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  #31  
Old 01-26-2023, 12:50 PM
frankmcr frankmcr is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Farlsborough View Post
I rarely see people admitting that they find the blues really, really boring.
A pet peeve of mine is when people misuse the term "begging the question". I won't go into the etymology, but it does not mean "raising the question".

It means phrasing a question in such a way as to try & force the person being questioned to agree with your own predetermined opinion.
In this case, the questioner believes the blues is boring, and the person questioned has to reply in accordance with that belief: "I admit you're right" or "I refuse to admit you're right".
It's a common tactic (see the quote above ) and it deserves its own name.
If you want to say something raises a question, just say "That raises the question . . . "
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  #32  
Old 01-26-2023, 01:10 PM
reeve21 reeve21 is offline
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Random observations on the thread....

Blues clearly is the foundation for a lot of rock and pop music, a great deal of which uses just those same 3 chords and maybe a minor 2nd or 6th.

Whoever thinks Pat Metheny is a boring player wasn't sitting at his feet with me in the 70's watching his hands dance around the fret board. I literally had no idea what he was doing, not sure I do now!

There are a couple of ways folks seem to get into fingerpicking. One is to learn patterns that you hear in folk and some pop music. The other is acoustic blues and related "songster" type stuff, a la John Hurt. Some folks make a career here, and others move on to other stuff. It's all good.

I used to listen to a lot of electric blues (all the Kings, etc.) and blues based rock (EC, SRV, etc.). I think it is great stuff, but I understand how the OP could feel it is repetitive. I have hard a hard time getting into the more modern blues players I hear on satellite radio. I think my ears are just too old for it. I love all improvisational music, but I find jazz to be more interesting and varied than blues.

More cowbell!!!
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  #33  
Old 01-26-2023, 01:13 PM
lowrider lowrider is offline
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I think a lot of people here just need to go to a Toby Walker concert;

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  #34  
Old 01-26-2023, 01:16 PM
zuzu zuzu is offline
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Reading through the thread to this point I realized I should possibly embellish my comment that "It is all a conversation."

That is genuinely how I see it and therefore draw no distinction between Beethoven and Son House, Pat Metheny and Lefty Frizzell, Buddy Holly and Thelonious Monk, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lawrence Welk, etc.. A Beethoven symphony is basically a large committee of people all talking to you, the listener, about the same subject, and Son House is one guy talking to you about a subject. It is exactly the same thing to me.

We create these distinctions of what we hear ourselves, for our convenience. But the act is the same, and has been since the first "note" was played.
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  #35  
Old 01-26-2023, 07:13 PM
Italuke Italuke is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Hicks View Post
Every bowl of chili is the same - I've given up eating it.

D.H.
Exactly. People who think the blues is only about the chord progression are listening for the wrong thing.

Arguably, the opposite of blues might be prog rock, which to me is boring in its constantly changing - for no musical reason - time signatures and key centers, random melodic fragments and pseudo-intellectual "we play a lot of notes and sing operatically, look at how brainy we are" ethos. But I don't mind if others like it, I understand that.

And no, I also am not a "all blues all the time" person, but it's not because I find it boring.
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  #36  
Old 01-27-2023, 05:25 AM
Robin, Wales Robin, Wales is offline
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Default Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

I have listened to a LOT of early and late blues - as you would expect from someone who ran a resonator guitar company.

I can't say that I have ever heard a "12 bar blues" in those early recordings - 11 3/4 measures to a round perhaps, 13 1/2 measures maybe? What I have heard though is singers rhythmically accompanying themselves to tell stories. Same with old time; there are plenty of crooked tunes in old time. And pre-bluegrass/bluegrass; lots of timing moves there (the Carter family often threw in a measure of 2/4 in a 4/4 song like Can the Circle) - holding turnarounds, extending verses etc is the norm. All in all, it is the singing that takes primacy. Robert Johnson, Son House Bukka White etc didn't write tunes, they wrote songs.

This is the gemeinschaft of folk/roots music.

Then the music was (is) appropriated and tidied up. 12 measures becomes the "thing" - timing becomes strict (so as not to upset the drummer ) and the blues moves to gesellschaft.

I don't play the gemeinschaft blues because I can't do it justice.

I don't play the gesellschaft blues because I'm not very keen on it.

Simple as that!
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  #37  
Old 01-27-2023, 07:31 AM
Andyrondack Andyrondack is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post
.

This is the gemeinschaft of folk/roots music.

Then the music was (is) appropriated and tidied up. 12 measures becomes the "thing" - timing becomes strict (so as not to upset the drummer ) and the blues moves to gesellschaft.

I don't play the gemeinschaft blues because I can't do it justice.

I don't play the gesellschaft blues because I'm not very keen on it.

Simple as that!
I'm sure it got tidied up to make it attractive to a record buying public who wanted something they could dance to at house parties without tripping over their feet on skipped beats and falling flat on the floor, and for the bands playing blues they all need to be on the same chord at the same time and end on the same beat.
Personally I think it was a great improvement.
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  #38  
Old 01-27-2023, 08:16 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post
I have listened to a LOT of early and late blues - as you would expect from someone who ran a resonator guitar company.

