Eshu, Eshu we all fall down

[hairballxavier]

There is alot of confusion about the blues scale. That's because it does not derive from the diatonic scale. Many people tend to look at pentatonic blues scale as a diatonic scale with a couple of notes missing. However that is not the origin of the pentatonic scale used by the great rock and blues players.

It comes from African music that is a bit more complicated than western music. It has two notes that are not on the fretboard. So when African musicians picked up fretted instruments they had of bend the notes or use a slide to get the proper pitch. And guitarists have been bending and sliding ever since. Those missing notes are sometimes called "blue notes". in E the scale is E then a blue note that is slightly higher than G but not as high as G#, then A, Then B, then another blue note that is a little higher than D. That is why guys like Angus and Eddie will always bend the G and the D slightly when playing that scale. So the blues scale is not major or minor. Thats why you can use it over major chords.

Those notes create tension that demands to be resolved. Thats what blues is all about. Tension and release. That's what makes blues and rock such powerful and emotional forms of music. Modern rock is a hybrid of western and African forms of music. The blue notes represent the chameleon, trickster or devil in Tano's singing battle with death, is how it was explained to me. The lord of the crossroads is Eshu, Legba,Exu, devil, whatever name you use.

So don't forget to bend and shake those blue notes or you will always feel like there is something missing from your blues and rock solos. You gotta dance with the devil if you want to play the blues.

That's why there is nothing more pathetic than hearing a classically trained guitarist try to play blues. Blues is much more complicated than classical music.

[NoteBoat]

That's why there is nothing more pathetic than hearing a classically trained guitarist try to play blues. Blues is much more complicated than classical music.

Au contraire, my friend. Blues is far simpler than classical music.

The reason that classical musicians have such a hard time with blues (and jazz, for that matter) is that they are trained in precision. The swing feeling in blues and jazz, usually noted as broken triplets, requires a different feel. It's somewhere between a broken triplet and an eighth-dotted quarter, either of which a classically trained musician can do blindfolded. Blues musicians get it 'close enough for rock and roll' and rely on feel from there.

Blues have a very simple harmonic structure - even variations like minor blues, 8 bar blues, etc. Blues have a very simple melodic structure, with a six note scale - a pretty far cry from the chromaticism that classical musicians deal with on a daily basis. And rhythmically?... well, classical folks don't bat an eye over mixed time signatures, abrupt rhythm changes, and other elements that would leave blues musicians scratching their heads.

On the cutting edge of classical 'art music' composition, you'll see time signatures like 4/4+1/8, with five beats noted as 9 eighth notes. Classical musicians do that without a hitch, seamlessly shifting the units of the beat. They play microtonal music with the guitar equivalent of 1/6 note bends, and do it with precision. They cope with quartal harmony or tone clusters with ease.

Even the 'other stuff' that's not strictly performance, like sight reading... a blues musician (as a general rule) won't read, or can barely read. Most classically trained musicians, as one singer I know put it recently "can read fly sh** off the wall at 30 paces".

Classical music is different from blues, yes. It takes different skills and different training. But more complex? Not a chance.

[sirN]

Not to take sides here, but I would never say that Blues is more complex than Classical music. I think that's like calling someone out for a fight!

My opinion has always been that Blues guitarists play more than study as it's a 'feel' they need to get. Whereas Classical guitar calls for both study and practice and in heaping helpings of both!

My, I stick to rock because it is less complex.

Time to go watch 'Crossroads' again so I can see Ralph Macho-not play kick Steve Vai's butt.

[Derp]

Theoretically speaking, why can we play the minor pentatonic over a normal major three chord I, IV, V progression such as rockers do? It sounds good to hear Angus or Eddie wailing away at it, but why does it work?

The major chord contains a major third.The minor pentatonic contains a minor seventh.Together they produce a Dominant sound.The minor pentatonic also contains a minor third.The minor third should be viewed as a #9 extension of the Dominant chord.

