Check out this excellent blue note

1. Hi Dr Ethan
   I listened very closely to Monk’s Point and definitely can hear something happening there, something mysterious but definite, erudite even I’ve listened to a lot of blues, and I can hear a blues texture there, I recognise a blues tone colour, effectively how that is produced I don’t know, I don’t know if I hear an actual blue note as such, notes are in there I guess thats how its done, my ears recognise the tone colour, I cant pick notes out

   In my opinion, Monk invokes blue notes, Monk invites blue notes,
   Monk conjures and welcomes blue notes to produce a blues-tinged texture/tone colour/incident, and from this material Monk manufactures a composition in the form of a blues etude

   Wayne

2. Hi Dr Ethan 

   I would not say that Thelonious Monk ‘s playing implies blue notes I wouldn’t say it that way, the word ”implies” doesnt fit my thesis, I would  go further, out on a limb even, to say that it’s my opinion that it is the agency of the blue notes themselves that instantiate much of Monk’s playing  

   Monk or Bill Evans, Art Tatum, or (even any amateur can play clusters on the piano if teacher leaves the room), and the irrational numbers bounce off the walls, and can bounce us out to black and blue land of dissonance, it happens, i’s the nature of sound, not that of culture, the notes play, we  hear, but then we listen often only with cultural ears 
    
   Monk doesnt play music, music plays Monk, the metaphor I’m advancing, metaphorically
    Monk doesnt imply blue notes, he welcomes them , the notes sit in his fingers and from there they can go on to vibrate and excite locations adjacent with the ears of the world who hear 

   Objectively, how I personally experience note clustering on piano (within a jazz/rock/ragtime climate), after a while its like I can hear each of the twelve Dom7 chords as sounding all of the time, all at once, with a walking bass below and ”keep the beat, keep the beat”  : the blueness of a smoky night-club Nothing dynamically socially relevant there, nothing measurable there, and nothing that is needing measuring, my proof of age is valid in this bar on this street 
    Wayne 

3. Hi Dr Ethan

   Just what I would think to say here briefly concerning cultural traditions 
   For many thousands of years, before the invention of writing systems, humankind’s cultural traditions, those most vital and everyday, as well as the most esoteric and even shamanistic cultural traditions, were passed on down generations through example and via oral tradition  (And in the esoteric traditions there’s always been an element of secrecy
   (we dont talk about fight club) 

   Many important traditions remain, many have been lost, dominant writing cultures in many cases obliterated oral traditions, we know this as colonization, or similar So there is probably no way to discover uncontestably what formal/informal pedagogical methods were used in generations past (unless we have multi-centenarians among us ready to talk) So why do people want to contest? The lack of written evidence is no proof of the lack of existence of a particular oral tradition : all our knowledge claims are perhaps, and speculation must be provisional in the nature of fulfilling its proper function  

   All roads must lead us home, and so I am free to choose to speculate that there might probably currently exist, in similar fashion as before, formal/informal means being employed by some generation of musicians/mentors to pass on practice (not ”knowledge” of practice, nor terminology nor derivation, but method of practice) to their heirs within a tradition, so then the fact that I myself have no opportunity to participate in such activities is not my loss, not the greatest loss in any life

   One can study any or all of humanity’s arts and musics, Hardingfele (Norwegian folk fiddle), Persian Tar playing, each have a tradition, each tradition does not necessarily offer an answer to criticism from outside or even to praise

   And especially, there’s a gain for me if there remain at large in the community that I do have entry to, a clique of musicians/mentors discussing and essaying textual/digital/visual/teaching practices which meld non-destructively with the extant/vibrant oral traditions, in such a flexible and non-threatening way that no authentic human tradition is needlessly attacked, then all the better, in my opinion All roads must lead us home, if we are of good heart
     
   Every day there happens to be new cases of ”someone on the internet is wrong” , not all gonna get sorted today 

   Wayne 

4. Cotton’s major third is justly tuned because blues harps were nearly all tuned in just intonation in those days. The manufacturers did this to make the draw and blow chords sounds smooth, since the timbre of the harp enhances dissonances/beating. While it’s possible to put a tiny bit of downward bend on that note (7 draw), it’s not anywhere near a full semitone. It isn’t possible to get the flat 3rd at all in the upper octave of a blues harp with just regular notes or bends, so it’s almost entirely absent from the repertoire prior to the mainstreaming of the ‘overbending’ technique by Howard Levy, which allows the harp to be fully chromatic (with many compromises of tonal quality).

