In this lesson we are going give you a quick blues guitar lesson. The topic of this lesson will be the scale that is one of the most important to blues and rock music.
This scale is called “the blues scale”.
Now if you're thinking there are way too many scales to learn (especially if you’ve learning major, minor, pentatonics etc) don't panic - remember that most of them are just simply slight alterations of each other.
The blues scale is basically just a pentatonic scale, with an added note. This added note adds a lot of possibilities.
The blues scale isn’t really thought of as a “6 note scale” in the way that a pentatonic scale is a “5 note scale”… because the extra note (sometimes called the blues note) was always just a passing note. But over the years, this note has become more and more popular and useful for modern music.
Let’s learn a pattern of this scale on the fretboard:
--------5------------------------------8----------
--------5------------------------------8----------
--------5----------------------7-------8----------
--------5----------------------7------------------
--------5----------6----------7-------------------
--------5------------------------------8----------
The numbers correspond to the frets. This blues scale is over the chord of A. You can shift the chord you’re playing around by moving this pattern up or down the fretboard. For example, if you move up two frets – you’ll be playing over a B chord.
As you can probably tell if you’re familiar with your pentatonic scales, this is the same as the first form pentatonic, only with a few added notes. The “blues” notes.
What is this note? The interval is called "b5" (flat fifth), and it's one of the main intervals used to give a "bluesy" sound.
Have fun with this scale. Once you’ve mastered this pattern, you can learn where the added blues note is in all of the pentatonic scales – then you can play anywhere on the fretboard over any chord.
Related posts:
Lessons