[hairballxavier]

That's the wrong way to look at it. Play an open E chord and add that minor 3rd (or #9 as you call it). Don't sound too good does it? Dosen't sound too bluesy either. That note dosen't work unless it is being bent, shaken or otherwise messed with. It's not as simple as you try to make it sound.
There must be movement, you have to chase the shapeshifter, that blue note. He always moves when you try to catch him. You cannot stay at the crossroads, you must keep moving. You certainly know when your're hot on his tail though. That is Eshu leading you on.

You have to realize that blues is based on a different form of music from Africa and like the African tonal languages it is an unwritten form of communication. The "rules" of western music do not apply.

[Derp]

That's the wrong way to look at it. Play an open E chord and add that minor 3rd (or #9 as you call it). Don't sound too good does it? Dosen't sound too bluesy either. That note dosen't work unless it is being bent, shaken or otherwise messed with. It's not as simple as you try to make it sound.
There must be movement, you have to chase the shapeshifter, that blue note. He always moves when you try to catch him. You cannot stay at the crossroads, you must keep moving. You certainly know when your're hot on his tail though. That is Eshu leading you on.

You have to realize that blues is based on a different form of music from Africa and like the African tonal languages it is an unwritten form of communication. The "rules" of western music do not apply.

Yeah um,whatever.The question was why does it work theoretically.He wasn't asking for your views on playing and performing the blues.When you have a 7#9 chord you have both a major and a minor third but which one takes precendence? The chord is still a Dominant chord meaning major third plus minor 7th.The minor third doesn't define the chord but it does work as an extension.Therefore the minor pentatonic over a major chord is doing the exact same thing theoretically.Now his chord was a major chord.That means that the third is defined as major and the minor 7 and minor 3rd are added to the chord which is already defined as major.The minor third doesn't replace the major third,so the minor third is an extension.The b7 added to the major chord makes it a dominant chord.

You "can" bend the minor third a little if you want.But you don't "have to" or don't "always" have to like you make it sound.Theoretically the minor third is a #9.

[hairballxavier]

[quote=Hairball]That's why there is nothing more pathetic than hearing a classically trained guitarist try to play blues. Blues is much more complicated than classical music.[/quote]

[q=NoteBoat]Au contraire, my friend. Blues is far simpler than classical music.

The reason that classical musicians have such a hard time with blues (and jazz, for that matter) is that they are trained in precision. The swing feeling in blues and jazz, usually noted as broken triplets, requires a different feel. It's somewhere between a broken triplet and an eighth-dotted quarter, either of which a classically trained musician can do blindfolded. Blues musicians get it 'close enough for rock and roll' and rely on feel from there.[/q] I must disagree. Don't get me wrong, classical music on the guitar is more difficult and unnatural to perform physically in many ways, but difficulty does not equal complexity. To imply that simple "broken triplets" and "eighth note dotted quarter" rythems are somehow more "precise" or complex than African polyrythems is, to use the technical term of sombody's Granny, "hogwash". But of course someone who has a hard time with those complex polyrythems can always just imply that they are inferior by saying that those who can pull it off without even thinnking about it are just trying to imitate their less complex rythem but are so inferior that they can only get it "close enough for rock-n-roll". Sounds like sour grapes to me. And that attitude still won't keep everyone from leaving the room when try to play their more "precise" blues.

This kind of attitude will not make you a better musician. As a Jazzman you should be able to understand that.

[NoteBoat]

Ok, I guess you've assumed a few things here.... that because blues is rooted in African music, blues musicians are playing complex polyrhythms. That's a crock. You could argue that the takada rhythms from Ghana are more complex, or the Indian tabla rhythms, and make a case - but blues? Come on! Sharing a common origin does not, by extension, mean that all complex elements of that origin are present.

You're also assuming I can't handle complex polyrhythms. I was a percussionist in my youth, and that was my principal study in college. I'd venture to say I've studied the rhythmic aspects of music more than 99.99% of guitarist have. Yes, complex polyrhythms are difficult, and yes, they can be more difficult (and just as precise) as the rhythmic patterns demanded by modern classical music. But we're talking about blues here, not playing 5 against 7, or placing accents within 11 beats per measure.

