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In jazz and blues, a blue note (also "worried" note〔Benward & Saker (2003). ''Music: In Theory and Practice'', Vol. I, p.359. Seventh Edition. ISBN 978-0-07-294262-0.〕) is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch than standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies among performers and genres. ==Origins and meaning== The existence of the blue note within music derives, in part, from the fact that equal temperament in western diatonic harmony is an artifice or compromise originally used in the eighteenth century to address problems posed in the creation of keyboard instruments. Equal temperament was an artificial 'straightening out' of a tendency for the natural harmonic series (musical intervals as they exist in nature) to go off at a tangent, meaning that higher intervals and octaves in their natural form are of a different pitch than the lower intervals and octaves. This made it difficult to create keyboard instruments that were 'coherent'. Hence, the blue note attempts to correct this artifice by playing a note that is closer to the interval as it exists in the natural harmonic series. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the diatonic pitches with emotive blue-notes. Blue notes are often seen as akin to relative pitches found in traditional African work songs. The blue notes are usually said to be the lowered third, lowered fifth, and lowered seventh scale degrees. The lowered fifth is also known as the raised fourth.〔Ferguson, Jim (1999). ''All Blues Soloing for Jazz Guitar: Scales, Licks, Concepts & Choruses'', p.20. ISBN 0786642858.〕 Though the blues scale has "an inherent minor tonality, it is commonly 'forced' over major-key chord changes, resulting in a distinctively dissonant conflict of tonalities".〔 A similar conflict occurs between the notes of the minor scale and the minor blues scale, as heard in songs such as "Why Don't You Do Right?", "Happy" and "Sweet About Me". In the case of the lowered third over the root (or the lowered seventh over the dominant), the resulting chord is a neutral ''mixed third chord.'' Blue notes are used in many blues songs, in jazz, and in conventional popular songs with a "blue" feeling, such as Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather." Blue notes are also prevalent in English folk music.〔Lloyd, A.L. (1967). ''Folk Song in England'', p.52-4. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Cited in Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). ''Studying Popular Music''. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.〕 Bent or "blue notes", called in Ireland "long notes", play a vital part in Irish music.〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Blue note」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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