Why Blues Works

"The more art is controlled, limited, worked over, the more it is free" --Igor Stravinsky in The Poetics of Music, 1942

This quote from the composer of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring puts me in mind of one of my longstanding meditations: that blues music is still alive as a genre because it presents well-worn rules for what constitutes "blues."  12-bar, 8-bar, 7 chords, 9 chords, I-IV-V...whatever it is, you know it's blues when you hear it.  I love writing and playing blues because these structures are there to be played with, because these rules have been established over generations.  They control and limit my choices, which leads me to better, more inventive choices.

Any art form which works this way will never die, no matter how far away from the mainstream tastes of the moment it seems (seems!) to stray.  Keep the blues alive!