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Music vocabulary · Genres and Styles

Blues

Meaning in music, with examples

nounCommon term

In music, blues means: A musical tradition rooted in African American communities, known for expressive pitch treatment, repeated phrases and characteristic harmonic patterns.

In Turkish: blues

How it is used

Used as a genre name and for song forms. Twelve-bar blues is common, but the tradition includes other lengths, grooves and structures.

Example sentences

  1. The band practised a twelve-bar blues before inviting guests to take solos.

    The familiar form gives different players a shared framework for improvisation.

  2. Her blues singing uses small pitch bends to give the repeated line a new feeling.

    Changes in pitch expression vary a line even when its words return.

Common collocations

  • twelve-bar blues
  • blues singer
  • blues progression
  • blues scaleA scale common in blues and related styles, usually built from the minor pentatonic with an added blue note for tension.
  • improviseTo create music in the moment while performing, without reading it from written notes, usually over a known chord progression or within a mode.
  • call and responseA musical pattern where one voice or instrument presents a phrase and another answers with a related phrase.

More terms: Genres and Styles

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