Steve Catanzaro wrote:
> 3. Blues. Liberal doses of the "blues scale," what with its flatted 3rds,
> 5ths, and 7th's. (alot of other scales have been used as well... but blues
> is a common thread.)
A couple comments on that element:
1) More and more music today is disregarding any sense of harmony. Some of it is
good, as far as wanting to stretch the rules, but it's also bad due to
ignorance, in that there's a whole generation of kids growing up today making
music with no understanding of harmony, scales, or even melody.
2) Aside from the rhythmic aspect, part of the appeal of black music is that it
transcends the notion of "major key = bright, happy; minor key = sad". Granted,
the blues scale more resembles a minor scale, but a lot of the other elements in
the music keep it from being merely "dark and sad." Thus, the music sort of
reflects the history and struggle of black Americans: It's dark, it's sad, BUT
there's hope...whether expressed in the lyrics, in the harmonics, in the rhythm
or just the general essence of the music...that's what soul is, isn't it?
Channelng your pain into power and hope.
As opposed to minor-keyed European music and other forms of white music (goth,
grunge, punk, metal, etc) where minor key is minor key is minor key, and there's
nothing but absolute darkness and sadness.
Elson
- 30 -
:. elson trinidad, los angeles, california, usa
:. elson@westworld.com
:. www.westworld.com/~elson
"Ever notice no one uses the term 'Information Superhighway' anymore"?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 10 2000 - 20:05:40 MET DST