blue note
1
7.0
- noun
- /blu noʊt/
- Specialized
:
nota azul
- The jazz musician expertly played a blue note that added emotion to his performance.
However you want to look at it, it's the same note is the tritone and it's your blue note.
- However you want to look at it, it's the same note is the tritone and it's your blue note.
Examples
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In that song, the composer used blue notes to evoke a sense of longing and nostalgia.
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Other African American influences on this music include the third and seventh blue notes and sliding tones.
Academic text (2009) -
Blues scale (blue note).
Academic text (2003) -
She performs a flowingly sensuous dance moderne; the music is a sensuous saxophone solo with lasciviously bending blue notes.
Fiction book (1994) -
Her voice soared as she sang the blue notes, capturing the essence of soulful jazz.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound combines 'blue' (sad/melancholic) with 'note' (a musical pitch), so a B1 learner who knows both words would likely infer a ‘sad-sounding’ or expressive musical tone. However, the specific technical sense — a slightly lowered pitch used in jazz/blues for expressive effect — is specialized and not fully predictable from the constituents, so the expression is only partly transparent.
Etymology
The musical term blue note comes from early blues and jazz players who bent a note a little lower so it sounded blue, that is, 'sad' or full of feeling. That's why a blue note gives music its rich, emotional sound.