   1. This is fascinating and I had no idea! I did some searching around, and you’re right. According to a post on the Hohner discussion forum: “Until the introduction of the Golden Melody in 1974, unless the diatonic harmonica were solo tuned like the long discontinued Marine Band Soloist/School Band models or the present day 364S, ALL diatonics being made, the tuning right out of the box was in 7 limit just intonation. 19 Limit is more versatile in terms of positions, but ALL diatonic recordings made until 1974, there wasn’t a choice and they’e all in 7LJI. Hohner began using 19LJI in 1985 and stopped using just intonation in 1992 and settled on three different compromise tunings that are still being used to this day but the GM have still been tuned to ET since its introduction.”

      https://my.hohner.de/t/harmonica-tunings/494/4

5. “Microtonal inflection and just intonation are not unique to the blues, but I don’t know why the existence of just thirds in classical string quartets invalidates the idea that they are present in the blues.”

   It doesn’t and I never said it did. Clearly the pitch in the Muddy Waters song is there, it’s hit confidently and he stays on it. It’s not whether or not they’re ever present that I question, it’s the idea that they have any great explanatory power for the music (and I’d argue the same in the classical tradition). If you suggest a 7-limit tuning system and the music doesn’t actually follow that strictly most of the time than I don’t really see how it’s useful in any way.

   I mentioned my opinions of the studies you’ve mentioned last time we discussed this (generously I think they’re useless without a bigger sample size), but as to your later point, again let me be clear that my issue is absolutely not about whether or not blues musicians use terms from western theory to describe what they’re doing. If I may give some anecdotes, I studied Hardingfele (Norwegian folk fiddle) for a while and in that music there’s this very important characteristic note, it’s a tritone but it’s closer to 11/8 than the equal tempered interval. None of my teachers used any of that sort of terminology but they could demonstrate the note and hit it precisely in their playing, you hear it on recordings and it’s well documented in ethnographies that this particular note is important and players learn that the note is meant to be this interval and not another. Similarly I did some concerts with a Persian Tar player and in that tradition it’s clear that particular tuning differences are very important, the guy could for example differentiate between 3, 5, and 7-limit minor thirds (which again he didn’t call them that) with his bends with total accuracy, and that sort of thing is something he said his teacher passed on to him very carefully. I’ve read many similar accounts of Indian classical sarod players and vocalists describing their studies. The fact that there aren’t all sorts of similar accounts for jazz and blues musicians suggests to me that at a broad level, that kind of focus on very specific intervals isn’t considered a high priority in passing on the music. You can say it can’t be described but I just don’t buy that, especially since that seems to be exactly what you believe yourself to be doing here. What is this post doing if not that? I’m sorry, I know this is not your intention but frankly it’s hard not to read that like ‘100+ years of black musicians couldn’t describe it but I can with some pretty basic and well established concepts’

   “I am asserting that the 12-TET major third sounds bad because to me, it does sound bad. Apparently I’m not alone, because there’s a mountain of evidence showing that people unconsciously sing and play just thirds when they can.”

   Of course you’re not alone, people who think equal tempered interval sound good also aren’t alone, people who think all sorts of other intervals sound good also aren’t alone. My point is that it seems like a strange thing to say given that most of the intervals you hear in the music you listen to and like are not those kinds of simple harmonic ratios. Mostly I just think there’s an arrogance in your phrasing that’s a bad look, and I’m surprised given your general political slant that you’re not more critical of notions of ‘in tune’ and sounding good or bad that transcend enculturation.

   Honestly I can’t really follow you on what you write about Monk, I have no idea how clusters ‘imply blue notes’ and I’m definitely not hearing any implied notes outside of the piano’s tuning in that song so I’ll just have to leave that, but your point about out of tune pianos seems to work against your case. Clearly he kept playing his music, he didn’t feel like the music was irreparably damaged if it didn’t have just the right tuning. You could say ‘well that was just because he had to’ and historically I bet that’s true for a lot of blues/jazz pianists (Though I suspect someone like Ellington at his height could have had his pianos tuned any way he liked) but why aren’t jazz pianists doing that now if it’s so crucial?

   1. I suggest that you read the Kubik book and assess the evidence he presents, and take a look at his bibliography too. You seem to object to the idea of seven-limit just intonation in the blues mainly on principle, and I’m curious how you react to the evidence that does exist. There is ample documentation of seven-limit in African-American vocal tradition, for example in the “barbershop seventh”. Jeff Titon’s study of country blues identifies several discrete microtonal intervals in widespread use in the music. If everybody just happens to keep hitting the same intervals on the guitar and harmonica, and those intervals happen to line up with the same just intonation intervals that people in their neighborhoods are singing, how else would you explain what is happening?

      Ellington is another funny person to bring up, because his main instrument was the band, and they played blue notes constantly. There’s a reason he surrounded himself with people like Johnny Hodges, Tricky Sam Nanton, Bubber Miley and Cootie Williams. It would be silly for Ellington to retune his pianos (how would he play in more than one key, retune after every song?) when he got all the blue notes he needed out of his horn section.

