the blues are named after something called the "blue note", which was bending the string up a microtone. essentially all blues music makes use of this microtonal technique, which means large amounts of rock music make use of it as well.
it was also huge in prog & fusion music, through things like vibrato, harmonies from alternate tunings and playing with echo machines. miles davis, chick corea, yes, genesis - there's microtones all over all that stuff.
it became very much cemented in the more chaotic aspects of punk rock and hit a height of mainstream appeal in the 90s, when it became known using the term grunge. one of the better examples of microtonal music in pop is alice in chains.
and, it's been widely implemented across the "intelligent techno" sphere by artists like autechre and aphex twin, by using algorithms, frequency generators and other such fun things.
this idea of eastern v western music is a false dichotomy. microtones have always existed in the west, it's just that the church thought they were "evil" and tried to destroy them.
boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas The western music microtones you're talking about are much more articulations than independent notes (for the jazz blue notes), imho, and that's how they're played on instruments that don't bend like pianos. Plus they're not really used in harmony (it's much more a solo).
Same goes for vibratos and bends... even though they're physically not tuned on the target, lexically they're just normal notes with an articulation.
deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop i don't agree. and, i think you're missing the historical truth, that a lot of it comes from celtic music, which had a very defined concept of microtonality. that worked it's way down into british folk music and into the various modern western forms from there. traditional latin & byzantine music also had concepts of microtonality.
most texts will talk to you about equal temperament, and how western music theory discarded microtones as a kind of mathematical model of music theory. but, this is at best a half-truth. to understand how western christianity (and this is, at it's core, a religious thing) interpreted certain intervals, you need to go back to a strain of greek philosophy that began with pythagoras. a system of mysticism developed out of a crude understanding of number theory that gave special properties to certain ratios. they'll teach you in first year calculus that they thought the square root of two was some kind of evil omen, because it was "irrational" - in fact our very concept of logic stems from this archaic number mysticism. this developed over time into this idea that certain ratios (4ths and 5ths) were approved by god himself, and all these other ratios were tainted by the influence of satan. it sounds utterly ridiculous, but it's the actual truth of it.
there were microtones in western folk music the whole time, but the church cracked down on them as representing something evil. and, it's only out of this extreme form of religious censorship on artistic expression that we develop this concept of "western music". equal temperament was built as a mathematical model to cement this christian conception of "allowed intervals" - but that suggests the existence of "forbidden intervals". the whole thing is really an entirely contrived construction of western academia. but, of course, the church was powerful enough to write history for over a thousand years, and what we have is what they've allowed us to have.
so, when you talk about a blue note or an alternate folk tuning in a prog piece, or even the dissonance of grunge, it's not merely articulations. it's very much a continuation of the deep cultural legacy of microtonality in western music.
to put it another way: the hierarchy may have taken away our ability to write these ideas down, and explain them, but the ideas were there in antiquity, never disappeared in western folk music and are, in fact, still with us today.
i know that what they teach you in school is that western history is the history of christianity. it is from this enforced, entrenched narrative that the idea that church music is the same thing as western music comes from.
but, it's really a type of brainwashing. if you scratch the surface a little, it is easy to see that the history of western culture is a struggle against first rome and then christianity - from the perpetual celtic uprisings in france and spain, to the german and viking invasions, to the renaissance and the enlightenment right up to the hippies and the modern period. in era after era, and all over western europe, there is this single defining counter-narrative of struggle against everything rome has ever represented that truly defines us as the barbarians that we are.
the truth is that our folk music traditions, as they continue to exist, and as they have always defined us, have always been microtonal, as best as we're able to understand them from a distance. remember that the celts lived all over europe in antiquity. the germans were late invaders, and their culture has been so thoroughly destroyed by the romans that we have no concept at all of what their music was. but, we understand celtic music, and we know it utilized microtones.
this narrative even exists in upper class music, starting with beethoven and completing with webern. the foundations of western music theory were all but discarded by western musicians practically the moment they were created. in the terms we define western music theory in, the only true western composer is mozart.
boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Byzantine music has REAL microtonality yes, and has had it since forever.
