# Is there a name for this common blues motif?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-name-for-this-common-blues-motif/552619>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 4, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-name-for-this-common-blues-motif/552619 "2010-09-04T20:18:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-name-for-this-common-blues-motif/552619/61 "2010-09-14T03:33:57Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> I’m not sold on this theory, especially since the blue thirds and sevenths appear in vocal melodies that, presumably, predate the blues in unaccompanied work songs and field hollers.

Not to mention banjos, cornets, clarinets, saxophones and especially trombones. A trombone plays as in tune or out of tune as the musician playing it wants. The fact that they played blue notes before guitars started getting involved in the blues tells me that’s the way they wanted it to sound, not that they adapted their music to the badly made instruments of the day. W. C. Handy didn’t have a guitarist. Louis Armstrong started out the Hot Fives and Sevens with Johnny St. Cyr on a banjo - St. Cyr picked up the guitar much later.

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