6. Hi Ethan, I was one of the people who pushed back on this subject over at music salon a while ago so I thought I’d have another go at it. I’m not sure but from your last paragraph it seems like you’ve hedged your idea a bit from something more systematic to ‘some blues musicians often hit these intervals’. I can’t argue with the idea that musicians with sensitive ears and capable instruments (and a particular enculturation of course) might very likely aim for those intervals, but it also seems like an unremarkable point and not one specific to the blues (especially a 5/4! Who knew all these classical string players were out here playing blue notes?). I’m not even sure what you would imagine to be proof in a case like this, but it seems odd to say ‘look this keeps happening’ while ignoring all the times it doesn’t happen. Besides issues of cherry picking, I ultimately feel the biggest strike against it as some broader system is that it doesn’t seem like any major practitioners have bothered to explicate the importance of these very minute tuning differences. That seems like something you’d want to do if it’s absolutely integral to the style (and plenty of other oral traditions have). Maybe I’m wrong there and if you know of any writings, interviews or accounts of teachers stressing that stuff I’d love to see it, but spare me any ‘they did it through their music not their words’ nonsense.

   “The standard 12-TET major third is sharper than the one from the natural overtone series, and while you are used to it from a lifetime of enculturation, it doesn’t actually sound good.”

   This is a very presumptuous and bizarre statement. Judging by some of your recent posts I feel like you’re deep in the ‘just intonation is the true reality of music’ phase right now (and I’ve been there before so I know it’s fun and tempting) but given your musical taste it’s hard to take seriously that you really believe this. Do you just have to hold your nose listening to Thelonius Monk now? More importantly though, what do you think ‘sounding good’ could mean at all outside of enculturation?

   I’ll just end here saying I think your first paragraph answered your friend’s question very well and much more accurately. Obviously there are so many things that go into a person’s subjective reaction to music and tuning does have it’s place, but it seems to me the instrument’s high register and resulting timbre (including the ensemble balance on the recording, particularly how close the harmonica is to the mic on that solo), along with the sharp textural contrast are much more salient in that moment than the harmonic ratio between a loud sustained note and a soft plucked bass note.

   1. Here’s where I stand: my intuition as a blues player and fan is that blue notes historically originate in intervals derived from the first seven harmonics of I and IV. Gerhard Kubik makes a scholarly case for this in his book Africa and the Blues. Over the past few hundred years, blues practice has become more about the pitch zones surrounding and connecting these intervals and their adjacent 12-TET notes, but without those intervals being the starting point, I don’t know how to explain where the pitch zones came from. I will freely admit that the evidence is partial at best, but if anyone has a better explanation, I have never found it, and I have been searching.

      Microtonal inflection and just intonation are not unique to the blues, but I don’t know why the existence of just thirds in classical string quartets invalidates the idea that they are present in the blues.

      There has not been a lot of close empirical study of pitch in the blues. Musicology has mainly ignored it. However, a few studies do exist, and they do tend to support Kubik’s theory. My own experiences as a listener and a player certainly do. Why do blues players keep playing major thirds that are flattened by various amounts, and fourths that are sharp by various amounts, but hardly ever play a sharpened major third or a flattened fourth? It’s an extraordinary pattern. Rock guitarists bend their notes all over the place, but blues is highly specific in this way. Maybe one reason blues musicians are so insistent that you learn the music by listening is that essential aspects can’t be explained or even described using Western theory, and because when formally trained musicians do deign to approach blues, they often explain it incorrectly?

      I am asserting that the 12-TET major third sounds bad because to me, it does sound bad. Apparently I’m not alone, because there’s a mountain of evidence showing that people unconsciously sing and play just intonation thirds when they can.

      Thelonious Monk is a fascinating person to bring up, because one of his most crucial innovations as a pianist is his ability to imply blue notes on the piano. All blues pianists crush adjacent keys to imply notes in between them, and Monk is no exception, but he goes further. He found that if you play minor three and major three at the same time and then very quickly release major three, it creates the feeling of a note just slightly above minor three. You can hear him do it in “Monk’s Point” from Solo Monk. I would be curious to know how else you would explain this technique of his. More broadly, Monk was always playing on out-of-tune pianos, and his whole musical life was about tuning compromises. I heard a Monk tune played on a Yamaha Spirio in a showroom, and it was quite strange to hear him on an actually in-tune piano. There’s a good bet that some of his crunchy chords were an attempt to get a halfway decent sound out of an indifferently tuned jazz club piano.

      If you have ever played the harmonica, you will discover quickly that bending notes is difficult. It doesn’t just happen; you have to work at it. Certainly the music that the harmonica was designed to play (Central European folk and light classical) does not demand note bending. Why on earth did blues musicians go to all the effort to develop this technique? Why were they motivated to push so hard against the design of the instrument? And why do they bend particular notes and not others? For example, in “When The Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant bends two down toward flat two. It sounds interesting, but it is not something that a blues musician would do. Why not? What explanation is there if not Kubik’s?

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