The real reason western music doesn't have microtones is that our harmony is ridiculously overdeveloped, and this literally FORCES everything into the circle of 5ths and makes microtones sound bad.
If we didn't write everything with chord progressions and independent bass and harmonized melodies and overlapping lines, we'd have microtones up the wazoo.
deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop but, that simply isn't true. and, of course, byzantine music did not develop in a vacuum - it is sourced from the same greek and latin sources that arabic music is, and those sources carried on in the western roman world for quite a long time.
if you look at even your standard celtic jig, on guitar (lute), you see all these grace notes, slides, bends, hammers, etc. where do you think those came from? they're not just random elaborations or disconnected stylistic flairs. they're artifacts of a microtonal music system.
so, when you hear the blue notes, and you put it in context, you have to realize where it's coming from. the notes were banned by the authorities as "satanic", yes. they were written out of the history books. but, they never stopped getting played.
boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Grace notes, slides, bends, hammers and so forth are totally normal. They happen in pretty much every musical tradition, both in traditions that are intensely microtonal (ex: Arabic) and in traditions that aren't (ex: Chinese).
They can easily evolve out nothing - for instance, Chiptune's ridiculously fast arpeggios evolved around 1990 out of trying to cram chords in songs on computers with only 3 or 4 sound channels (C64, Amiga).
Church music is low on articulations simply because it has to be sung by a whole bunch of people inside a church hall. Grace notes aren't banned by the church, they're banned by the acoustics of the building!
deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop again: i think you need to read up on this a bit more. seek out specialist material, and ignore general texts. out.
point was to the op: microtones are everywhere. what we call "western music theory" is a failed christian model, like creationism, that simply doesn't describe the world around us very well.
boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Western music theory isn't a model of anything, it's a harmonization technique. Writing a melody is intuitive, but turning that into multiple parts is much more technical.
So Western theory breaks down earlier songs into techniques that can be applied to a simple melody to turn it into a full blown song.
If microtones were useful towards this goal in typical Western musical styles, believe me, musicians would be getting sheets with half flats and comma alterations all over the place.
deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop again: you're clearly approaching this from a point of extreme ignorance, as though the voice leading created the theory, rather than was a result of it. you're just repeating church propaganda.
please research the history of this topic before you reply further. as mentioned, you want to begin with the pythagorean music theory, but you need to get beyond the introductory mathematical explanation and get into the philosophical underpinnings. our primary source for this is aristotle.
boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Fine then. The Christian church lobotomized Western music and confined it to the simple diatonic scale.
From that low point, Western music built itself back mostly by layering on independent voices and complexifying harmony.
This is why Western music nowadays has built up so much theory about chords, basslines, harmonization, key changes, orchestration, counterpoint and voice leading.
It invests all its complexity points in making multiple happen at the same time, which leaves other areas underdeveloped:
- Only 2 scale families (where Arabic music has 10~ Maqam families)
- Only 4/4 3/4 6/8 as common time signatures (Arabic music easily uses 5/4, 7/4, 11/4 etc)
- Underdeveloped melodic ornamentation
- Underdeveloped intonation variations (a Turkish Kanun player has multiple mandals per string and can practically move it up or down in comma steps).
- Underdeveloped improvisation (though this is getting better)
Gene Ruffalo
+deathtokoalas "...the blue notes, ...banned by the authorities as satanic..."_
Not the Dimminished Fifth?!! Bastards banned it, did they? Black Sabbath wore the hell out of that interval.
