Blue Note
In jazz and blues, blue notes are notes sung or played at a lower pitch than those of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the tonic but still with the blue-note feeling.
The blue notes are usually said to be flattened third, flattened fifth, and flattened seventh scale degrees, although they approximate pitches found in African work songs. These blue notes are what turns a major scale into the blues scale. The same transformation of notes transforms the minor scale into the minor blues scale, as heard in songs such as "Why Don't You Do Right?".
The blues scale is used in almost all twelve-bar and eight-bar blues, but it is also used in blues ballads and in conventional popular songs with a "blue" feeling, such as Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather".
In its earliest manifestations, the flattened third, or mediant, and flattened seventh, or subtonic, were the main blue notes.
All Music Guide To The Blues
All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues is a non-fiction book that is an encyclopedic referencing of blues music compiled under the direction of All Media Guide.
The book's third edition was released in April of 2003 and was edited by Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra and Stephen Thomas Erlewine.
The book's back cover totes that the book contains ratings for close to 9,000 album and 935 musician biographies. Artists are setup alphabetically and include some of the following: birth and death dates, classification (vocals, guitar, drums, etc.), a biography, a discography. The discography listings include a five star rating, the music label it was released on, and the date as well as possibly reviews of certain albums.
There are also thirty essays on different styles along with "top lists" and extensive charts on the evolution/lineage of the blues.
