HarpNinja
2192 posts
Feb 22, 2012
10:55 AM
|
In terms of song structure, how much do you steal from blues. For example, things like riffs and song structure?
----------
Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
|
Joe_L
1748 posts
Feb 22, 2012
3:46 AM
|
All I play is Blues, so I guess the answer is, all the time.
----------
The Blues Photo Gallery
|
nacoran
5278 posts
Feb 22, 2012
12:45 PM
|
We only have a few songs that are straight 12-bar, but we use a lot of bluesy intervals and lyrical themes. We've got 3 songs about the devil, two about drinking, one about urban decay, one about being in the doghouse, one about fast cars, at least three off the top of my head with the word blues in them, a song about cheating and to top it off at least two about domestic abuse, one of which ends with a double homicide/murder. It's a wonder our audience doesn't kill themselves.
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
walterharp
822 posts
Feb 22, 2012
5:47 AM
|
sounds like you could be a country band as well nate...
|
billy_shines
108 posts
Feb 22, 2012
5:55 AM
|
according to an interview with this guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAcQPjkOkA&list=FLiK9snmbUVz58tpvhyhqamQ&index=78&feature=plpp_video
his family has been playing blues for nigerian kings for the last 250 years and its even possible blues was played in the courts of ancient egypt. how can you steal 3 chords? how can you be original if theres no new notes to invent? everything is gonna sound like something else in 3 million years.
|
nacoran
5279 posts
Feb 22, 2012
7:01 AM
|
Walter, perhaps... only one of them has a country sound to it, and it started out as sort of a country parody that worked too well as a regular song. We've had threads about white guys singing like black bluesmen, but what really drives me nuts is New Yorkers who sing like they're from Texas (unless, like me, they are doing it to be silly!) There is something different too, in how a blues player plays a slide guitar and a country player plays it. I love the way it sounds in blues and hate it in country.
I know there is a lot of personal bias in my tastes, but I always saw a parallel sort of like this-
Blues or Grunge= Real pain.
Country or Emo= Faked pain to get girls, not that there is anything wrong with that, I guess. :)
Also, country was to bluegrass what pop was to rock.
Mike's question does raise an interesting question about 'what is the blues format?' Is it the topics, the turns of phrase, the 12-Bars, I IV V? We've got some songs that definitely sound bluesy but are also structured very differently (Half the time I can't tell which part of my song is verse and which is chorus). I do like to use a lot of call and response, and near rhyme instead of hard rhymes. I also like to change just one or two words in a line from one part of the song to another to mess with the meaning, which I think I picked up from blues.
I also think I hear some big band sound in what we do. I've got a lot of harp lines that really sound more like horn lines than harp. I don't do nearly as much with chords as a lot of the other guys I hear on here.
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
lor
91 posts
Feb 22, 2012
9:28 AM
|
Yo billy_s
Such a groove, with a million waves to ride.
|
HarpNinja
2193 posts
Feb 22, 2012
10:22 AM
|
Full disclosure, what originally got me stewing on this was a song played on a kids' CD at my daughter's early childhood class...it was a blues version of the 3 Little Pigs that was the Hoochie Coochie riff.
----------
Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
|
billy_shines
111 posts
Feb 22, 2012
12:32 PM
|
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB16VQz60RI&feature=related
1941 and the riff is probably even older than that.
this is pygmie music the oldest music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLBq60Y_AGo
they were entertainers in ancient egypt and called deneg.
|
nacoran
5282 posts
Feb 22, 2012
2:11 PM
|
Was it a good blues version of three little pigs? It would seem they have something to have the blues over, and the 3 structure could fit into a blues song nicely, even on a single run through. :) It's even got some racial tension in it- three little pigs (always drawn with a lighter skin-tone, with a big bad wolf (dark furred and often with a lower class accent) huffin and puffin to blow their door in.
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
7LimitJI
620 posts
Feb 22, 2012
4:40 PM
|
@Nate
"Also, country was to bluegrass what pop was to rock"
I used to think bluegrass was older than country, but its not.
Bluegrass came out of country,not vice versa
----------
The Pentatonics Reverbnation
Youtube
"Why don't you leave some holes when you play, and maybe some music will fall out".
"It's music,not just complicated noise".
|
jbone
796 posts
Feb 22, 2012
8:33 PM
|
music wise, there is nothing new under the sun. lyric wise, my experiences are no different than a lot of peoples' over a lot of generations. but when one puts one's own spin on things, uses current hip vernacular, and plays with sincerity and verve, that is sometimes attractive.
also food for thought is, blues is still pretty much an unrealized potential for a lot of young folks who have no idea that it's where later forms of music derive from.
always from the heart.
----------
http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
|
nacoran
5285 posts
Feb 22, 2012
8:36 PM
|
Huh, well, I guess I kind of lump bluegrass in with some other traditional forms. I wasn't specifically aiming for the derivation though so much as a feeling of authenticity and musicianship. I was trying to be a bit inflammatory, but after a couple nibbles it looks like no one took the bait. :)
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
HarpNinja
2195 posts
Feb 22, 2012
9:38 PM
|
It was a cool song for what it was. Very well done. It has a different chorus, but clever. It is way better than the "Rainy Day Blues", which is also based on the Hoochie Coochie riff, on one of my son's CDs.
----------
Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
|
billy_shines
112 posts
Feb 22, 2012
11:18 PM
|
ah stoleded it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSYp8yPH2Is
|