I can't say that I have ever heard a "12 bar blues" in those early recordings - 11 3/4 measures to a round perhaps, 13 1/2 measures maybe? What I have heard though is singers rhythmically accompanying themselves to tell stories. Same with old time; there are plenty of crooked tunes in old time. And pre-bluegrass/bluegrass; lots of timing moves there (the Carter family often threw in a measure of 2/4 in a 4/4 song like Can the Circle) - holding turnarounds, extending verses etc is the norm. All in all, it is the singing that takes primacy. Robert Johnson, Son House Bukka White etc didn't write tunes, they wrote songs.
If they actually "wrote" anything at all in the sense in which we commonly use the term today! They put together traditional phrases (melody and/or lyrics), and occasionally added their own. They definitely each made the tradition their own in their personally distinctive ways. Or rather, the most prolific and successful of them probably had the most distinctive and powerful personalities, the most individual takes on the aural tradition; in fact, a mixed culture of black and white musical traditions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post
This is the gemeinschaft of folk/roots music.
Good word!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post
Then the music was (is) appropriated and tidied up. 12 measures becomes the "thing" - timing becomes strict (so as not to upset the drummer )
Well, mainly so that it can be played by groups, especially groups who are less familiar with the tradition. And that process was started way back in the early 1910s - as I'm sure you know! - by W C Handy and his ilk. (African-American, but classically-trained). And to make it commercial, of course. To turn it from "folk" into "pop". Blues musicians born after 1900 (like Robert Johnson, b.1910) learned their craft more from recordings than from itinerants down in the Delta. But it was still a living tradition, of course.
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Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post
and the blues moves to gesellschaft.
Uh-huh; useful distinction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post
I don't play the gemeinschaft blues because I can't do it justice.
Me neither. Not so much because I can't do it justice, more because it's now a dead tradition. It hasn't really been gemeinschaft for some decades now. It would be a hopeless thing to try, however good a musician I was.
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Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post
I don't play the gesellschaft blues because I'm not very keen on it.
Well, I do because I am. Not all the gesellschaft blues is formulaic or tedious.
And the distinction is not really as black and white as that anyway. There is bleed over between the two.

The aural old folk tradition of the blues - as gemeinschaft - was damaged first by its post-Handy commercialization is the 1920s. And then smartened up and whipped into fancier shapes by jazz musicians in the 30s and 40s (marrying it to the European harmonic tradition, not a totally happy marriage...). It remained vibrant in the 1940s and 50s as jump jive and R&B - stolen by young whites and partly bowdlerized into rock'n'roll - but was finally killed off for good in the 1960s, as the black audience for it either died out or moved on to soul and funk; leaving blues as a zombie corpse kept alive by white musicians kicking it around. (And the occasional black veteran such as B B King or Buddy Guy, still full of respect for the old ways.)

I'll admit to being one of those guilty people giving it an affectionate kick as often as I can...
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Last edited by JonPR; 01-27-2023 at 08:26 AM.
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  #39  
Old 01-27-2023, 09:13 AM
columbia columbia is offline
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I think for some "blues" (electric blues mainly) makes you think "a lot of gratuitous minor pentatonic noodling."

I was listening to a podcast recently where the hosts would discuss classic albums, one a week. On the episode for At Fillmore East, one of the hosts said he couldn't stand "Statesboro Blues," et. al, because it sounded like Rib Festival boogie music that he'd been hearing all his life. I guess it's a matter of perspective, what you've heard before, etc.
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  #40  
Old 01-27-2023, 09:16 AM
Arapaho G Arapaho G is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JonPR View Post
If they actually "wrote" anything at all in the sense in which we commonly use the term today! They put together traditional phrases (melody and/or lyrics), and occasionally added their own. They definitely each made the tradition their own in their personally distinctive ways. Or rather, the most prolific and successful of them probably had the most distinctive and powerful personalities, the most individual takes on the aural tradition; in fact, a mixed culture of black and white musical traditions.
Good word!
Well, mainly so that it can be played by groups, especially groups who are less familiar with the tradition. And that process was started way back in the early 1910s - as I'm sure you know! - by W C Handy and his ilk. (African-American, but classically-trained). And to make it commercial, of course. To turn it from "folk" into "pop". Blues musicians born after 1900 (like Robert Johnson, b.1910) learned their craft more from recordings than from itinerants down in the Delta. But it was still a living tradition, of course.
Uh-huh; useful distinction.
Me neither. Not so much because I can't do it justice, more because it's now a dead tradition. It hasn't really been gemeinschaft for some decades now. It would be a hopeless thing to try, however good a musician I was.
Well, I do because I am. Not all the gesellschaft blues is formulaic or tedious.
And the distinction is not really as black and white as that anyway. There is bleed over between the two.

