The Blues - What is the blues, a feeling of depression or melancholy

As far back as the 18'th century the word "blues" was used as a meaning of "a feeling of depression or melancholy", some-thing that sneaks up on most everybody now and then, and once in a while without any explainable reason.

Who first attached the name to this genre of music is not known, but it was firmly attached in the African-American vernacular, and long before the establishment culture became aware of it. They did after W.C. Handy wrote and published several songs with the word "blues" in their titles such as "Memphis Blues" and "St. Louis Blues" and they became quite popular in the second decade of the 20th century.

The word "Blues" has several musical meanings, which is why it has been known to cause confusion. When this style of music spoke of depression or melancholy and the lyrics started with "I got the blues" or "I got the broke and hungry blues" the word "blues" was used in the old way.

Most blues songs have a distinct structure which is referred to as "the blues chorus". If a song has this structure it can be called a blues, whether or not it is performed in a style that can properly be called blues.

The blues chorus is designed as a three-line stanza of lyrics and the second is most often repeating the first line and the third line offers the conclusion to the thoughts in the first and second line and make its own statement.

The musical pattern is made of twelve bars which mean 4 bars for each line. For a song written in ( C ) the first 4 bars, which is line one, are sung and played in the tonic chord ( C ). The two first bars in line two will be in the subdominant or IV chord ( F ), then back to the tonic chord ( C ) for the next two bars of second line. The last line begins with one bar of the dominant or V chord ( G ), then the subdominant ( F ) before returning to the tonic for the final two bars. This is one of the most distinctive things about blues, that in the last line the dominant (G) does not go directly to the tonic (C), even if this is probably the most popular chord change, it is uncommon in blues.

However, the harmonic structure in blues has been subjected to infinite variations from jazz musicians among others who get impatient in the first four bars in the first line of each stanza playing the tonic throughout.

In blues a note that is not in the western musical scale referred to as "the blue note" frequently appears. It is halfway between E-flat and E in the key of C. It is somewhere between major and minor and sound like something else – the blues. Blues singers and guitarists bend or slide in and out of the blue note, rather than hitting and holding that in-between note. Pianists cannot play the blue note but will often play E-flat and E together or in close proximity to allude to it.