Ramblin’
March 9th, 2009 JonThere’s a recent book out called Ramblin’ On My Mind:New Perspectives On The Blues, edited by David Evans. The first chapter is by Gerhard Kubik and deals with the origins of the blues scale. Kubik uses blues great Skip James and his song Devil Got My Woman and analyzes the pitches to show that Skip seems to be using an 11-limit Just Intonation scale! As Skip is a cornerstone of the blues and a strong influence on Robert Johnson and many others, seeing how he bases his most classic song in 11-limit JI is quite eye-opening (so much for anyone who questioned playing blues in Just Intonation!).
At the end of the chapter, Kubik talks about how, in a study of 50 blues singers, the male singers who use the word ‘Man’ tend to sing it on the root pitch, and if they use the word ‘Woman’ (or ‘Devil’) they tend to sing it on a blue note like the flat seventh or flat minor third. The female singers, however, did the opposite, and tended to sing the word ‘Woman’ on the tonic and the word ‘Man’ (or ‘Devil’) on the blue notes. This seems to be an example of Harmonic Lyrics, where each pitch has a natural meaning and a verbal association. This ties in with Harmonic Rhythm, where each pitch has it’s own natural rhythm.
In the 13 O’Clock Blues Band, I have developed this concept in the Man/Woman Boogie, a long form piece that uses Harmonic Music, Harmonic Rhythm, and Harmonic Lyrics. We did the first performance of the piece a few weeks ago, and we are developing it for a series of gigs in June. I’ve always felt that pitch had meaning. In 12-Equal, as the pitches are hammered out into equal values, the meaning is obscured. Not only has the concept of in-tune, Harmonic Music been kept hidden from most people, the concepts of Harmonic Rhythm and Harmonic Lyrics are almost completely unknown. It is time for a change.