What are the characteristics of the country and blues scales?

Country music appeared in the 1920s, and it originated from the folk music of the agricultural regions of the American South, which was first developed under the influence of traditional English ballads. The earliest country music was traditional hillbilly music (Hillbilly Music), which had simple tunes, smooth rhythms, and a narrative character, and was different from the sentimental pop songs of the city in that it had a stronger rustic flavor. The lyrics of hillbilly music are mainly based on the themes of hometown, lost love, wandering, and religious beliefs, and the singing is usually solo, sometimes with backing vocals, and accompanied by fiddles, banjos, and guitars (there were no drums in traditional country music bands before the mid-1950s). The band performs mainly in homes, churches and country fairs, and sometimes takes part in regional tours. It was isolated from the cultural life of the big cities and remained in a state of self-imposed isolation.

In the 1920s, some radio stations began to play mountain music in order to cater to the tastes of rural listeners, such as Chicago's National Barn Dance (1924) and Nashville's Grand old Opry (1925), which were very popular. This encouraged mountain musicians to record on the radio and inspired record companies to discover talent and record. From this point on, mountain music began to enter the mainstream of American popular music and produced some of the earliest country singers, such as Jimmie Rodgers and the "Carter Family" singing group.

Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933), who blended blues, white mountain songs (Yodels), and folk music, is considered to be the pioneer of country music, and was crowned the "King of Country Music". He sang with a relaxed, unhurried manner, and developed a unique style of mountain folk singing that shifted back and forth between real and falsetto voices: the "blue yodel" (blue yodel). Although he suffered from lung disease throughout his life, he never gave up his commitment to country music. From 1929, to 1933 Rogers **** recorded one hundred and ten songs, on May 26, 1933, just two days after recording in the prime of life of Jimmie Rodgers due to the deterioration of the disease and died.

The Carter family (consisting of Alvin Carter, 1891-1960, and his wife and sister-in-law) won over listeners with a restful, harmonic style and a focus on subjects such as home, God and faith. For artists like the Carter Family, singing was an amateurish way to make a living. But they did contribute to the development of country music in its infancy, and they left a legacy of valuable recordings of early country music.

Rhythm and blues

Prior to the Second World War, blues records were made by small record labels, but after the war, due to changes in the status of blacks in society, several large record companies became interested in black music, and the charts began to use the term "rhythm and blues" instead of the original term "racial records".

Rhythm and blues is directly reflected in many rock and roll songs, especially early rock and roll, many of which are rhythm and blues "covers".

Rhythm and blues, as one of the most important sources of rock and roll, has become a part of history, and after influencing rock and roll, it has evolved into one of the most beloved genres in the pop music world today.

In the early days of rock and roll, there were many singers who contributed to the development of the genre, in addition to those mentioned above. The following are a few of the more prominent singers:

Chuck Berry

Born in St. Louis in 1926, Chuck Berry sang in the church choir as a child, studied guitar in middle school, and later took piano and saxophone lessons. Berry grew up with black music, particularly rhythm and blues, as his primary musical root.

For Berry, in addition to his songs, it was his songwriting and guitar playing that had a major impact on rock and roll. Berry's lyrics, compared to the clichés or meaningless syllables that characterized rock and roll in general at the time, appear to be of a higher standard. It reflected to some extent the mentality and demands of the new generation of American teenagers in the 1950s. Berry sang in a shouting style, but with clearer enunciation. His guitar playing even welcomed a large following. Suffice it to say that Berry modeled the guitar style for rock and roll in the decade before the emergence of guitar genius Jimi Hendrix.

"The third installment of the track <BLUES SCALE>" in which 1, b3, 4, #4, 5, b7, 1 is sung equivalently to the major key, which *** has three notes with an ascending and descending sign.

I would sing such a scale in a minor key: 6,1,2,b3,3,5,6, with only one descending note.

While the pitches are the same, the difference in the name of the song results in a different key or clef when notated on stave or clef.

