LISTEN HEAR
had not the blues scale , but the regular major scale . When the two musical cultures met they took this scale and adapted it to an old vocal tradition , which is not hitting the notes right on but playing with them a little . All music is tinted with the blues notes in this way .
The highest bluesy music is gospel music as opposed to blues . The style of singing or playing uses a lot of bent notes , especially vocal . That style – there is an Italian word for it – it ’ s called melisma . What melisma means is if you ’ re singing a word and the word has one syllable and you give it more than one syllable , each syllable being a note , that is called melismatic singing . You can use this as your vehicle for blues notes in vocal performances . I ’ ll give you an example .
If you sing the word “ you ” and you ’ re singing the blues and use more than one syllable , each one being a note you go “ you-uuu ” ( sings and plays ). This is melismatic singing . Using one syllable as a vehicle for singing blues notes . If you listen to a singer like Aretha , who is a highly melismatic singer , or Sly or Rufus , they use tremendous amounts of notes in just singing one word . They use a few words for a huge amount of vocal improvisation .
Anyone can play blues . You just have to do a lot of listening . I can give you a list of hundreds of blues records that are available to listen to . You hear it in all American music forms . There is some blues in it . There is no form of music I can think of that is untouched by the blues . ■
Trailer for Sweet Blues : A film about Mike Bloomfield
38 GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER DIGITAL EDITION MAY / JUNE