African American Christian Wedding Songs : Blues

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In music there really are no limits or pigeon holes that you are expected to stay in. I grew up in the sixties where the violin was largely seen as a classical instrument and people like Stephane Grapelli were considered "off the wall" with their Jazz interpretations. Today when you see someone with a violin either electric or acoustic, you really don't have any idea before he starts playing what style it will be. For this article I want to explain how to play the blues on a violin, and just how easy it is.

Blues is an emotion but one of the big myths is that it is a predominantly dominated by black musicians, and the violin is not ideally suited. In fact the violin is perfect for playing the blues as there are no frets and the fingers can slide up and down the fingerboard playing half notes which are the very essence of the blues.

The scale you need to know if you want to start to play blues is called the Pentatonic, and this can be minor or major, but either way provides the "nuts and bolts" of the blues. Expression is something else, as it is true that you need to be able to "feel" the blues to really connect with the deep emotionalism.

However, the scale can be learnt and can be played by a complete beginner either as a one Octave or two Octaves. A pentatonic scale has five notes in it. If you play it straight either with someone playing a simple twelve Bar blues on the guitar, or using backing tracks which can be found on the Internet; by going up and down this scale and not doing anything else other than playing the notes as they are written, you start to get a blues feeling.

The next stage is the fun part. Start to play the notes in a different order and experiment with what works, and what doesn't. This is the "birth of the Blues" for you and your fiddle and if you love the Blues as I do, you will never look back and will start improvising to the Pentatonic scale in different keys, both major and minor.

It is very important if you are improvising over a backing track, that you find something that you like, as this will add to the pleasure.

Your violin is an instrument that is fantastic for playing the blues, and the Pentatonic scale will open the door for you into more expressive violin.

To help you play the blues here are two links to The Violin Website.
Click here for a lesson on the pentatonic scale and here for blues backing tracks.

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A great place to start for writing melodies are the pentatonic and blues scales. Let's take a look at them.

Major Pentatonic

The major pentatonic scale is based on the Ionian mode, but only has five notes in it. Hence the "penta-" prefix. The major pentatonic scale can be thought of as the root, second third, fifth and sixth notes of the major scale (Ionian). In other words, it looks like this:

1 2 3 5 6 1

So the C Major Pentatonic scale would be:

C D E G A C

If you're a guitar player, the first position of the C major pentatonic will play out like this on your fretboard:

---------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------7----10---

-----------------------7----10-------------------

-----8----10-------------------------------------

The cool thing about the major pentatonic scale is that it can be played over any chord progression in a major key. That includes the Ionian, Lydian and Mixolydian modes. So you can use the notes in the C major pentatonic scale (C, D, E, G, A) to come up with a melody for a song in C Ionian (major or C), C Lydian or Mixolydian C. It'll work with all three major modes, so it's fairly universal in that sense. But experiment with this scale to find out what works best with your style. Most importantly, trust your ears. They'll tell you whether or not something's working for you song.

As long as you stick to those five notes, your melody will be based on the C Major Pentatonic scale. You can riff around on those notes and see what you come up with. You can play them in any order, in any octave, with any note lengths you like. Just stick to those five notes. It may be helpful for you to play the notes on a guitar or piano, so you can clearly hear where they are. Then you can hum or sing them as a melody.

Major Blues

Just like the major pentatonic scale, the major blues can also be played over any chord progression in a major key. If you add one little note to the major pentatonic scale, it becomes the major blues scale. That note is a flatted third. So in relation to the major scale, the major blues scale is defined as:

1 2 3 b 3 5 6 1

So the C Major Blues scale would be:

C D Eb E G A C

It'll look like this on the fretboard:

---------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------7----10---

-----------------------7----10-------------------

---8---10---11----------------------------------

Do you hear that bluesy extra texture the flatted third note adds? It's a bluesy, rock kind of feel. As long as we stick to those six notes in our melody, our melody will be based on the C major blues scale. So riff around on those notes and see what you come up with.

Minor Pentatonic

In the same way the major pentatonic scale uses only five of the notes of the major (Ionian) scale, the minor pentatonic uses only five notes of the natural minor (Aeolian) scale. It uses only the first, third, fourth, fifth and seventh notes of the natural minor scale.

So relating back to the natural minor scale (not the major scale), the minor pentatonic uses these notes:

1 3 4 5 7 1

The C minor pentatonic scale would be:

C Eb F G Bb C

It'll look like this on the fretboard:

--------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------8----10-----

-------------------8----10----------------------

---8----11--------------------------------------

Play it to hear what it sounds like.

As long as we stick to those five notes, our melody will be based on the C minor pentatonic scale. The cool thing about the minor pentatonic scale is that it can be played over any chord progression in any key, major or minor. That includes the Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian and Phrygian modes. So you can use the notes in the C minor pentatonic scale (C, D, E, G, A) to come up with a melody for a song in the major keys of C Ionian, C Lydian or Mixolydian C. And you can also use the scale to come up with melodies for the minor keys of C Dorian, C Aeolian, or C Phrygian. It'll work with all six of those modes, so it's very universal. Again, I encourage you to experiment with this scale to find out what works best with your style and of course, trust your ears.

Try taking the chords from one of your old songs, and see if you could come up with a new melody based on the minor pentatonic scale. It'll help give you a feel for the sounds the scale has to offer. Then try it over another one of your songs to see how it varied over different chords.

Minor Blues

The same deal applies for the minor blues scale. You can use it over both major or minor keys.

The minor blues scale is the same as the minor pentatonic, with the addition of the blue note. This time the blue note is the addition of a flatted fifth, in reference to the natural minor (Aeolian) scale. So the minor blues scale uses the first, third, fourth, flatted fifth, fifth and seventh notes of the natural minor scale.

Relating back to the natural minor scale (not the major scale), the minor blues uses only these notes:

1 3 4 5 b 5 7 1

The C minor blues scale would be:

C Eb F Gb G Bb C

Again, if you're a guitar player, it'll look like this on the fretboard:

--------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------8----10-----

-----------------8----9----10------------------

--8---11----------------------------------------

If our melody holds to those six notes it'll be based on the C minor pentatonic scale. Try jamming around on those notes over a chord progression in C that's major, or minor. You can do it with your guitar or piano and then translate that to a vocal later.

You can see we've got some flexibility when we use the major and minor pentatonic and blues scales as a basis for our melodies. As long as you're in any major key (whether it's Ionian, Lydian or Mixolydian) you can use the major blues or pentatonic scales to write melodies. What's even cooler is you can use the minor pentatonic and blues scales to write melodies in any key, major or minor. It's pretty powerful stuff for coming up with melodies.

To learn more, download my free EBook here:
http://www.SuccessForYourSongs.com/freeoffer/

Anthony Ceseri is the owner of http://www.successforyoursongs.com/, a website dedicated to the growth and development of songwriters of all skill levels. Anthony's writings appear as examples in the book "Songwriting Without Boundaries: Lyric Writing Exercises For Finding Your Voice" by Pat Pattison, an acclaimed lyric writing professor at Berklee College of Music.