Čtenáři, možná vás zaskočí, že na českých stránkách nacházíte anglický text. Není to chyba. V současné době pro časopis Muzikus píše newyorkský klávesista a pianista Brian Charette. A tak jsem si v redakci řekli, že bychom mohli něco udělat pro zlepšení vašich znalostí angličtiny. Určitě nám dáte za pravdu, že angličtina se na pódiích objevuje stále častěji a potřeba domluvit se na pódiu i v zákulisí se stane brzy samozřejmosti. Proto zde naleznete originální verzi přímo od Briana a na stránkách časopisu Muzikus v čísle 11/2013 článek přeložený Petrem Štikou. Navíc zde máte audio ukázky, které do časopisu jaksi přeložit neumíme. Enjoy reading!
šéfredaktor časopisu Muzikus Ing. Vladimír Švanda
This month I would like to talk a little about blue notes and their use in rock music. In all these examples we will be speaking about the blues scale; In C for instance (C, Eb, F, F#, G, Bb, C). The blue note F# gives a very crunchy sound to an otherwise very inside minor pentatonic scale. This note can be used with great effect to create slight harmonic clashes in the music that adds a little dissonant color. In the last example we will show you how the usually very stable minor 3rd can be used as a blue note as well when rubbing up against it's Major 3rd brother.
Ex1. Gospel Comping
You will hear this kind of sound very often in gospel music. We are basically just harmonizing the C Blues scale with simple minor triads. In Bar 1 we've spelled the F# as a Gb to show how the Eb minor triad slips greasily to the D and C minor triads. In Bar 2 we harmonize the scale in a higher register with an Eb Major and D minor triad before doing our blue note trick from the first bar. This phrase is repeated in bars 3-4 to really drive our point home. In your own improvisations try to get a lot of mileage out of a small amount of harmonic material. By repeating motifs and slightly changing them, your musical ideas will develop very organically. We will use a B3 sound for this example. Pull the first 4 drawbars out (888800000) with no vibrato and Leslie set to brake. Add some distortion to the sound to really feel the crunch of the blue note
Ex 2 Crunch
Ray Manzerek of the Doors would often employ this device. You would often hear him play the blue note with the 4th or 5th scale degree together to get a very dissonant minor 2nd interval. Here we play the C and the Db together in an interesting rhythm. In Bar 3 we develop our riff slightly. We continue our Idea on the F and G in beat 2 then go right back to our original idea. Ray played transistor organs like Vox Continental and Gibson organs that had a very nasal quirky sound which really make this Idea sound great. Ray would pull all the bars out on his Vox Continental and use a little vibrato.
Ex 3 Rock Chick
This example actually comes from Jazz music but can be used really effectively in Rock. This style of playing comes from jazz pianist, Chick Corea, who along with McCoy Tyner, developed a very sophisticated style of using pentatonic scales. The Scale here is basically a F minor pentatonic scale with the addition of a major third. The clash of the major and minor 3rd adds a lot of interest to this otherwise very simple scale. In our short improvisation you can see the A and Ab rubbing against each other throughout the line. We are on B3 again. Lets try a more modern drawbar setting; 888400030 C3/ Leslie Brake Perc on/Soft/Fast/3rd.
