The forgotten Blues scale

[@MikeBattagliaMusic]

Enjoyed our conversation folks! Thanks for having me and look forward to doing it again soon!

[@tonescape1]

Mike, you are truly a monster on the Lumatone!

[@strat1227]

First time I've heard you speak at length, loved your playing for a while now. Loved the way you brought these concepts into "symbolic existence " for me 😂

[@timothytikker1147]

This temperament makes the most convincing blues sound I've ever heard!

[@FASTFASTmusic]

8:50 I nearly spat out my tea.

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Hahaha, same here, we were laughing our asses off while we were recording it :D

[@andsalomoni]

To learn better the Blues, you have to listen to West African music and rhythms, which is where the Blues comes from.

[@mr88cet]

5:58 - I think the single most effective way to make a new tuning system into something … real! … in it’s own right, rather than “one of those bendy things,” is ear-training and sight-singing exercises. When I explore a new tuning, I often create ear-training exercises to be shuffle-played on my iPhone. In the old days, it was on cassettes! Exercises like: - Pitch dictation: “here’s an A; name each of the following pitches.” - Interval singing: “sing the pitch name, in correct pitch, a neutral third below each of these pitches; this is a G…” And so forth. Another simple practice is to sit in front of a keyboard, hit a key, then look at another key, and try to sing its pitch, then move on to a new key, etc.! I then practice with these as I drive to work, while exercising, etc.

[@sarang69]

2:29 In this context it could be mentioned that there was a continuity of Arabic slave trade in Africa for centuries. This also could serve as a (likewise hypothetical) explanation for some parallels between Arabic music and the tradition of Blues.

[@DarksTunes]

gawd dayum! That sliding neutral 3rd is the sexiest thing I've ever heard!!!

[@tinaburova]

Mike, what you said: how having a name for the note and an exact location or shape make it “more real”, almost “to exist real” makes me think more and more how we can draw parallels between microtonal music and how societies are built up, or how we should actually think about groupings and classifications. How important language is to how theories and philosophies develop, for example. How much our language affect the way we think and eventually threat each other… Like, in greenlandic you may have 50 ways how to say snow, but no words really to describe all the ways how one might describe one’s sexual preferences or the way one feels about one’s identity in general. I mean, we keep adding words to the LGBTQIA+ for a reason, because we keep learning and creating space for all the colors...in the end - simply to be, to live, to be acknowledged. So I draw parallels to this… Anyways, the neutral third in blues is seriously addictive! Thanks guys!

[@nathanturczan]

Mike B the coolest

[@yuyiya]

not just a pretty face! 😂

[@FASTFASTmusic]

Mike is in a league of his own. I totally get what he's doing and I freaking love it. Making blue notes available on an electric piano must feel so liberating!

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Yeah, no shat, he's a flarping genius.

[@FASTFASTmusic]

@@HearBetweenTheLines mind your nomenclature!

[@ramiolsen]

@@FASTFASTmusic Hahaha

[@tdubasdfg]

This KZbin channel is too good

[@morganst.pierre]

Incredible! Excellent compliment to small creator @funkpunk detailed series on microtonal blues scales and the intricacies of different bends, on different scale degrees, different cents amount in different contexts etc check it out if you havent search “microtonal blues scales funk punk” youtube you won’t regret it

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Yes, we loved that video series!

[@dominiquemanchon9914]

Excellent !

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@trollkarlenjp]

i just had a thought. these videos could end with the phrase "stay DEtuned for more videos like this one". might not be as good as i think, but still worth sharing

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Hahaha, good one :D

[@ZheannaErose]

woo!! watched it during the premiere. lovely video. who else but mike & HBTL!! commenting for algo. don't forget to thumbs up the video if you read this comment.

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Don't forget to thumbs up Zheanna's comment if you read this comment. As you know, we also adore your music. We should totally collab soon. You in?

[@Hecatonicosachoron54]

I havent watched the full video yet but I just want to say Your channel is a blessing the quality is so good

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Thank you so much! We feel blessed by your comment ;)

[@makcings4764]

@@HearBetweenTheLines Yes, you are seriously so underrated , i wouldnt question even if your channel had 10 Mil subs i hope you get that deserved attention. 🙏 those videos are helping me deepen my understanding of microtonality and concept of harmonies!

