Stay at Home Blues
During the stay at home time with the coronavirus mitigation I've decided to try to write a little ditty every day. Some are 12 bar blues and some are just short ideas. Composed on guitar, I first wrote out the tunes in notation using Lilypond then later recorded a raw version on classical guitar using a zoom recorder. I haven't caught up with recording them all yet but plan on continuing. Just something to pass some time each day.
Week 1
March 22, 2020
Blues in A. Played twice through. Gotta get those tritones in.
March 23, 2020
Blues in A. Played twice through. We all learned that opening lick from Charlie Christian/T-Bone Walker/B.B. King or where ever.
March 24, 2020
Riff in Gm. Played once. Not really a blues but I always want to get to Db when starting in Gm. Who doesn't?
March 25, 2020
Blues in C Played twice through. I've been playing that opening C13 lick in some form for a while.
March 26, 2020
Blues in Am. Played once. Feeling mellow but blue.
March 27, 2020
Blues in G. Played twice through. Up tempo jump blues, with slamming drums and bass with tenor and bari sax playing the line. I guess you've got to use your imagine machine.
March 28, 2020
Blues in Bm. Played once. Here's that tritone again.
Week 2
March 29, 2020
Blues in A. Not a 12 bar blues form.
March 30, 2020
Blues in G. Not a 12 bar blues form. Just a low key thing.
March 31, 2020
Blues in Em. Not a 12 bar blues form, instead using that dropping bass of D, C#, C, B in Em. The 'just one chord with a moving bass' form goes back to Charlie Patton and even further back in classical music. Above the bass is added some blues scale noddling.
April 1, 2020
April Fools in G. I love quartal harmony mixed with standard chords.
April 2, 2020
Blues in G. Weird recording fizzle on both turnarounds.
April 3, 2020
Blues in A. Another fizzle at the end, is the zoom infected?
April 4, 2020
Blues in Em
Week 3
April 5, 2020
Blues in G
April 6, 2020
Blues in A
April 7, 2020
Blues in Gm. Not a blues.
April 8, 2020
Blues in F. Based on the chord progression to Blues for Alice by Charlie Parker.
April 9, 2020
Blues in G. Influenced by Blue Monk by Thelonius Monk. It uses standard sixths but adding an additional note that is a whole step above the lower note.
April 10, 2020
Blues in A. Influenced by the 'Theme to Bandstand'.
April 11, 2020
Blues in Bm. Not a blues but whatever.
Week 4
April 12, 2020
This has nothing to do with the Blues. Pat Martino has an instructional video where he talks about the augmented chord and its connection to major and minor chords. Lower any note of an augmented chord by a half step and it becomes a major chord. Or raise any note a half step and it becomes a minor chord (the relative minor of the major chord that occurs had you lowered the note instead of raised it). So the same augmented chord (in this case D augmented) can connect with three different minor and major chords and become the chord 'in-between' them. Applied to a Montuno in 3/4.
April 13, 2020
Blues in Em. Just some tritones and blues riffs over a drone bass.
April 14, 2020
Blues in Em. Again not a blues.
April 15, 2020
Blues in E.
April 16, 2020
Blues in Cm. Not a blue but some string bends in Cm.