The last assumption is that I was speaking solely of guitar... I find that classically trained musicians on ALL instruments have a tough time with blues and jazz because the rhythms are not as precisely noted. I've seen this with violinists, clarinetists, sax players, pianists, and percussionists. When I was in college, I was not the best percussionist in the department. I was the one who played traps with the jazz band, though. Having the ability to make it swing did not mean I could handle the complex things others were doing classically.

The rhythm of the blues is a simple one. The pulse of the music is very similar to that of a human heartbeat. It's exceptionally difficult to notate, but not to play. Classically trained musicians, used to relying on precise notation and precise divisions and subdivisions, have a difficult time coping with that imprecision; that is a far cry from saying the music is more complex.

Listen to a blues master like Johnny Lee Hooker. Play a recording against a metronome and you'll see how he stretches the time out in spots. Classical musicians do that too, but with a conductor.

I've elaborated on how classical music is complex in rhythm, harmony, and melodic elements. What I've heard back is that it's 'hogwash', 'sour grapes', and that this attitude will not make me a better musician.

That leaves me with a pretty simple request: show me how blues are more complex.

[undercat]

Why the heck would you argue that blues is as complex as classical music? To me, the allure of blues music is that it's simple, everyone can relate to it on some basic level.

That's part of the reason that I don't spend much time listening to classical music: It's seems so masturbatory: "look at all the different harmonies and rhythms that can be squeezed into one piece!". While that's interesting sometimes, to see what composers were truly capable of, I get bored of it: it doesn't connect with me as a listener.

Blues just says: "Let's talk, here's what's going on".

Blues is a lot of great things, but complex isn't one of them.

[cnev]

Blues, complex? My baby sister can play the blues.....

[hairballxavier]

Woah, lets back up a couple frets here NoteBoat. I in no way mean to imply that you can't handle complex rhythems. I was speaking of those classical musicians that you agree have a hard time playing blues based music. We just disagree on why.

And I want to make something clear since I realize that you have a music theory book for sale here. I am not trying to discredit your musicianship nor your ability as a teacher in any way. I don't even have to read your book to know it is valuable simply from what your posts I've read in these forums and the review of the book. You have a great knowledge of music therory combined unique ability to explain things in an understandable way. If I had the same eloquence as you I would write a book too. Spread the knowledge.

As far as complexity goes, I don't mean to say that any form of music is inherantly inferior to any other. That stinks of cultural superiority. What I am saying is that IMO classical music has been simplified by composers in order to make it more compatible with notation. Time and key signatures are a double edged sword. Complexity is compromised for consistancy. You being knowledgeable of the georgian modes and their history could probably elaborate on the why and when of this better than I.

The blues rhythem may be easy because it is natural. Classical musicians are trained to ignore nature.
But nature is very complex. And you pointed out that it sometimes mimics a heartbeat. Any cardiologist will tell you that it is very complex.

I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just want to show people things from a diferent perspective.

I used to look at the blues rythem and scale as being simpler that other forms of music too. But what really enlightened me and made me understand blues rythem alot better was when I met this African drummer that moved into a duplex that I was renovating. It hit me like a brick wall and the blues made alot more sense to me.
He had this homemade set of bongo things he would play and he was amazing. There were five of them tuned so the intervals vere exactly the same beteween them. But he changes the pitch by the way he hits them. He was playing the blues scale on his drums so a just had to bring my acoustic with me the next day. When I say drummer I don't mean he was a proffesional drummer. In his native culture there are no proffesional musicians because everyone is a musician. They are trained musically from day one. Their whole society revolves around music. Music is their language.

He demonstrated to me how that lurch in rhythem is actually two or more independent rythems that that follow each other. They are used to denote distance literally and figuratively. Litterally it has to do with the speed of sound. For example, to denote that something is 500 feet away one rhythem would follow the other by the amount of time it takes for sound to travel 500 feet. And it is also used to denote speed and direction. But it also is used figuratively too. But really it's just too complex to put down in a written form, I mean how the hell can you notate something like that.

It may be natural and easy but it certainly is not lacking in complexity. Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn or Albert collins go off. That's not simple. The often misrepresented blues scale is similar in complexity. It's not really a scale in the same sense as classical scales. It's too complex to notate accurately though so it is often represented in various bastardized forms.

