The blurry line between blues and rock

[MTguitar]

So I've been on a Clapton and Page kick lately.

Both use the minor pentatonic scales quite a bit.

But Clapton is always mentioned as a blues player while Page is known as a rocker.

BUT THEY USE THE SAME SCALES????

Where is the line? I listen to Cream era stuff and (insert a bunch of Page solos here) and can really only hear a difference in that Page uses more hammer ons/pull ofs and he likes to ascend/decend more in his phrasing while Clapton likes to stay in a part of a box for a while and work.

Anyone care to comment?

Where do you draw the line between blues and rock? Or is it not in the lead guitar itself but more in the entire composition of a song?

I'm confused...

 

[Warren Pederson]

I think it's more a part of what the other guys are playing. Page would sound plenty bluesy if he was playing behind a tasteful blues drummer/bassist etc. Good blues backup musicians are far and few between these days, think of the great ones that used to play behind Muddy in the early days.

 

[klasaine]

Lol! John Coltrane used minor pentatonic scales predominantly in the 60's and he was neither blues nor rock.

 

[brokenjoe]

The line is very thin indeed. You could say that Page is a rock guitarist with a blues influence, and that Clapton was a blues guitarist with a rock influence.

Both have crossed the line many times.

Generally speaking, the difference is in overall tone and attitude. Many rock guys have had long and sucessfull careers playing nothing but blues licks. Look at Angus Young, for example. He is hugely influenced by blues styles and Chuck Berry, among others. He sped it up, blasted it through a Marshall (or two) and now there are those who would categorize him as a heavy metal guy.

Blues guys like to think of themselves as freewheeling and improvisational, but the truth is, blues is actually a fairly rigid format. You wouldn't get away with playing finger taps, and dive bomb whammy riffs for too long in a blues bar.

Rock is much more open to new techniques, scales and modes. You can blend them into your pentatonic playing and get away with it in rock.

Also, most blues songs tend to be I IV V variants. When you play pentatonics over that it tends to sound bluesy. There really is no format for rock. That's why you get guys experimenting with different tones and techniques within the pentatonic scale when they play it.

 

[Axis29]

One of the big differences between the two is the use of thirds and sixths.

There's a note added to the pentatonic scale that comes on the second string... It's the sixth. Go from the fifth to the sixth during your solo, or even better, grab the sixth and bend it a tad... You're playing what I refer to as the Jimmy page note.

Now, go from the minor third to the major third to begin a solo and you're playing Clapton... really I think you have to bend the minor part way to the major and you've got that feeling of his.

A sixth is a tough note to play in a blues situation. You have to be very careful with it, but that third between minor and major is very bluesy. Page is a master at bringing this note in on bluesy numbers at just the right spot to build that tension perfectly.

Page uses more straight minor scale too (where the sixth comes from). Clapton will pop in and out of major and minor pentatonic from time to time.

Another difference? Page published music he copped straight from the old blues albums, lyrics, licks and got writing credit. Clapton published blues songs and called 'em blues songs and credited the original authors.

Don't get me wrong I love 'em both. Page made me want to play guitar. Clapton makes me want to be better and smoother and more rhythmic and know when not to play. I think both are masters. I wish I had half that amount of talent. But sometimes I get a little disappointed when I see no credit given to the older blues guys on any Zeppelin albums. Having discovered Zeppelin before I was even a teenager, it took me a long time to realize that what I really loved was the Blues.

 

[DavyA]

Personally I think that they are both Rock players who sometimes play blues. Eric has studied and emulated the blues masters. But then I think SRV is more of a rock player too along with bonomasa etc. I know others will dissagree and that's ok these are just my thoughts.

As far as the actual notes played I don't think that's it. Pentitonic are used in all kinds of music. And of course there is the blues scale too. Maybe it's the background. If some grows up on rock and then decides to play Blues that the Rock influence is going to dominate. Certainly if a player comes up on the Blues...

Very much the same with other genres like Country. Many of today's Nashville musicians are from Rock backgrounds and it shows, like Bon Jovi, kid rock etc. so there is a thin line there as well.