Pressing 1, b3, 4, #4, 5, b7, 1 is in the key of G,

Pressing 6,1,2,b3,3,5,6, is G minor which is equivalent to B-flat major)

Of course, there are two keys and two names, but the absolute pitch is the same! (That's bullshit, huh...)

I suggest to memorize the music in the key of G minor (B-flat major), because our ears are generally based on intervallic relationships to feel, and we are very familiar with the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 name, but too much elevation after the intervallic relationship is easy to confuse. The reason for choosing the right key for the score is to minimize the number of ascending and descending notes in the score (try to generalize by the ascending and descending notes on the clef), so that the sung notes are less likely to have ascending and descending notes, and mostly have the familiar names of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7.

Now let's look at 6,1,2,b3,3,5,6, you first ignore the b3, then in fact there is only 1,2,3,5,6 of this pentatonic scale, which is our Chinese prevalent for thousands of years of pentatonic scale (Gong, Shang, Angle, Levy, Feather), you can just scratch the arpeggios on the traditional Chinese guzheng is this a few notes! The most common pentatonic scale we use is the blues scale with a b3 added. So the basic blues scale has only one b3 note with an ascending and descending sign (now you know you don't want to sing b3 and b7), so from that point of view alone, we are very close to the blues. Of course, this kind of statement in some formal Chinese music theory books mentioned American popular music may have been mentioned, and read a kind of not to be eliminated, and do not educate students to study the b3, this I think this is actually a kind of ignorance, because of this kind of ignorance and prejudice, so that we lost the b3 education that we should be subjected to, and let us miss a lot of more humane and beautiful music.

Some people may ask, just a crap b3 make such a big difference? We have b3 in some of our songs here at home, how come it doesn't have a bluesy feel?

The answer to the first question is "yes", it's that different.

The second question has a few aspects. First of all, the b3 in some domestic songs is often just a decorative note, whereas for the blues, it is an indispensable and frequent note, the soulful sound that makes you feel blue. Secondly, in addition to the melody, more importantly, there are harmonies and rhythmic weaving, the same melody with different harmonies and rhythms, resulting in different styles of music. The rhythm of blues music has a unique style (you can understand it if you listen to a few more blues songs), and the harmony is often a simplified diatonic (root note plus fifth). I myself can play Guitar, to understand the rhythm of the blues is very easy, but I believe that some people who engage in folk country over the harmony is not quite adapted to the blues, can not find the blues feeling. Actually, it's easier to say, it's because you've been playing too many chords. For example, if you're asked to play a C chord, you'll often play all the CEG notes and think you're right, but it just doesn't sound like the blues. If you play the C chord with just the CG notes and try it, you'll get a different feeling, and you'll get the blues!

There are historical reasons for the characteristics of blues music. The first blues music, in addition to the blues scale is those old black people have long been familiar with (as we are familiar with 12356), they can say that when they add accompaniment instrument anywhere choose "instrument" (remember in the blues bar AFU and I have posting introduced), they can not have too expensive instruments, so the harmonica guitar because of the cheap, easy to carry, at the same time can be accompanied by both solo and harmonic accompaniment, became the first choice. They didn't go through any professional music theory study (luckily, they didn't learn it systematically! Otherwise, they would be finished!) But they have an innate sense of music (like an advantage in track and field), and they can strum double tones (fifths) between the two strings on the guitar in a certain fingering style, which makes a very reasonable harmony, and they often utilize some open strings, that is to say, they make use of the empty strings more often. (Of course, these are only the most basic blues techniques).