So fill me in, how is a "blues" note microtonal? I've been a violinist and guitarist for well over 40 yrs, tuned pianos since the 1980's, basically a well seasoned hippie born in the early 60's. I am sure you know this, that the "blues notes", in lets say a major pentatonic scale, are a minor 3rd and a diminished 5th. Both are ½ steps away from the notes surrounding them in the scale. Granted you might "choke it" short of the ½ step if you are bending into it on a guitar, but theoretically they are within the divisions of the 12 note octave. Does it truly make it a microtone if it is unintentional? Is there any structure, any set frequency divisions in these so called microtones? OR is it just the "if it sounds good and feels right, go for it" approach? In a violin you would actually play the 7th note (known as a "leading tone") as close as possible to the 8th (octave) in a major or harmonic minor scale (etc...), no longer making the two notes ½ step apart, but depending on who is playing the instrument and how thick your fingers are would decide the frequency of said leading tone. I have slender fingers so it is tight w/ me. So, is that really considered a microtone? In other words, have I been playing these mother fuckers for decades and not intentionally knowing it? I mean, it sounds good and feels right! Can these microtones be created in the natural world through harmonic vibrations? I know, these are a lot of questions, but you seem to have answers! Please don't make fun of me for not knowing things like this.. what does Christianity and the church have to do with any of this? Does not ancient Japanese bamboo flute music and Native American war chants use 5 note pentatonic scales? ONE LAST QUESTION, what do you have against koalas?
Kinkzoz
+Gene Ruffalo I don't think it's microtonal if it's an accident. The violin (and other similar instruments) could all be considered microtonal, if you put your fingers inbetween where two notes are. Yes. The internet just hates religion for some reason idk. Maybe. I'm too lazy to google it. I have nothing against koalas.
Hope that helps.
deathtokoalas
+Gene Ruffalo a blue note is roughly a quartertone. when it's vocal, it's usually about that flat. blues guitarists will emulate this by bending flat.
the wolf interval is the only part of this discussion that finds it's way into modern music theory. as mentioned, you have to understand pythagorean number mysticism and how it was applied by christian platonists to understand how this process came about. it's really just about finding ratios that exist within the set of rational numbers. the textbooks don't get into the number mysticism, as it isn't viewed as relevant to understanding the theory. but, in this context it's necessary to understand what western music theory actually is.
the last response from boptillyouflop was acceptable, except to point out that the church was unsuccessful in entirely expunging "irrational tones" from western folk music.
but, you're going to have to track down the pythagorean number mysticism yourself - it's obscure and complex, and (correctly) widely viewed as a lot of nonsense. it's easy to follow from the source, but.....well, if you can find an easy to follow summary (or write one yourself), let me know. don't expect this. the traditional academic history of music theory begins after this discussion for the reason that it's not worth teaching this stuff in almost any other context besides understanding the role of microtones in the history of western music.
http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2010/blue-notes/
Gene Ruffalo
+deathtokoalas Thanks, I know all about blue notes, been playing blues for decades. Technically it is a 1/2 step. In a C Major Pentatonic Scale it would be an Eb and in a C Minor Pentatonic Scale it would be Gb. Instruments like blues harps, saxes, and guitars that can bend notes you can cut it short to a quarter step, but on a piano you are limited to the half step adjustment, which sounds good too. Of course they are always just quick passing tones, you would never ride one out. I was really more interested in the other questions I threw at you, which I see you just responded to.
deathtokoalas
+Gene Ruffalo it really isn't a half-step, and the link i posted did a good job of disarming that. as mentioned, it was historically a consequence of vocalists coming down about a quarter to an eighth step flat, which created a slight dissonance in harmony. that was ported to other instruments quite consciously, and there are plenty of examples of using the technique to create sustained notes on just about any instrument. fusion and prog players have used sustained blue notes to great effect; there's a hancock example there, but you can hear it across the spectrum from tony banks to miles davis. and, as i pointed out before, those sustained uses became very integral aspects of the noisier reaches of punk rock, through intermediaries like frank zappa and can. that eventually developed into grunge.
you really can't play blue notes on the piano and there's no use in even talking about it.
boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Yeah, discussions about microtonal stuff in western music always seemed to be basically numerology for music to me. It's displayed in its full glory on the Xenharmonic Wiki.
