Willie McBlind Blues Journalby Jon Catler June 29, 2007 This page features a discussion relating to Willie McBlind and their new CD, Find My Way Back Home. This is a blues CD, although those flavors certainly appear – it is the feeling of the music which makes this a blues CD. The two main types of tuning used on this recording are Just Intonation and 12-Tone Ultra Plus. The Just system uses 64 notes per octave and is a 13-limit system, meaning that the 13th Harmonic is the highest prime used as an integral part of the system. In comparison, American composer Harry Partch used an 11-limit system. By extending this to the 13-limit, we gain access to the first complete scale found in Nature, which can be found in the 8-16 Harmonics of the Overtone Series. The history of music can be viewed as the story of Man’s gradual acceptance of higher members of the Overtone Series. From unisons to octaves, then from perfect 5ths to 3rds, 7ths and beyond, the evolution of Man’s ear can be traced. Willie McBlind’s music shows that 13 is a consonance and that Man’s ear has evolved to be able to recognize this fact. Chicken, the first track on Find My Way Back Home, is a good example of the usage of 13. A live recording with guitar, bass and drums, the first 4 verses of this song display the slide guitar sound that is available on the 64-tone JI guitar. The shear number of frets enables the notes to be connected by sliding over the frets in a way similar to fretless guitar or the use of a slide. In the 5th verse, each of the 3 chords of this 12 bar blues are played with the addition of their respective 13th Harmonics (E13, A13, B13). Although most people have never heard this chord before, the response has been that most everyone who hears these chords considers them to be consonant. Have a listen for yourself and please let us know if this is true for you also. The long sustained chord at the end of Chicken is the complete 8-16 Harmonic Series. Canonballer, the second track on Find My Way Back Home, begins with a chordal riff that uses a Just version of the popular #9 chord. The guitar melody is joined by female voice which leads to the use of a classical composition technique known as “canons.” Here guitar and voice follow each other on melodies and variations. Find My Way Back Home, the title song of the record, starts with male and female voices trading verses. The second verse ends with a stacked 11-limit vocal chord. After the guitar solo, the vocal stack returns elongated. This song introduces the full vocal approach of Willie McBlind. First, although the words are drawn from a very old source, the story being told here is true for the singers. The male voice is the sound of a man telling his story. It is not an imitation of another singer’s voice, rather it is the sound that is produced when someone reaches down to sing the real blues about their own life. The female voice, although differing in timbre, is singing in a way that is true to her. The coming together of these 2 voices, “like diamonds and coal”, combine to express a wide arc of human experience. The duality of this approach has a long tradition in blues and can be heard in the recordings of artists like Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Willie McTell (two of the sources of the band’s name.) The stacking of these voices in the vocal cloud sections is an innovation not likely to be found on other blues recordings. Hope My Baby was inspired by the classic “King Biscuit Time” sides of harmonica great Sonny Boy Williamson II, performed in the 12-Tone Ultra Plus tuning system. This song tells the story of a guy on his way to see his girl. He’s thinking, “I hope she don’t want to ‘talk’,” while she is anticipating his arrival thinking, “I hope he’s gonna hear what I have to say.” He’s thinking, “I hope she don’t cry when she founds out I done wrong”, while she’s thinking, “I hope my baby don’t fall.” Finally, he’s left hoping his baby’s gonna call him, while she’s hoping he’ll finally see the light now that she’s moved on. Shallow Gray is a lament, the woman telling her lover that one day soon she will disappear. The song features a “cloud” section that evokes clouds over the Delta. Pony Blues is the only cover song on the record as it was the theme song of the original Delta bluesman Charley Patton. The first section with guitar and voice leads to the entrance of bass and drums and you’d better hold on tight to that pony! Train continues the journey which now finds its riders on a steel horse. The powerful lead vocal, liquid guitar solo and band dynamics push the locomotion to the breaking point. Fall – the fretless guitar intro sets up the feeling of this song while nodding to Blind Willie Johnson. The deeply felt story of betrayal is satisfyingly expressed by the two voices, amplified by the sliding Delta power chords and the descending, slowed-down fall of the ending. Every Time also makes use of canons as a compositional device. The song deals with the influence of the past as it weaves into the present, represented again by intertwining guitar and vocal lines. Time Ain’t Long starts with a “Time Cloud”, which was performed live on 12-Tone Ultra Plus Guitar. In the cloud, time is suspended and the harmonics of the tuning are combined with picking technique to produce difference tones and summation tones which are not actually being fingered, resulting in melodies and aural phenomena beyond that capable in standard tuning. This leads to an epic boogie where the 2 voices are joined by a melodic solo, then an whole chorus joining, ending with a vocal Ascension to the skies that completes the album’s journey from the chicken coop to the pony to the train to the beyond, finding the way back home again to our beginnings. _____________________________________________________________ TUNING AND THE BLUES
The early bluesmen, such as Robert Johnson, Son House, and the aforementioned Charley Patton obviously had no access to today’s common electronic tuners. In addition, they generally tuned their guitars to open chords, often using a slide on top of that. This was not strict 12-Tone Equal Tempered music. On occasion, a singer would forego instruments for an a cappella rendition perhaps supported solely by a hand clap, (such as in Son House’s John The Revelator), No matter what tuning was used (or not used), it was the feeling of the blues that mattered. This still holds true today. If someone says a certain tuning system is quote “not right for blues”, they are simply saying that they do not possess the talent to transcend the tuning and get to the feeling. |
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