[@eriknatanael]

Once again you've enriched my ears and my mind! (+fun to see Mats and Guro referenced in there :D)

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Thanks a lot! And yes, Mats and Guro's music is very dear to our hearts.

[@spacevspitch4028]

Ugh, I want that guitar AND the Lumatone 😣

[@ethanschule5524]

awesome!

[@stephenweigel]

you guyssssssssssss this video is just on another level! Wow! It's only going to get more amazing from here, isn't it? P.S. Thanks for not just saying that a 7/6 is what blues minor thirds are. This is a good explanation The idea that musical constructs don't necessarily come from fixed scales is more important than people give it credit for

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Thanks Stephen, glad you liked it :D P.S.: Yeah, totally. Fluctuation makes music feel more life-like.

[@cgibbard]

I think the 7/4 harmonic seventh (which is a 7/6 over the fifth) has a certain amount of usefulness in a blues or bluesy jazz setting, to get really relaxed 7 chords before you bend up past the 6/5 minor seventh to the 11/9 neutral third. The 7 chords in blues don't really have dominant function, so it can very much work to include them... but harmonic sevenths and narrow septimal minor thirds aren't really very typical of actual blues practice. Though it's very true that there are fuzzy pitch areas, I think it's also nice to recognise the special connection that the blues has to the 11th harmonic: a perfect fifth down from the 11th harmonic or 11/8 superfourth (which though not talked about here is very important to the blues in its own right) you find the 11/6 neutral seventh, and then a perfect fifth down from that is the 11/9 neutral third. So it's like there's an extra dimension of harmony (the prime 11) not considered by the classical Western 5-limit stuff that the blues is tapping into there, and even if you're not bending to these notes, there's a definite bluesy feeling that the 11/x intervals have in common and evoke.

[@ramiolsen]

@@cgibbard Interesting. We used all those notes in the music we played at the end of the video, but we had different 'legitimisations' for those notes. Just goes to show that you can reach similar conclusions from different angles. But that's a really cool way to think about it. I really love the microtonal community for its diversity in thought processes and theorisations of musical phenomena!

[@ritchxmusic]

SPACE blues! lets go! 🙂

[@ZeugmaP]

Really interesting ! His keyboard sound reminds me of Bojan Z and his album Xenophonia, and he's playing a microtonal rhodes-style instrument (I don't know if he uses the same musical concepts though).

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Oooh, interesting, we'll give it a listen!

[@AynsleyGreen]

Excellent lesson!

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Thanks, Aynsley! Glad you could take something from it :)

[@schmeinstein]

quality

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

means a lot coming from you, B

[@Gwyll_Arboghast]

rast sounds like it is using a soft major third and seventh, ie 1/3 flat. this is identical to the byzantine soft diatonic scale. you should look into the tuning and modality of byzantine chant.

[@bazilmuzik1456]

Excellent video !!!

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Thanks, Bazil!

[@billwesley]

very good video, thank you

[@ramiolsen]

Thanks, Bill!

[@yuyiya]

Enjoyed this, accessible explanations and lovely music! 😊 Besides 31, which other small[ish] EDOs give nice 7- and 11-limit blues notes?

[@RayPerlner]

