Blue note
A note that sits outside the major or minor scale, usually the flattened fifth or the flattened third, used to add expressive tension in blues and jazz.
The blue note is where the guitar borrows the vocal and harmonica tradition, in which a pitch does not have to settle on the tempered note in the scale. On the fretboard it is the flattened fifth of the minor pentatonic or the flattened third played against a major chord, and it is most often used as a passing tone or as the start of a bend rather than as a landing point. Its power comes from the friction between a note that does not belong and a chord that does not expect it.
Example: Bending up towards the fifth through the flattened fifth, rather than stopping on it, is a standard use of the blue note.
See also
Related
- PageBlues scale
- PagePentatonic scale
- PageBlues curl
- PageAugmented chord
- PageBorrowed chord
- PageCadence
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley