On page 25 of Blues Guitar for Dummies (please don't laugh) it states;
Blue notes are the minor third, minor seventh, and flatted fifth (in shorthand, those notes are b3, b5, and b7).
What is the difference between a minor and a flatted note?
Regards,
Paul
They are practically the same in the sense that they have all been lowered by a half step. But the naming convention is that if you flat a major third or major seventh they become "minor third" or "minor seventh". But if you flat a so-called perfect interval such as a perfect fifth, it's called "diminished fifth" but commonly "flat fifth" when talking about chord or scale notes.
The word "flat" or "flatted" can be applied to any note so altered, but the word "minor" can only be applied to those that form the interval of a second, third, sixth or seventh (or their compound equivalents: 9ths etc.)
I would actually say that the person writing (and/or editing) that passage is just being sloppy.
If you are talking about minor 3rds then you are talking about intervals. If you are talking about flattened 7ths then you are talking about major scale degrees.
Those are two different ways to talk about the same thing.
In writing there is something called parallelism. If you write a list of related items, they should all be of the same general type. When they aren't, that's actually a stylistic error and a good editor shouldn't allow it. It isn't allowed precisely because it leads to this kind of confusion. So they should either have talked about a diminished fifth, or about flattened thirds and sevenths.
I'd also point out that the "blue note" to most older blues and jazz guys is actually the b5 (present in the blues scale) and not a collection of notes. What they seem to be describing is the "blues scale" which is made up of the notes of the minor pentatonic scale (which are, relative to the major scale: 1, b3, 4, 5, b7) and the blue note (b5 of the major scale).
So, for example, A minor pentatonic would be the notes: A, C,D,E,G, A
and the A minor blues would be A, C, D, Eb (blue note), E, G, A.
I hope that doesn't confuse you more . . .
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
I hope that doesn't confuse you more . . .
Give me a couple of days to digest these answers and I'll let you know!!
Thanks for your help guys.
Regards,
Paul