15 EDO has good approximations of the 7th and 11th harmonics, and the same 5th harmonic (major 3rd) as 12 EDO. The 3rd harmonic (perfect 5th) is 18 cents sharp, but usable, and the unique sound of the 5EDO subset is very worth it. 11/9 is conflated with 6/5 and 8/7 is conflated with 7/6. This one encourages exotic scale structures, but they can sound bluesy if used right. 17 EDO is for you if you hate the 5th harmonic but like the 3rd, 7th and 11th harmonics, but it's the smallest EDO with recognizable and distinct (super)major, (sub)minor, and neutral thirds. The lack of normal major and minor thirds mean this will sound a bit strange whatever you do, but that can be a good thing. See. e.g. Mercury Tree's album Spidermilk (not really blues, more prog-rock or metal) 19EDO doesn't technically have a consistent mapping for the 11th harmonic (only 11/7 is inconsistently mapped I think), but treating 19EDO as if it conflates major and neutral 3rds generally works. I have written bluesy (or at least jazzy) sounding things in 19EDO. 22 EDO is solid on harmonics 3,5,7, and 11 but, like 15EDO, it conflates 11/9 with 6/5. This can work for later blues/jazz styles e.g. bebop. Note that a 12EDO major scale with 12 EDO versions of the blue 3rd, 5th and 7th added results in a 10 note scale C D D# E F F# G A Bb B C, with 2 long steps and 10 short steps. This structure works in 22 EDO also (3/22 for the long step and 2/22 for the short step) -- Paul Erlich published some theory on 10 note scales like this (pentachordal decatonic), without linking them to the blues, although he did record a track called "decatonic swing" using them. 24 EDO is an option worth considering if you're ok with 12 EDO in the 7 limit, except want to add a neutral 3rd. You can also tune the 7th harmonic down a quartertone from the 12EDO minor 7th, it will make some 7 limit intervals better and some worse. 26 EDO has good tunings of all the harmonics up to 19 with the exception of 15 (which is perhaps too flat to be recognizable). Like 22 and 12 it approximates 7/5 with a half octave tritone. Also like 22, it has a very smooth sounding "diminished 7th" chord with alternating minor and subminor 3rds. 26 EDO conflates the 11/9 neutral third with the 5/4 major 3rd. While 26 EDO is a meantone, it's on the extreme end and will sound audibly xenharmonic. I think 26EDO is criminally underused. I've never tried to sound bluesy in 29 EDO, but I like the sound of the tuning, and I suspect it can be used for blues. 29EDO has usable tunings of all the odd harmonics up to 15. Like 26 EDO, it conflates the major 3rd and the neutral 3rd. 34 EDO is near just on the first 17 harmonics aside from 7th. If you use the sharper mapping for the 7th harmonic (988 cents), the same 10 note scale that works in 22 EDO also works in 34. Like 31 EDO, 34 EDO has distinct major, minor, neutral, subminor, and supermajor 3rds. I think the better perfect 5th makes it sound punchier than 31 EDO, though. Highly recommend.

[@yuyiya]

@@RayPerlner Thanks for this comprehensive - and useful - reply! 😀 Having "distinct major, minor, neutral, subminor, and supermajor 3rds" should provide many more subtle flavours to melody than just the typical major/minor thirds of 12edo, so you've tempted me to give both 31 and 34 a spin. 😁

[@PabloGambaccini]

What's the music with the 2 violins in min 1:18? I love it.

[@fouadbass]

Another great video! Just wanted to point out that @2:43 where you say Maqam is not a scale is confusing. I believe Maqamat are seen as scales and what you are referring to is that it's a Jins (pl. Ajnas). In your example you gave Jins Lower Rast, which makes up the first 5 degress of Maqam Rast. I'm not sure if this is the same case with Turkish makam.

[@QGMODS]

epic!

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Thanks!

[@parkerpolen]

I love your content! Very interesting stuff. Due to the fact that 17 and 19 are prime numbers, how are diminished tetrads and augmented triads effected?

[@yuyiya]

In no prime EDO (except 3edo!), including 31edo, can either a diminished tetrad or an augmented triad - built from 4 or 3 _equal_ intervals - repeat at the octave. Instead, they have a tasty dissonance near the octave. 😀 However, if you like, you can _approximate_ the flavours of those chords as found in common practice, by closing the octave with one slightly different interval, providing the EDO is by a large enough prime. E.g. in 31edo, near equivalents consist of "aug": (0, 10, 20) & its inversions (0, 10, 21) & (0, 11, 21), and "dim": (0, 8, 16, 24) & its inversions.

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Couldn't have put it better ;)

[@TheApostleofRock]

yall make it seem like having a lumatone is just a normal thing lol

[@HearBetweenTheLines]

Isn't it? ;)

[@epiphoney]

So a blue 3rd is a 7/6 and a blue 7th is a 7/4? I wonder what Jon Catler would say about this. After all one of his bands is called Willie McBlind, but that seems to be defunct now... (now the 13 o’clock Blues Band).

[@yuyiya]

Not always (and this video didn't imply that they _are_ always) ratios of 7. Sometimes ratios in the 11-limit make more musical sense - see the other comments here, about the 11/9 neutral third, etc.