[NoteBoat]

You're right that blues can be rhythmically complex, but most of it isn't. Get the feel for the pulse, and Stevie Ray's stuff is a basic 12/8 - the same as Robert Cray's or Roy Buchanan's or (insert your favorite bluesman here). That's in fairly sharp contrast to the rhythmic variety demanded of musical styles like jazz or classical.

By the way, I appreciate your description of the distance and direction aspects of your friend's music. That makes a tremendous amount of sense to me in the evolution of the polyrhythms.

You're right about notation demanding unnatural precision, too.... but that's what a conductor is for. When you think about it, having 100 or so musicians following precise divisions of a changing metric pattern as the conductor executes his vision of the phrasing is downright amazing.

Notation seems to take 100-200 years to catch up with what's happening musically. I expect sometime this century somebody will come up with a decent way to note chromatic music - our staff was really designed for stuff that stays in one key, with an occasional - and crisply defined - modulation. Maybe next century we'll have decent ways for noting rhythms and pitches that aren't common to the Western system - I've tried reading percussion pieces where a double-dotted note is the unit of the beat (a natural division is a septuplet), and that greatly improves the ability to record rhythmic ideas... but the recreation becomes a new problem, because we're not accustomed to reading notation like that. I've recently read about some notation system that incorporates the microtonal pitches of various cultures, from Arabic to Balinese, by dividing half steps into six discrete parts - 72 pitches per octave - but I haven't seen it written yet; perhaps that will hold the key for blues to be accurately written.

So in the context of 'blues is far more complex than current notation systems will allow', I agree... but as classical music draws from much deeper wells melodically and harmonically, I took exception to the blanket statement that the blues are more complex than classical music. Heck, classical music is far more complex than current notation allows too - ask somebody like Phillip Glass!

Peace,

Tom

[Derp]

Blues just says: "Let's talk, here's what's going on".

Blues is a lot of great things, but complex isn't one of them.

That's a great way to look at it.

[hairballxavier]

Blues.

Major? Minor?

Close enough for rock and roll ?

Devil Music ?

Is Metallica Devil music? They do seem kind of evil, not wanting people to steal their music and all.
How about AC/DC? Angus does have horns and a pointed tail, you can see them quite clearly on the Highway to Hell album cover. That seems kind of suspicious. Zeppelin? The Stones sympathy for the Devil and those polyrythmic drums. The British invasion in on this Satanic conspiracy too? And the Austrailians too? What about Jim Morrison? Is he in on this too? What do doors have to do with this? Hendrix ?SRV ? What's minor blues? sounds a bit like jazz.

What's all this talk about the mysterious "crossroads." ? Everyone knows that Steve Vai is the devil and got whooped off the stage by some punk kid. Didn't he. And did the Devil really go down to georgia? And whats up with that crazy Elvis guy with that hip thrusting that Ed Sullivan had to censor. What does rock-n-roll have to do with sex? Why is rock music so obsessed with sex and the devil. Even the term "rock-n-roll is just slang for having sex. Did all those rich rockers make a pact with the Devil for groupies, fame and fortune? Do the performers of non-devil music really hate the devil music guys? Or are they just jeolous about the groupies?

What's all this got to do with an equipentatonic drumset? And who in the hell is Eshu? Is he behind it all?

The anwser to SirN's question about why rock players play a minor petatonic scale over major I, IV, V chord progression is simple. The don't. At least the ones that know what they are doing don't.(Angus, Eddie, Jimi, Stevie,Keith,Hammet etc.etc) They use the pentatonic blues scale.


I really didn't intend this, but it is obvious that in order to express my views on the topic of why that blasted rock music can use a godforsaken minor scale over major chord changes without looking like I am totally off my rocker, I am going to have to go WAAAAY deeper into this than I had intended. Even touching on music history to show the roots of rock, and religion because this music is spiritual in nature, and throw in hint of a critique of cutlural superiority to show relevance. And I'm sure that some music theorists here may come to the conclusion that Hairball is off his rocker, and that my views do not even belong in a proper music theory forum even. All I can ask is that you consider them with an open mind. I have studied this informally, but rather extensively to satisfy my own curiosity. And I would dare to say that I know more about the blues than your average stringbender. And Rock is a form of blues music. So let's get to the roots of this dillema, shall we. Those roots are ancient. And the blues scale is much more ancient than the Church modes. Most historians trace blues music only to the Mississippi Delta and stop there. Its history an unwritten history before that.