 

[T.C. Madison]

i really love this thread!
great one!
it is a joy to read!
thanx

 

[Larry F]

I forget the Cream song where Clapton played an Albert King solo note-for-note. I also forget which song it was from (Crosscut Saw)? In the early 60s a bunch of American blues artists (Muddy, Wolf, Otis Rush, Willie Dixon, T-Bone, Buddy Guy, and on and on) went on tour in Europe. The goes that at a party after a London show, Clapton, Beck, and Page were literally sitting on the floor in front of Wolf and Muddy or whoever. I am sure I am exaggerating, but it was something like this.

Blues not only has a set of pitches that are commonly used, but also specific gestures, such as a double-dotted 8th, then down a m3 for a 32nd note, then the same note on the downbeat for a half note. This happens all the time in blues guitar solos, but not really in rock (unless it is blues-influenced). The second and sixth notes are not used by rock players, and not all blues players, but they show up in certain players, BB most of all. Freddy King, on the other hand, barely use those particular notes, sticking close to the minor pentatonic, but using the major 3rd for color.

Rock players, of the classic rock type, used to use a sequence of 3 or 4 notes played over and over and over at the climax of their solos. Not many of the older electric blues players did this (Otis, Hubert, Freddy, BB, Albert King, Albert Collins) but the blues-rock descendants used it a lot. I think Luther Allison was one blues player who used this later in his career.

Another gesture used by blues players and not rock is the alternating note pattern that I associate with Albert King. At the start of a phrase in A, he will go: E A E A G E E D C A. When Clapton adopts a blues stance, he will use that, as well as the 6th.
Chicago blues type players really stuck to the 12-bar form a lot. Early rock is 12-bar, like Chuck Berry, but other non-blues artists started exploring other chord progressions, but still using the minor pentatonic.

I think you are correct in saying that both schools used the minor pentatonic has the basic framework. But the gestures, rhythms, contours, and even chord progressions, were different for each school.

Oh, they shared bends and distortion, didn't they. Minor pents, bends, and distortion are huge identifiers, so I can see how people make the connection between blues and blues-rock if not rock.

 

[brewwagon]

dedicated eric clapton site


http://www.12bar.de/

bw


..... i rather be the devil than to be that woman's man ...
devil took my woman skip james


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2POWSnStU

son house - death letter blues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jN5vqEyV7g&feature=related

 

[Tim Bowen]

I guess I really can't draw the line, and I don't think of it neat, categorical, ways, intervallic or otherwise. Actually, I guess I do see it in the sense of the twelve bar form (or less so, eight or sixteen bar forms). It might sound like a copout thing to say, but I think that while blues can certainly analyzed and assessed in a academic way, it's a moot point at best - it either rips your guts out or it doesn't.

For my tastes, Clapton played some of the best blues guitar ever on the John Mayall "Beano" record, and I dig that more than anything I've heard from him since.

I often find myself in uncomfortable company with 'The Blues Police' when it comes to the subject of "minor blues", but that's okay, I've a fairly thick skin. With that in mind, the folks that I generally want to hear playing a minor blues are usually either "jazzers" or 60's generation "Brit-Rock Bluesmen". As much as I dig the elder statesmen of "true blue" American Blues Artists, I really think that they should step lightly when it comes to minor blues. If I want to hear a minor blues played "right" (to my ears), I'm going to listen to, for example, Coltrane's "Blue Train" (which also flirts with major tonality), or Jimmy Page's arguably defining moment as a "blues-rock" musician, which is the tune "Since I've Been Loving You" from Led Zeppelin III. Actually, I think this tune from Zep III defines minor blues for me personally more so than any tune I've ever listened to. This is of course a matter of taste, and a matter of what happens to rip your guts out.

 

[dlb1001]

Being a bass player, the line is a little clearer between rock and blues. I know if I hear the drummer playing a shuffle, I know that I can either play a straight qtr notes or do a shuffle. Additionally, if the drummer starts playing a two beat, I will playing just roots and fifth's.
But, for rock stuff, I'm playing more straight eighth notes but not all of the time. Also, the chord structure is just 1 4 5; it may be more complex.
So, in the end, both genres overlap each other, which is all good...it makes the music much richer.