The aural old folk tradition of the blues - as gemeinschaft - was damaged first by its post-Handy commercialization is the 1920s. And then smartened up and whipped into fancier shapes by jazz musicians in the 30s and 40s (marrying it to the European harmonic tradition, not a totally happy marriage...). It remained vibrant in the 1940s and 50s as jump jive and R&B - stolen by young whites and partly bowdlerized into rock'n'roll - but was finally killed off for good in the 1960s, as the black audience for it either died out or moved on to soul and funk; leaving blues as a zombie corpse kept alive by white musicians kicking it around. (And the occasional black veteran such as B B King or Buddy Guy, still full of respect for the old ways.)

I'll admit to being one of those guilty people giving it an affectionate kick as often as I can...
I agree that there are not many newer artists playing the old style blues and doing it well (North Mississippi Allstars comes to mind as an exception). But we don't really need them anyway. There is so much of the old stuff available that I still find new things even after over 20 years of listening. Youngblood Harts records from the 90's are a great example of a modern artist doing it right. Too bad he's not still doing it.
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  #41  
Old 01-27-2023, 09:28 AM
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[QUOTE=Italuke;7177433]Exactly. People who think the blues is only about the chord progression are listening for the wrong thing.

The question sounds like someone that is stuck on beginning blues 101. Allot of the blues I do have majors and minors and deal with the circle of fifths allot. I perceive the difference between blues and pop is often the sound and maybe a tweak of the beat. Pop may be looked at as blues without the feel. That's my way of getting around the race thing. Remember Elvis beginning?
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  #42  
Old 01-27-2023, 09:32 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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Yeah, blues is a feel and a sound, not a form.

Here's some blues right here. Nothing 12 bar about it.

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  #43  
Old 01-27-2023, 10:27 AM
FrankHudson FrankHudson is offline
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There's some very smart/informed stuff above from JohnPR and Robin Wales, so I'll try to restrain myself from my assaying the same.

A few short things to consider:

Genres/labels are fuzzy. We all use'em and think they're useful sometimes, but there are more musical connections/variations/cross-polarizations than we can easy grasp much less express. What you and I and the next person consider "blues" isn't the exact same thing. That's not anyone's mistake, labels are just sticky paper.

Even folks who love music often grow tired of one or another form of musical expression. It's normal, and often isn't for all time. It's rare for anyone to convince someone to like music they don't care for. It does happen though (otherwise, why am I making suggested alternative considerations).

Some huge generalizations in this one, but much of the Blues tradition as I see it out puts a larger emphasis on vocals than many guitar-player-first musicians think it does. B. B. King is mentioned upthread. I happen to love how he plays guitar, but the young B. B. King was even more so a great vocalist who moves me. Aretha Franklin is underrated as a piano player (which we aren't as likely to talk about in a guitar forum) but of course we think vocals first when we think of her.

Likewise, this is a guitar forum, but a lot of interesting instrumental extrapolations of blues are not guitar based: e.g. Charlie Parker, Mose Allison to give two off-the-cuff examples.

Lastly, there's (to my mind) a core tradition of lyrical outlook in Blues, and it's something essentially American that I treasure. Blues is not (for the most part) a sorrowful song about feeling blue. It about the singer telling others about stuff they've experienced, survived, figured out, and now they're telling us that they're still here and able to hip us to it. What music you like--well we all like different things--but that can save your life.

As a way to save your life, it can still also be fun and surprising. Here's a band recording where I tried to make it sound like a worn old 78 as my band recast an Emily Dickinson poem as a pre-war blues.

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  #44  
Old 01-27-2023, 12:48 PM
Brent Hahn Brent Hahn is offline
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Originally Posted by columbia View Post
I think for some "blues" (electric blues mainly) makes you think "a lot of gratuitous minor pentatonic noodling."

I was listening to a podcast recently where the hosts would discuss classic albums, one a week. On the episode for At Fillmore East, one of the hosts said he couldn't stand "Statesboro Blues," et. al, because it sounded like Rib Festival boogie music that he'd been hearing all his life. I guess it's a matter of perspective, what you've heard before, etc.
One of the more delectably greasy grooves you’ll ever find on a record, for sure.
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  #45  
Old 01-27-2023, 02:05 PM
Andyrondack Andyrondack is offline
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Originally Posted by JonPR View Post

There's just one guy who I think has come closer than anyone else I know to the true spirit of the blues - while not being from that culture himself - and that's Kelly Joe Phelps. 20 years ago I was struck by how thoroughly convincingly he turned an English traditional ballad into a blues:

Obviously inspired by Robert Johnson and Blind Willie Johnson, but becoming a "bluesman" in his own right.
But did he really?
20 years ago Natalie Merchant released a similar version of this song on her album House Carpenters daughter, where did she get it from?
I've heard several people in English folk clubs sing that song but never with quite that melody or those words.
I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't one of those folk songs like Raggle Taggle Gypsies which travelled to America with early immigrants and morphed into Black Jack Davy so maybe by the time Phelps and Merchant heard the song it had already been 'Americanised' somewhere in the Appalachian mountains?
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