Defining blues.

[DAS44]

I can't even define blues and don't know anyone else who can without getting far beyond any sort of "simple" definition.

Take a stab at it

[ChanMan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues

[DAS44]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues

 

 

I meant less literally. Although you probaly knew that.

[surfpup]

Why? You know it when you hear it.

[badbluesplayer]

Start at 1, go to four, maybe 5, or anywhere between 4 & 5. Then finish on 1.

 

Get up in the morning, have some trouble, go down to the freight yard, get a cold hearted woman and a slave drivin' boss. That's not a definition, but I don't know how to read and never learned how to write anyway.

 

[ChanMan]

Well, if you're hoping for some kind of Zen blues discussion, how about this:

 

If you play blues, then you know what they mean when they say it's a feeling. If you don't, there is no explaining it to you.

 

Explain the color green to one who has never had sight....

[Shnate McDuanus]

Two bars of I

One bar of IV7

One bar of I7

Two bars of IV7

Two bars of I

One bar of V7

One bar of IV7

One bar of I7

Turnaround/One bar of IV7

Repeat

 

Try it.

[ChanMan]

Two bars of I

One bar of IV7

One bar of I7

Two bars of IV7

Two bars of I

One bar of V7

One bar of IV7

One bar of I7

Turnaround/One bar of IV7

Repeat

 

Try it.

 

 

That's not what he's wanting... he's not asking for a defintion. He wants you to define it.

 

Get it?

 

[saturn]

"The blues aint nothin' but a good man feelin' bad"

[Shnate McDuanus]

That's not what he's wanting... he's not asking for a defintion. He wants you to define it.

 

Get it?

 

 

Yeah, I know...

 

Sorry.

[ChanMan]

Two bars of I

One bar of IV7

One bar of I7

Two bars of IV7

Two bars of I

One bar of V7

One bar of IV7

One bar of I7

Turnaround/One bar of IV7

Repeat

 

Try it.

 

 

It's ok man... notice I went there at first too...

 

Let's try this:

 

All that stuff up there is the "Definition" of blues...

 

but the stuff you play over the top of it is what "defines" blues....

 

<insert Zen music>

 

)

[Thermionik]

.

The blues is what you play when you're feelin' baad to make you feel better about living.

The blues is what you play when you're feelin' good to remind you of the down side of life.

If you have to ask about it, you haven't got there yet, if you've been there, yah don't ask.

And it's the music I love to play over and above all other styles and genres. for forty years plus now.....

.

.

[ChanMan]

.

The blues is what you play when you're feelin' baad to make you feel better about living.

The blues is what you play when you're feelin' good to remind you of the down side of life.

If you have to ask about it' date=' you haven't got there yet, if you've been there, yah don' ask.

And it's the music I love to play over and above all other styles and genres....

.

.

 

 

Amen.

 

 

 

 

Interesting thread, btw DAS.

[deepblue]

"The blues aint nothin' but a good man feelin' bad"

 

word!

[Kolera]

"The blues aint nothin' but a good man feelin' bad"

 

+1

[Cruznolfart]

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essaysblues.html

 

"On a lonely night in 1903, W.C. Handy, the African American leader of a dance orchestra, got stuck waiting for a train in the hamlet of Tutwiler, Mississippi. With hours to kill and nowhere else to go, Handy fell asleep on a hard wooden bench at the empty depot. When he awoke, a ragged black man was sitting next to him, singing about "goin' where the Southern cross the Dog" and sliding a knife against the strings of a guitar. The musician repeated the line three times and answered with his instrument.

 

Intrigued, Handy asked what the line meant. It turned out that the tracks of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, which locals called the Yellow Dog, crossed the tracks of the Southern Railroad in the town of Moorehead, where the musician was headed, and he'd put it into a song.

 

It was, Handy later said, "the weirdest music I had ever heard."

 

That strange music was the blues, although few people knew it by that name."

[ChanMan]

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essaysblues.html

 

"On a lonely night in 1903' date=' W.C. Handy, the African American leader of a dance orchestra, got stuck waiting for a train in the hamlet of Tutwiler, Mississippi. With hours to kill and nowhere else to go, Handy fell asleep on a hard wooden bench at the empty depot. When he awoke, a ragged black man was sitting next to him, singing about "goin' where the Southern cross the Dog" and sliding a knife against the strings of a guitar. The musician repeated the line three times and answered with his instrument.

 

Intrigued, Handy asked what the line meant. It turned out that the tracks of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, which locals called the Yellow Dog, crossed the tracks of the Southern Railroad in the town of Moorehead, where the musician was headed, and he'd put it into a song.

 

It was, Handy later said, "the weirdest music I had ever heard."

 

That strange music was the blues, although few people knew it by that name."

 

 

[b']... and now you know... the rest of the story."[/b]

 

 

Just seemed like it needed something....

 

[DAS44]

If you play blues' date=' then you know what they mean when they say it's a feeling. If you don't, there is no explaining it to you.[/quote']

Well said, and I know what it means.

[rocketman]

The blues is about expressing life's curves through music. No one ever plays the blues; instead they live the blues. In blues the points of silence are more important than the points where notes are played. The blues give singular order to complex chaos, which can be done with just a single note.

 

In a nutshell, the blues is life...the rest is just details.

[Silenced Fred]

If you can define the blues, it ain't the blues

 

It is a feeling, and beyond that, it loses that feeling it has

[Andre S]

Well' date=' if you're hoping for some kind of Zen blues discussion, how about this:

 

If you play blues, then you know what they mean when they say it's a feeling. If you don't, there is no explaining it to you.

 

Explain the color green to one who has never had sight....[/quote']

 

Kinda off topic, but can you imagine world where, what you think is green, may appear red to someone else or blue to another. If you think about it, its kinda......dunno how to describe it.

[Silenced Fred]

Kinda off topic' date=' but can you imagine world where, what you think is green, may appear red to someone else or blue to another. If you think about it, its kinda......dunno how to describe it.[/quote']

 

everything in life is subjective, what may be odd and wrong to me may be perfectly normal and right to you

 

it all depends on your point of view

[Wally Walrus]

Kinda off topic' date=' but can you imagine world where, what you think is green, may appear red to someone else or blue to another. If you think about it, its kinda......dunno how to describe it.[/quote']

 

I don't know if what I'm gonna say is really what you had in mind, but...

 

 

Here in Brazil, if you say "I'm feeling blue" the person whose you are speaking to is much more likely to understand that you are feeling very very well.

 

The color blue here, when used to describe feelings, it takes you to a softer tone of blue (to you guitar-heads it might as well be described as daphne blue, lake placid or something) that really has something to do with good vibes.

 

I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that in many other cultures like the north american culture the blue you guys would have in mind would be darker, kinda like navy.

 

 

 

 

That's just a though that has no intention of offend anyone.

[Basshole]

Blues is the root and the rest is the fruit...

 

you have

12 bar blues AAB

16 Bar Blues AABA

 

Blues is like pornography you know it when you see it but you can't explain it...

[Thermionik]

.

.

.....Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

 

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

.