 

[musicalmartin]

Blues covers a huge area of music .I guess it goes from those'' silent '' licks of John Lee Hooker ,where the music virtually stops mid phrase to the ''watch me'' blues of middleclass white guys .It also goes right to jazz roots .The silent licks are the hardest to play ,you have to be born with it .The rest is just practice .I always assumed that rock music is blues for whitey.

 

[emiller45]

The line between blues and rock is very vague and distorted. I would suggest that rock is really a first generation, direct decendent of blues. If you look at the foundation of Rock and Roll (Elvis, Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Beatles, Carl Perkins etc etc) you will find the music joined at the hip with the old school blues musicians. It became Rock and Roll when it went mainstream, but the music did not actually change that much.

 

[strat a various]

Eric is a good player and has done a lot for the Blues and for Blues players, I respect him. Using his playing as an example of Blues is very like touting Applebee's as a BBQ joint. Or Chile's. Yes, they use the word BBQ on the menu for some items ... no, it's not proper BBQ.

The fine line isn't notes, it's substance. Feel, phrasing, style, you pick a word that means down-home black sounding blues. It's not Clapton or SRV or Roy Buchanan. Sorry. Call it "bluesy", "blues based", whatever, it's a tribute to the blues, or a parody of it. There are exceptions, like Hollywood Fats, but they are very few. Very very few, as in: very few white guys can play or sing the Blues convincingly.

Rock n Roll is the biracial illegitimate offspring of the Blues. Here's where the majority can get in on some playing. Blues-Rock is about as close as it gets. It's segregation, to be sure, but Rock n Roll brought Little Richard out on the same stage as Jerry Lee, so to speak, so the barriers come down at least for Rock.

 

[brewwagon]

music is a form of expression rejoice in it

the thread has the flavour of social narrow-mindedness
no one told elvis hey kid go home your white

this music belongs to everyone even if it has its roots in work songs slavery and repression


my intent is not to get anyone mad or to offend just to continue discussion

bw


i had always heard that "rock & roll" was 'slang for sex

 

[strat a various]

I'm not saying white folks can't play the Blues (or Jazz) or shouldn't play the Blues. I'm saying that, so far, the results are not "White Guys Playing Authentic-Sounding Blues". Elvis certainly was no Blues singer. The result of the love affair between white musicians and the Blues has been Rock music to whatever degree you want to relate the term Rock n Roll (as it's been defined and re-defined by musicians themselves) to the Blues that inspired it.
Narrow minded? Try discerning. Not my fault that most white Blues players sound White. If you don't accept that the standards that define Blues were established by generations of Black musicians, and that we must hold any example of that music up to the "standard" for verification, then you're implying that the word "Blues" means "bluesy". By that kind of standard, any remotely "Spanish" sounding chords done with a "Flamenco-like" flair is now properly Flamenco. Not. Playing Blues tunes is not the same as playing the Blues, any more than Jethro Tull lilting through Bach amounts to a Classical performance.

 

[brewwagon]

hey please don't feel my post was directed towards you i was posting my personal reaction to the subject or feeling about blues rock rhythm & blues in general

i respect what you all have to say

man and i thought heartbreak hotel was bluesy damn




....i guess my sauce ain't hot enough for you to consider it palatable no matter how good i may or may not cook

or my version of " blues" are not conforming to an established standard that is acceptable to what is considered "the blues"... no matter what ?


outward appearance should play no bearing on the fact that one can or can't express feelings as an artist or musican it should be based or critic
/ judged more on performance substance
musical talent and composition


sure i may be white but i still feel blue

bw

 

[brewwagon]

as musicians

if i wrote a song

and write "blues" at the top

would you understand it for what it was & play it in that fashion & style ?


bw

 

[bingy]

The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.
Without the blues there is no rock!

 

[strat a various]

if i wrote a song

and write "blues" at the top

would you understand it for what it was & play it in that fashion & style ?


bw

The question is ... could you?