Really any type of music can be very complex or very simple depending on the skill of the composer/performer. But what I'm trying to get at is that the blues scale isn't as simple as people make it out to be. Depending on whom you ask the E blues scale can be

E G A B D
E G A Bb B D, (this is the one this forum seem to prefer)
E G A Bb B D Eb
E F# G A Bb B C# D Eb.etc etc.. bassically until you've got a chromatic scale with microtones.

The first and last ones come from the notation keys in 80's era Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine. They were the first to start transcribing entire songs in every issue of a magazine and those transcriptions were undoubtably the most accurate end complete transcriptions I've ever seen. Steve Vai and Joe Satriani used to transcribe for them. What? The devil's a music transcriber. Why all this inconsistancy?

I've seen it notated in all of these ways in different publications. And very few of them correctly point out that the G is bent a microtone. And that's what causes so much confusion. But really none of them are technically correct because the scale is derived from an equipentatonic scale like Ringos creepy homemade "drums" that is very common in Africa. Ringo is my African aquaintance I mentioned in the other post.

I couldn't say his name right and he would get very angry if you didn't use the right tone when you said his name. So I would just call him Ringo and he could live with that. Apparently in his language, using the wrong tone when enunciating the vowel in his name changed it's meaning to some kind of insult and he took it VERY personally. So I avoided it out of fear. Ringo wasn't a very stable guy. He was suffering from a severe case of culture shock. He was drunk much of the time, prone to violent outbursts, spoke very little english, considered clothing/bathing to be optional and eventually got deported for being a lunatic drug dealer with no respect for the law, other people, or our culture. That is sad because the people he fled to America to avoid have probably killed him by now.

But he hated western music and took pride in showing me why it was "wrong". Except for blues, I guess blues was "close enough for rock-n-roll", but it still wasn't "right" unless you followed his very strict rules. So it was an uneasy friendship at best. Actually I can't say that I really liked the guy at all that much due to our clash of cultural differences. But he was a hell of a musician and could play complex polyrythems by himself, and always had good smoke.

But getting back to the blues scale. It is African in origin. and is still used in rural Africa. An equipentatonic scale divides an octave into 5 equal sections. If we take the equipentatonic scale and compare it to the minor pentatonic scale we will see that they both have the root, dominant, and subdominant in common. And that's pretty much where the similarity ends. So for the sake of clarity I'll call it the blues mode. Now realise that this is an unwritten form of music so I may take a few liberties in explaining it. So here goes.

Eshu, the blue note.

First I will attempt to explain the second interval because this is at the very crux of our major minor question in the topic....

In E The second interval of this pentatonic scale lies between the G and G#. This is commonly referred to as one of the blue notes. Naturally this note begs to resolve into a either a major or minor. But the key to blues mode melody is to not let it do that. Or only let it go there very briefly. You almost let it do that but not quite because that would let it establish a clear tonic center or key if you let it go major or minor. It would go tonal in nature instead of modal. You slide up from the G or down from the G# to someplace in the middle. It is traditional that the harmonica bends down to the blue note and the guitar bends up to the blue note. But they can't stay at the major or minor note. As you have probably noticed, blues and rock use alot of bends. And there is a reason for that. Its not just performance liberty, but is required.

The people, and I say the people because in these rural Western and southern African communities everybody is a musician, there is no audience. The people have a name and symbol for this blue note in this scale. It's name is Eshu and the symbol is a circle with a cross through it. In these societies, not even their language is written, It's to complex they basically only use symbols to denote Gods. Eshu is one of their Gods. In fact he is the most important of all the Gods. So this music is spiritual in nature. The cross is in the symbol because Eshu is the lord of the crossroads. And at crossroads they build markets where they trade livestock, various goods and drugs such as Qat and natural hallucinogens and also that's where they build Temples to Eshu, to remind people that there is more to life than material things and encourage fair trade.

