Two Approaches to Tonal Space in the Music of Muddy Waters

• Published in: Music analysis Vol. 36; no. 1; pp. 37 - 58
• Main Author: CURRY, BEN
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford John Wiley & Sons Ltd 01.03.2017; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Blues music; Microtonality; Music theory; Musicians & conductors; Waters, Muddy (musician)
• ISSN: 0262-5245; 1468-2249
• DOI: 10.1111/musa.12084

This article posits two approaches to blues tonal space: the networked approach and the laddered approach. The first is underpinned by the cyclical potential of equal temperament and is characterised by descending chromatic motions. The second is underpinned by the harmonic series and is characterised by microtonal shaping of pitch content within the framework of a ladder that approximates an equal-tempered major-minor seventh chord. Having explained the detail of these approaches to tonal space with reference to an early blues recording of Alberta Hunter and Fats Waller, the article goes on to examine Muddy Waters's use of the laddered approach to tonal space, but also develops novel ways of referencing the networked approach and of finding synergies between networked and laddered approaches. Analysis of key songs from Waters's repertoire offers insight into the interchange between networked and laddered tonal space in blues music. This interchange holds the major-minor seventh chord to be structurally significant owing to the weight afforded by the sonority of the minor third and the affinity between microtonal and semitonal melodic motions.