country" today is nothing more than "pop." Even classical music forms vary from the symphonic, baroque and chamber music to the neo-classical sounds of artists like Bloomdahl.
Maybe when it comes to the blues we should just divide into two categories: if it follows the structure, it's "Pure Blues." And if it doesn't, perhaps all of the rest of the music debated above could be labeled as "Bluesy-Sounding."