Eshu is also the God of the catch 22, compromise, the God of the conflict and harmony between woman and man and indeed the god of sex and fertility. Ever see one of those curious African trinkets of the little guy with the huge spam sticking out? That is Eshu. Thought the sex drugs and rock-n-roll communal culture was a product of the 60's ? Guess again. Eshu has been around for millenia. Some would say he is as old as man and woman. He is also represented by different animals in different communities. The chameleon, the hyena, the goat and the snake among others and African drums are often adorned with their skulls, But the one with skull of a horned animal such as a goat, because the horns represent the multiple dualities in life, that one is played by the musician with the best mastery of playing and toying with that major minor duality in music. Angus?

The crossroads also represents tough decisions that will change the course of your future. Tough decisions one makes in life. Sometimes you must choose a path and if the path to take seems unclear in the material world one can choose that path in the spirit world or your subconscious world that is unfettered by the distractions of the material world. And music can take you there. Music can be used to help induce a trance like state of mind. The doorway between the material and dreams world. And its not quite a sleep state because you would not be able to remember it if it was. It's in between, like the blue note. But the music must have a modal quality that denies it a tonic center. That quality that modal music around the world has that plays with the senses is inducive of a trance state of mind. But music that is major or minor has a clear tonic center that plants the mind firmly in the material world. But music that keeps pulling that center away pulls the mind with it. Thats how the voodoo culture induces a trance. Psychologists recognise that denying a firm base to the senses can help induce a trance, however most preferr to get to this place of the subconscious by toying with the sense of vision. Hence the swinging pendulum of the hypnotist. In a voodoo ceremony, when one's mind gets to this in between state of mind, this not asleep but not fully aware or awake state of mind he is said to be being ridden by Eshu . And to signify this ridden one performs Eshu's dance that is recognised by imitation of the hip thrusting that a man does during sex. Nobody shall disturb him in any way while he is being ridden by Eshu. That could pull his mind back to the material world. He has entered this state of mind for a reason, to make a tough decision, to get council from his subconscious, and it is not easy to get to that state of mind so you do not disturb them. You might get an donkey kicking.

The people recognise that the nature of man creates Gods. The existence of gods depends on man. To them gods are more akin to natural sciences, the study of human nature and philosophies. They also recognise that people and animals have spirits that live on after death. But they are not immortal spirits. They only exist as long as someone remembers them. Eshu is also the communicator between man and the spirit world. He controls the doors at the crossroads between the spirit world and the material world. Eshu controls the doors between your waking consciousness and your dream consciousness. In some cultures that are not so materialistic in nature as ours, The world that you experience in your dreams while sleeping is just as important as the world you experience while awake. Think about that for a moment....They both unboubtably seem real enough while you are experiencing them, right? Eshu is the doorman that lets the living into and out of the dream world but does not allow the dead to pass into the material world. So you may visit the dead in the dream world but it is just them in spirit. Eshu the communicator takes their form and represents them.

I can see why Ringo was obsessed with music, and why he was such a troubled man. His culture was based entirely on music. He was now in a backwards land without his prized ceremonial drums. A backwards land where God created man. He was a merchant by trade but his occupation put him in direct conflict with the law. (which ruined any chance of political asylum) He had his equipentatonic drums but these are inferior to the ones at home, they are not the ones used in a spiritual context. In such a culture a mans drums are his most prized possession of extreme craftsmanship and they are often intricately decorated often with jewels and ivory. A man will keep them throughout his lifetime, and they will be passed on to his eldest son when he dies and sometimes burned at his funeral pyre if he has no heir. In some tribes like Ringos they are decorated with the skull of it's owner after it is passed on to posterity. They are family heirlooms. And really since they are made out of hollowed out trees, they are literally the family tree. and in the case of kings, the crown jewels. So Ringo was a patriarch too. But someone who dosen't understand this culture will just see these drums with skulls on them as creepy concoctions of savages.

