Demystifying The Blue Note
- lukehaefner
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
Ever hear someone mention the blue note as if it were a household commodity and wish you knew what they were talking about?
You may not realize it, but you’ve heard of the blue note at some point in your life. Whether it was the famous club, the recording label, or the theoretical concept, the name and notion of the “blue note” is pervasive in our musical culture. But what exactly is it?
In the crudely simplified version, a blue note is an expressive note that doesn’t fall in a traditional classical scale. Take the pentatonic scale, a series of five notes that combine to great effect.
From this scale, we can add a note that doesn’t seem to fit at first, but adds a lot of color. This is the classical notion of the blue note. In this case, the flattened 3rd scale degree helps form the C Major blues scale. In different contexts, the flattened 5th or flattened 7th scale degree may also be considered the blue note.
However, a true blue note as it is actually employed by blues performers is not so easily quantifiable. In Marvin Gaye’s famous words, the blue notes are “between the cracks on the piano keys.” While we’re not so fortunate as to be able to play pitches in between these “cracks” on the keyboard, you will often see guitarists finding those blue notes by bending strings, effectively spanning the space between piano keys. Vocalists also do this by freely moving in the space between “standard” notes.
The concept of the blue note is a good reminder that music is not in fact as black and white as the keys on the piano. Pitch is not a staircase like we see it on the staff; it’s actually a slide like we see it on a cello or in the human voice. As you go through your day today, listen for music that lives in the middle—that’s where the real emotion lies!
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