{"id":2404,"date":"2016-07-21T11:15:26","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T11:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/?p=2404"},"modified":"2016-07-21T02:06:18","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T02:06:18","slug":"unexpected-12-bar-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/2016\/07\/21\/unexpected-12-bar-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected 12-Bar Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On a nostalgic kick, I was listening to the the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cixW6rogZ48\" target=\"_blank\">Doom II soundtrack<\/a> today.<\/p>\n<p>Not really paying attention to it, I noticed myself tapping out[1] the chords to 12-bar blues.<\/p>\n<p>For those who want to follow along, the song was &#8220;8. Shawn&#8217;s Got the Shotgun (1:24:48)&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/cixW6rogZ48?t=1h24m48s\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/cixW6rogZ48?t=1h24m48s<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Starting at 1:24:48, speed <quarter note = 60, chords by bar are:\n1,1\n1,1\n1,1\n1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1,4,4,1,1,5,4,1,1\n1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1,4,4,1,1,5,4,1,1\n1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1\n\nI'm not exactly sure of how the bars are arranged diagramatically, I put them in the place that seemed to make the most sense to me.  I might also arrange it like:\n\n1,1\n1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1,4,4,1,1,5,4,1,1\n1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1\n1,1,1,1,4,4,1,1,5,4,1,1\n1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1\n\nwhich makes for some nice symmetry, with a two-bar intro, and 12-bar blues between two sets of 8-bar 1-chords, for an\n\nIntro,A,B,A,A,B,A\n\nform.\n\nBut the middle (B) chunks were clearly 12-bar blues, and thus ends my story.\n\n\n[1]There are actually a number of factors at play here.  My first instrument was the piano, but my first love was the tuba.  I find myself listening to music and moving my fingers or humming along to the music (melody[2] or bass line[3]) as a tuba would play them.  This bass line is frequently the tonic of the main chord being played at that time in the music.  So, for 12-bar blues, I would be humming 1,1,1,1,4,4,1,1,5,4,1,1.  Sometimes I'll sing the chord of the bar, to confirm I've picked the correct one, sometimes, the logical note to sing\/play is a different part of the chord than the tonic, generally when you're transitioning between chords.\n\nThe tempo part of the equation comes a fun music camp story (I think grade 8 or 9).  The band was playing some piece with a lot of consecutive tuba rests, and I was assiduously counting along, as you do.  Then the tuba staff assistant[4] started talking to me.  \n\n\"What are you doing?\"  \"I'm trying to distract you so that you can start feeling the phrases of the music, so you don't need to count.\"\n\nLo and behold, it worked.  I still count on 'non-standard'[5] measures or numbers of measures, but I feel much more in touch with the music, and can feel 12-bar blues (apparently) or a march without counting.\n\n[2]Rarely.\n\n[3]Much more common.\n\n[4]I remember him being the tuba player with the Brass Quintessence (a locally famous brass quintet), but don't remember his name, despite having told this story innumerable times.\n\n[5]I'm uncomfortable with 'non-standard', because it assumes Western classical music privilege.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a nostalgic kick, I was listening to the the Doom II soundtrack today. Not really paying attention to it, I noticed myself tapping out[1] the chords to 12-bar blues. For those who want to follow along, the song was &#8220;8. Shawn&#8217;s Got the Shotgun (1:24:48)&#8221;: https:\/\/youtu.be\/cixW6rogZ48?t=1h24m48s Starting at 1:24:48, speed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2405,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404\/revisions\/2405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}