And speaking of a man without his drums. That brings us to America. Slaves in America for the most part were not allowed to have drums. The slaveowner knew that the slaves could communicate with each other over vast distances with their drums and that could let them organize a rebellion. But if you look in old history books you will find that "civilized" people thought this was like a crude form of morse code. And the blues scale, well, that had to be an imperfectly played minor mode. This is because of ideas of cultural superiority. People tend to dismiss art forms that they do not understand as simple and random.

A delta blues guitarist playing in E will often use these notes while performing. E, F#, G, G#, A, B, D, D#. And that's before he ever gets to the second chord.

They obsererved blues guitarists fingering patterns and tried to notate a complicated ancient unwritten form of music on this incredibly simple staff with "key signatures" that the Christian church came up with for the specific purpose of stamping out that form of modal music. No wonder so many guitarists are confused about this issue. Rock/blues music breaks ALL of the rules that this system of notation was invented to create. Evangalists calling rock music evil and trying to stamp it out is nothing new. The Church has a fear of the emotion and self introspective nature of modal music. They consider people entering the subconscious of the mind as a threat to their dominance of the material world. They rule by fear and suppression of knowledge and enforced conformity.

The church modes forced composers of classical music to go to extreme measures to even get an iota of emotion out of their music. This relegated musicians to a chair reading specks of fly poop off a piece of paper as a slave to the conductor. Some composers found a way around this system that was designed to keep music from pulling from a tonic center. They could use the flat 2nd to pull away from the root or the augmented 4th pull away from the dominant. This was quickly dubbed "diabolous en musica" or the devil in music, and was banned. A crime punishable by burning at the stake. So the Locrian mode was banned before it really had a chance to exist.

The church forgot who made who. They forgot that man creates gods and it's not the other way around. They sent missions around the world to stamp out other gods. But the people kept their gods and just renamed them to avoid punishment
. They had to give their gods names from Catholic doctrine to satisfy the missions. Minor Gods were renamed after Saints. But Eshu was much too important to be named after a mere Saint. Eshu became Satan.

So that's why blues and rock is Devil music. There is nothing evil or mysterious about it. It's only that way in the minds of the people who were so repressed by the church that they forgot who made who. That happens as generations of repression go by.

Since rock is not restrained by the rules of the church, it is a very powerful and emotional form of music. Take a look at the audiences at a rock or blues concert. Compare that with audiences of classical music and tell me what form of music is better at conveying emotion. That's what music is all about isn't it.

The invention of the electric guitar and amplifier put a new persona to the front of the stage and made rock's ability to overwhealm the senses more powerful than ever. The guy that has a mastery of pulling the feel of music back and forth beween major and minor. The master of Eshu who has now become Satan. The lead guitarist. But his role is not new. He's just taken over the ancient role of the guy who plays the drum with the horned skull on it that I mentioned earlier.

So if you want to learn to play rock forget about the major minor church modes.

Screw the church, You can't kill rock-n-roll, its here to stay. LONG LIVE ROCK !

I hope that answers you question SirN, since no one else can seem to give you a satisfactory answer.

[Wes Inman]

Wow.

I came here because I heard a big brew was going on. They were right.

That must be the longest post I've ever read.

I have learned to stay out of this theory stuff. Music to me is something that sounds good. Period.

I actually agree with a lot that hairballxavier said about the differences between African and Western (European) music. The Church did oppose this music for the very reasons he stated. This is historical fact.

But I also agree with Notebook. Classical musicians are far more knowledgeable than Blues musicians.

They are simply different styles. Classical music exemplifies precision and order. The blues exemplifies chaos. Its true, with Blues you have to bend the notes slightly. This is where the sound comes from.

I don't know. You guys intellectualize music too much. I seriously doubt SRV or Angus is thinking about all these religious things when they were or are playing. Sheesh, get real. Man, they were into the music, the tone, and the feel, regardless of the psychological, spiritual, or whatever reasons the music makes you feel a certain way.

And you don't have to be into that to play. I play the Blues. And I can bend the notes all whichaways. I ain't playin' for the Devil. I'm on the other side. But I just like the way it feels and sounds.

That's my 2 cents. Now on my way back out of the Theory section. No wonder I never come here.