Blue notes

[fluffy_little_something]

As I was playing around with pad chords, I noticed again how playing a certain chord sounds good or bad depending on whether or not one note of that chord is an octave or two lower or right within that hand, so to speak. For instance F-G#-C. Now, when I add the C# right next to that C, it sounds wrong, but if I add a C# an octave lower, it sounds very nice.

Is that mere physics, like waves and their frequencies getting in each others way? And when there is an octave of distance, that is no longer the case and my brain doesn't complain?

Is that sensation of blue notes and chords sounding wrong innate or just a cultural thing?

[anomandaris1]

Fmin and then C# means that you are playing natural or harmonic minor. There is nothing unnatural or wrong...
And why do you use the term "blue note"? You can google what a blue note is.

[fluffy_little_something]

Well, to me the four notes of my example played at the same time don't sound harmonic, there is something wrong about it, unless I play the C# an octave or two lower.

I vaguely remember that term from school. I thought blue note means a note that does not fit in and sounds wrong. Then again, school was decades ago

[thecontrolcentre]

I thought blue note means a note that does not fit in and sounds wrong.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_note

[wretchro]

yeah.... having 2 notes a half step apart at the top of the chord sounds more dissonant than other voicings.... you are actually playing a Db or C# maj 7 chord and that Db is the root so it sounds good in the bass....it would also sound good if you put the Db above the c, and move the f above that so you have a 3rd on the top..... you still have the half step but it sounds less dissonant because of that 3rd over it.....

[stringtapper]

For instance F-G#-C.

You mean F-Ab-C, also known as an F minor triad.

Now, when I add the C# right next to that C, it sounds wrong, but if I add a C# an octave lower, it sounds very nice.

Because the C# is a Db and when arranged below the notes F-Ab-C you are playing a DbMaj7 chord (Db-F-Ab-C) in root position.

When you play F-Ab-C-Db you're playing a DbMaj7 chord in 1st inversion, which is naturally going to sound less stable because of the proximity between the C and the Db.

[fluffy_little_something]

OK, but why is that so? Mere physics? Does the brain have a hard time telling two neighboring semi-notes apart and get pissed by the confusion that causes?

To me it is kind of a mystery why some notes sound good together while others don't. I mean, there is no music in nature, so no "music genes", either, so why do our brains react to frequency combinations the way they do?

[Monovibe]

I find this quite nice, although I don't think I have ever used a major7th in this inversion. But I'll often invert major 7ths ( 2nd inversion ) where the root and major 7th are a semitone apart, ie: your chord but like this 'Ab/C/Db/F'. If I remember correctly, I believe Goldie's track, 'Inner City Life' features an inverted major 7th where the top pf the chord are 2 notes a semitone apart. I think that was a GMaj7 voiced like this: F#/B/D/F#/G. It's not a voicing I have heard a lot though. But why not? It can be quite nice.

[fluffy_little_something]

I have no clue of chord names, roots and inversions, I just experiment and stumble upon odd things at times, things I can only observe, but not explain

[stringtapper]

OK, but why is that so? Mere physics? Does the brain have a hard time telling two neighboring semi-notes apart and get pissed by the confusion that causes?

To me it is kind of a mystery why some notes sound good together while others don't. I mean, there is no music in nature, so no "music genes", either, so why do our brains react to frequency combinations the way they do?

This mostly has to do with psychoacoustics. Intervals smaller than around a minor 3rd have a tendency to sound "rough" or even dissonant to most ears. This is caused by interference between the fundamental pitches and between overtones in close proximity.

In general, larger intervals and intervals whose ratios are closer to integer multiples (e.g. and octave is 2:1) tend to sound more consonant because the coincidence of overtones between the two pitches is greater than with two pitches whose interval is smaller or not an integer multiple.

This is why octaves and perfect 5ths were traditionally considered the most stable and consonant intervals in early Western music and why the rules of modal counterpoint limit beginning and ending intervals to the octave and perfect 5th; making those intervals the sort of "home base" that the music moves away from and then returns to.

So when you bring that Db down below the F-Ab-C you have a major 7th between the Db and the C. Bring the Db up an octave and you have a minor 2nd between the C and the Db. That minor 2nd sits within the "critical bandwidth" of a minor 3rd that I mentioned earlier, and that's why it might sound more dissonant to your ears.

For the science on this and the "critical bandwidth" read this article from the 60s:

Tonal Consonance and Critical Bandwidth by Plomp & Levelt, 1965

[Bojmir Raj Raj]

The article on blue notes on wikipedia is very good!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_note

I believe that what you were thinking are "blue notes" are called simply non-chord tones. In 12-tone equal temperament it's not so easy to get a truly non-chord tone because the traditional and acoustics-based functional distinctions are erased or rather blended together by tuning compromise in 12-tET. For example a diminished fourth is exactly the same pitch as a major third, and an augmented second the same as a minor third. A proper olde-schoole musical education still retains the old distinctions from before the 19th century when 12-tET started taking over (see stringtappers correct assessment that you have a Db, not a C#). In "atonal" music the pitches are given numbers, like 0, 1, 2, 3... instead of C, Db, D, Eb...

[zethus909]

blue notes are non diatonic notes, chromatic notes. the reason they sound better when spaced out versus right next to eachother is because of geometry of sound. we like separation harmonically because it is pleasing. if there is no separation, then it's just a big mess of sound. and while some people here will push that type of sound as respectable, i would completeley disagree. there is well constructed pleasing geometrical sound, and then there is mush. but you have to also create mush and chaos to be able to appreciate order. you cant have order without chaos, you cant have dark without light.

too much consonance, will begin to be tiring on the ears, and it will lose its effectiveness, until you contrast it with full blown dissonance, egregious dissonance, only then after that contrast is made, can you really hear and appreciate the consonance again. this is why when i am practicing, if i am playing soloes and chords and lots of geometrically correct sound for a long period, i will stop that and just start to play random notes with my eyes closed. for a prolonged period, until everyone around me is in complete disarray and is knocking on my ceiling and hitting the floors. and then once everyone is in a frenzy, i will think about returning to consonance...and then i still wont do it. i wil push it to the point where it's driving everything around me insane. and then, i will play music, and it will sound magnificent. it does.

[Atza]

I found that pad chords sound better when you keep one long note that belongs to both or more chords of progression. For example if you have C-Am-Em than keeping one long E note connects all the chords really nicely

[jancivil]

traditional and acoustics-based functional distinctions [] erased or rather blended together by tuning compromise in 12-tET. For example a diminished fourth is exactly the same pitch as a major third, and an augmented second the same as a minor third. A proper olde-schoole musical education still retains the old distinctions from before the 19th century when 12-tET started taking over...

even in 12tET the diminished fourth may be meaningful, but I'm drawing a blank atm in getting meaning which resides in the vertical realm. As a descending move to minor 3 in a line, though. Compare the augmented second which is more prevalent as it occurs 'normally' in harmonic minor's 6 to 7. In harmony, vii4/2 for instance; eg., C minor's Ab B D F, root B? Spelling of dim 7th mainly meaningful as a modulation 'clue', so I think of the interval in terms of a linear property.

I would use Db down to C and C# up to D, though that isn't necessarily what is taught in olde school string pedagogy.

But blue notes, the term is from blues music obviously. Flat 5 to 4, variable/blue 3rd.

[Atza]

Blue note is something else. On the guitar for example it is when you slightly bend the string so you produce a tone just slightly off pitch