Story Behind the Song
Rock blues emphasize sixteenth notes, here in a rake which sounds the first three strings in a minor blues lick on the way up. On the way down. the major third (E) makes the overall feel a major blues. The next major blues lick hammers up from the minor t hird (Eb) to the major third (E) using a double-stop, since it sounds the fifth (G) together with the minor third (Eb).
The IV (F7) bar cannot use the major third (E) descending (as per style sheet), but instead sticks with the minor third which sounds g ood in any bar of a blues. In bar six, a flat seventh (Bb) as used in bars 2 and 3 would clash with the F7 and is consequently changed to a sixth (A) and fourth (F) which adapts the lick to the IV chord harmony, since both those notes are part of an F7 chord.
In bar nine, the V (G7) bar of a rock blues, the lick is adapted by dropping the major third, opting for the fourth (F) instead which is good for any bar of a blues, followed by the seventh (B) which is emphasized in V bars using the major sound. t
Lyrics
The Soul of the Blues series teaches the "major" blues sound made famous by Delta bluesmen like Robert Johnson, but alive today in the music of B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix and countless other greats. The major blues sound adds the third, si xth, seventh and ninth notes (that's E, A, B and D in the key of C) that are left out by blues players who only know the minor blues notes, that is C, Eb, F, Gb, G and Bb.
Historically, the blues originated from the ultimate downbeat situation, that is slaves who were trying play microtonal African notes on the American fretted guitar. The result was "dominant" chords--that is, chords that use a major third, or E, with a flat seventh, ninth and thirteenth, that's Bb, D and A. Minor blues melodies, skip these notes and just use the flat 3rd, flat 5th and flat 7th, or Eb, Gb, and Bb, skipping over the major notes or E, A, B and D.
When you combine major blues notes with minor blues notes, as players like Stevie Ray Vaughn do constantly, you no longer play off a scale, but instead adapt every lick to the harmony of the changing chords. Luckily you can accumulate this ability to follow "changes" one lesson at a time from the Soul of the Blues series.
In a nutshell, the major 3rd, 6th and 7th are part of the chords in I, IV and V-chord bars respectively, but these major notes are skipped by players who only know the minor blues scale. The Soul of the Blues series shows you when to play these major notes. For instance, you can slur from the minor to the ma jor third of whatever chord you are playing, such as slurring from the flat 3rd to the 3rd, or Eb to E, in the key of C. Slurs like slides, bends and trills can lighting the mood of an otherwise downbeat melody, a la B.B. King.
In IV chord bars (that i s, F7 bars of a C blues) you can transpose the major sound up a fourth, so that you slur from the flat 6th to the major 6th (that's Ab to A) instead of from the flat third to the 3rd. This is because the F7 has an A as its third. Likewise, in V chord bars (that's G7 bars) you can slur from the flat 7th to the major 7th, or Bb to B, because the third of G7 is B.
The major blues sound also uses the "higher" major tones above the octave in the 7th chords, namely the 9th and 13th tones of the C7 chord, or D and A. These major notes can combined with minor blues notes in I-chord bars without slurring. Luckily, these same Ds and As are also the 6th and third of the F7 chord as well as the 5th and 9th of the G7 chord, making Ds and As especially useful for melodies using the major blues sound.
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