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Glite Dictionary
blue note

blue note

1 7.0
A musical note played a bit lower in jazz and blues to sound sad and emotional
  • 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.

Examples

  • In that song, the composer used blue notes to evoke a sense of longing and nostalgia.

  • 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

blue note singular
blue notes plural

Morphology

blue + note

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.