[Listening extract audio not available in printed QP. Skeleton score in Insert.] A jazz pianist improvises using a scale with flattened third, fifth and sev...

(a) Blues scale [1]

The blues scale is a six-note scale that includes flattened (lowered) third, fifth, and seventh degrees. Starting from C, it would be: C - E-flat - F - G-flat - G - B-flat - C. It is derived from the minor pentatonic scale with an added flattened fifth (the "blue note" between the fourth and fifth degrees). The blues scale gives melodies a characteristic dark, soulful, and slightly dissonant quality that is central to blues, jazz, and rock music. The flattened notes create tension against major-key harmony, which is a defining feature of the blues sound.

(b) Blue notes [1]

The flattened third, fifth, and seventh degrees are called blue notes. These are pitches that are lowered (or "bent") relative to the standard major scale, giving the music its distinctive bluesy character. Blue notes create expressive tension when played against conventional major harmonies. In vocal and instrumental performance, blue notes are often not precisely on the flattened pitch but somewhere between the natural and flattened versions, achieved through pitch bending, string bending on guitar, or vocal inflection. This ambiguity between major and minor is central to the emotional expressiveness of the blues.

(c) One other feature typically heard in the blues [1]

Acceptable answers include any one of the following:

• 12-bar chord structure: the standard blues form uses a repeating 12-bar harmonic pattern based on chords I, IV, and V
• Use of 7th chords: dominant 7th chords (e.g., C7, F7, G7) are used throughout, even on the tonic, giving the harmony a characteristic unresolved quality
• Call and response: a vocal phrase answered by an instrumental phrase, or vice versa
• Walking bass: a bass line that moves steadily in even crotchets, often stepwise, outlining the chord progression
• Improvisation: soloists freely create melodies over the chord changes
• Bent notes: pitches are deliberately pushed or pulled for expressive effect
• Shuffle rhythm: a "swung" feel where pairs of quavers are played unevenly (long-short) rather than equally