Every day is do or die

Three more brings it to eight side blocks and two corners. Halfway thru. Dunno if I have another set of five in me tonight, but I could use the silence.

Chords are not so much strummed as torn from the instrument. Clusters of notes drawn from a pentatonic scale or colored with wry dissonances. A willy-nilly school of harmony where one seeks in vain for the voice leading or textbook resolutions taught in music schools.

Harmonic variety is not a virtue here. Sometimes a single chord, with just a few modifications, suffices for an entire song. A throbbing texture of sound, insistent and unrelenting. Often compositions are built around a single riff, a repeated figure, perhaps only a few notes, that serve as anchor, compass, and engine room, all put together.

~Ted Gioia, Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters who Revolutionized American Music, 2009.