It Don't Mean A Thing

[Aristotle]

Rules? you can see them as rules if you want, but that would be your crutch.

If you re-read the thread, you might see that I am rejecting "rules," for example, the declaring of a certain note parttern as "the" blues scale.

Other than than, you have a fairly reasonable high-school level attempt at a dis. You just applied to the wrong side of the argument.

[JohnRoss]

...I think I am sending the same message as the composer, and no one seems to get it. I tried to convey about the difference between a blue scale in G walking its way up to D, and a blue scale walking its way up to Db are different.

Ah, now I get you. Your insistence on this being a blues scale and only a blues scale hasn't really helped, or it hasn't helped me, anyway, but you have finally got through to me (I have no problem at all understanding Duke Ellington, I must add).

Isn't the composer trying to say "it don't mean a thing" (it's plain vanilla against a minor chord) to just walk up from the root to D, but it's got "swing" (it's hipper, it's bluer) if you walk up to the Db?

Yes, I think that's a valid interpretation, and it's an attractive one even if he isn't.

[voelker]

Thank you Mr. Beaumont

I think this all started when i said "The" blues scale instead of "a" blues scale, but...

Maybe. That's why I made the distinction between what he said "G blues" (which sounds like a progression) and what he might have meant, a blue melody. That way, I might have helped him to clarify his question if he needed more info here, and express himself more clearly in the future.

I'd question you about "the" blues scale versus "a" blues scale. First, and less imporantly, that's actually one scale, not two. You just describe it in relation to two different roots or tonal centers. That makes it more like two modes of one scale. I don't mind, but when you speak with such definitive certitiude about such things, it makes me wonder....

Where in popular music is there a regulatory body with the authority to declare that the Bb pentatonic over a G bass is not "the" blues scale -
but that if add a Db, it is "the" blues scale,
and if you use a Db instead of a D natural, that is not "the" blues scale,
and if you add a Db and a Gb, that is not "the" blues scale?

...but nobody ever said any of this other stuff. And I never meant to imply that "the" blues scale was "the" blues. It's a theory, it's a starting point. I wasn't quoting the bible.

Sailor,

I was looking over "in a sentimental mood" in an E-realbook, it has 2 versions of this progression, each with a different set of substitutions in parenthesis'. Transposed to G minor they would be

E-7b5, Eb7, Bbmaj7/D, Db dim7
G-7, D7/F#, G-7/F, (E-7b5 A7)

I haven't messed with them that much but the (E-7b5 A7) in the second one could sound good with certain (C9 C7b9) voicings. but these are some tough changes to play if your playing the tune fast, "sentimental mood" is much slower

[JohnRoss]

I couldn't be further from insisting it is a scale. At most, it is parts of two scales. If you tell a student this is one scale, you have just created a paradigm in which in the student might never realize that the first line is in one tonality, and the second line is in another; and not learn an important compositional device.

Yes, well, I deliberately overlooked this bit in order to pay you a compliment on your perception. I'll take it back if you're going to be as utterly graceless as that about it. There are not two scales, no way. Changing a note doesn't necessarily make a different scale - if it did, it would be practically impossible to play anything at all in the melodic minor (the classical one, not the jazz one), you'd have to change the key signature every two or three bars. What we are looking at in these four bars of "It Don't Mean a Thing" is a minor (or blues, who cares?) scale with a fifth, perfect one time and flat the next. It's simple, with the simplicity of genius. There is no need for talk about paradigms or compositional devices. And if you want to make up your own expressions like "tone set," fair enough, but it's hardly surprising no-one else speaks the same language, for none of the definitions of "tonality" is "set of tones," so you can't use it as a synonym for "scale."

[Aristotle]

Or more. Melodic minor, major sixth and major seventh on the way up, minor seventh and minor sixth on the way down. Two notes changed, still only one scale.

Says who? Two different "scales" or tone sets, two different tonalities, that you call by one name.

What would happen if we asked 100 random musicians this question-
What makes two "scales" different?
A) The scales contain different notes.
B) JohnRoss says they are different.