Pythagorean theory is also numerological and mystic and crazy, it's just that the wide array of 5ths and low tolerance for mistuned 5ths in western music kinda leads towards it (or a close approximation like 12tet or well temperament, or an extension like Danielou tuning).
deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop or is it that the reason we put so much emphasis on fifths, and react so negatively to them when they're out of tune, is due to the socialization that has followed from the importance that our ancestors put on the mystical properties of the ratio?
Gene Ruffalo
+deathtokoalas where's this link at you say you posted? we are talking a lot of semantics here, for there seems to be a difference of terminology between your "blue note" and "the blues (plural) note" that is in a minor blues scale, normally fretted on a guitar and played by a quick hammer on or trill. I can think of a lot of old BB King licks that play the actual semitone "blues note", but I'd really like to hear this Zappa stuff and other examples you mentioned. Thanks
deathtokoalas
+Gene Ruffalo i was referring to the ethan hein link above.
boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas The importance of the fifth is not just cultural. It's structural. Musical cultures with different structural requirements tune differently.
Indian music pitches are all intervals up from a drone bass, so they tune in just intonation (logically).
Arabic music tends to center around small melodic steps within a tetrachord. Neutral seconds make structural sense: they make an interesting contrast to major seconds and minor seconds.
Indonesian Gamelan and Thai music are somewhat polyphonic and use a lot of bells and gongs and metallophones, which have irregular frequencies as harmonics, so they don't tune in fifths - instead, they tend to split the octave in roughly equal parts with some gaps.
Chinese and Japanese music are similar in polyphonic structure to the Gamelan, but they have a lot more string and wind instruments (which have regular harmonics). They tune in fifths.
deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop everything will always make perfect sense when you explain your observations in terms of the observations themselves. it's tautological.
it's only structural in terms of the mathematics. we built the instruments to use the math; we didn't write the math to explain the instruments. it's consequently actually more of a social construction. so, to understand why we built instruments that tune in fifths, we need to understand why we wanted music to sound that way - and the answer is because we thought these ratios had special properties.
we don't say we write in fifths because the instruments push us in this direction. that's mixing up cause and effect.
Scott Wallace
+deathtokoalas You say: so, to understand why we built instruments that tune in fifths, we need to understand why we wanted music to sound that way - and the answer is because we thought these ratios had special properties.
I would put it differently. These ratios do have special properties: people perceive fifths as being consonant even if they have no idea of the mathematics. Sure, part of what we consider consonant or pleasing is cultural, but people all over the world sing in unisons, octaves, and fifths, and it's not hard to hear why: the ratios of 1/1, 2/1, and 3/2 simply clash less than, say, the Pythagorean third, 81/64. Simpler geometry makes for consonance because the waves fit together nicely.
In other words, we don't write in fifths because the instruments push us in this direction: our ears push us in this direction.
cheers from warm Vienna, Scott
deathtokoalas
+Scott Wallace this is the perspective that musicologists will go well out of their way to push aside, and that bop isn't arguing. if you talk to somebody that grew up in india or in an islamic culture, or in an indigenous culture, they really won't have the same perceptions about 4ths and 5ths.
there's a mathematical basis to it in the way the string vibrates - there's some method to the madness. but, we construct these conventions.
there's nothing physical about major keys being happy, minor keys being sad and other keys being "mysterious". it's just what we've been taught. this is a point that virtually everybody agrees upon.
my only point was that if you look closely you can actually determine why it's what we've been taught.
Scott Wallace
+deathtokoalas Oh, I agree with you about different perceptions of fourths and fifths. But it's also a fact that fourths and fifths are part of almost every musical culture on Earth, including India's. And there's a physical basis for that, which is based on mathematics.
And yes, the conventions of major/happy, minor/sad are not universal by any means. You only have to hear all the European medieval love songs to realize that.
cheers from warm Vienna, Scott