Let's look at some of the deeper reasons for playing diatonic chords from a harmonic point of view. Another advantage of using diatonic chords (the root note and the fifth of the root note) is that it doesn't matter if you're notating in major or minor, the same chord with the same name has the same effect on the accompaniment! For example, if you want to play a G chord in its entirety, you have to play the three notes of GBD, while for a blues accompaniment, you omit the major third B and play only the note GD. Let's look at the Gm chord, in its entirety you play the G\B\D, in the blues accompaniment you leave out the minor third B? and just play the GD. This is when we realize that in the blues we are playing the same chord with the same name. This should solve the problem of notating chords in different keys (both are possible), although there may be confusion in the configuration of the chords, as long as you memorize the root of the chord and add the fifth, the accompaniment will be the same for the blues. Of course, this is only a safe bet if you don't know how to use the blues chords well, but because of the special characteristics of the 10-hole harmonica (such as the common two-hole sucked out harmony), it's just as useful.

As for why blues chords are played without thirds (no matter how big or small), I have not read the theory, but I think it is mainly to ensure the "purity" of the blues scale and vertical weave, and to minimize the interference of tones outside the blues scale.

In fact, in the real blues chords, instead of the common major and minor triads, there are a lot of 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, etc. For example, C7 - F9. For example, in the C7-F9-G9 progression, the 9 chord is actually a substitute for the 7 chord. There are major 7th chords, minor 7th chords, major triad minor 7th chords, diminished triad minor 7th chords, diminished 7th chords, augmented 7th chords, major 7th chords, my goodness... But for a beginner like me, to be on the safe side, it's better to play the diatonic chords first. I'm sorry if I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be.

At this point you're saying that just two notes seems too simple? Yes, it is simple, blues melodies are always simple (not including the technique and blues chords to produce these simple yet flavorful notes on the instrument, which are not simple). But it's not simple, look at those chords! We feel that it's hard to get into the blues because we're too complex to learn simplicity. We are so used to the major and minor triads that we are not used to the 7th, 9th, 11th and so on, and we are stuck in the usual configuration of major and minor chords.

In fact, because of the simplicity of the blues melody (which is absolutely beautiful), and the infinite chord changes, in the hands of the white man, the fusion of country music and the traditional "tin pan hutong" pop songs, and then came up with rock and roll. Rock is in fact synonymous with fusion, on the cornerstone of the blues (strictly speaking rhythm and blues R& B, than the blues increased the weight of the rhythm), derived from a myriad of rock genres (I translated some of the rock genres of the introduction to the information, about 170 kinds of it), not only to meet the people's desire to break through and innovation, but also to meet the audience's needs for diversification, but also the combination of business. The combination with commerce has created a big industry. (Today, December 21, just back from Shanghai on the road and thought of such a paragraph added here to save space. Of course, I'm talking from the perspective of pure blues sound extension, the specific song depends on the actual situation, can not be confined to three chords. This is nonsense. Otherwise you'll have enough fun with 4 chords, why do you need 2 chords? Haha... I also went to hang 2 musical instrument store today, but unfortunately did not see HARPBOY)

Since we are talking about harmony, due to the traditional Chinese music (including opera) and traditional musical instruments, most of them are melodic, to be more than an octave or simply the same tone together (although there are a few ethnic minorities sing in harmony, but also a number of degrees, and more in the final sentence), although it seems to be very harmonious (or octave, of course, should be harmonized), and the harmony is not the same. The same degree or octave of course should be harmonious), in fact, wrong, due to the instrument is different, each person's feeling is different, the pitch of the instrument has technical or artificial bias, so the same tone or octave tone ensemble is actually more discordant (this discordance is very much like a lady's beautiful nylon stockings were hooked out of the silk but still being worn in the beautiful beautiful flesh legs like. A professional would say that of course the notes are in tune, how else could they be?) . This can be extended to the inferiority of the nation (I'd like to mention this sad thing later when I write an article about the sweet and sour of being in a band back in the day), but I won't get into it for fear of being attacked. In fact, with real harmonies, each sound is different (in the sense of individuality), but due to the effect of the superposition of reasonable waves from physics (the frequency of the waves leads to different pitches), it is more harmonic and stable, but of course it can be the other way around, more dissonant, more tense. It's very colorful. Anyway, we have suffered from chords in popular music.