The Blues Scale

[Mica Withington]

The blues scale is a six-note progression that sounds right at home in blues, rock, and country music. This scale is essentially the pentatonic scale plus one chromatic note, often called the blue note. This extra step gives the blues scale that unmistakably bluesy sound.

Once you've tried the blues scale, download Fender Play to learn essential blues riffs, techniques, and classic songs by legends like RobertJohnson, Stevie Ray Vaughan and more with the Blues Form Basics: I IV V Guitar Collection in Fender Play!

Mastering the blues scale will give you the tools you need to improvise over a range of chord progressions, from a classic 12-bar blues to a driving rock and roll song. In addition to boosting your improvisational skills, practicing this scale will also help you train your ear so you can learn new bluesy licks to incorporate into your playing.

The intervals that make up the minor blues scale are the same in any key. These intervals are: A whole step and a half step, a whole step, a half step, a half step, a whole step and a half step, and a whole step.

To play the A minor blues scale in 1st position, use your index finger for notes on the 1st fret, your middle finger for notes on the 2nd, your ring finger for notes on the third, and your pinky for notes on the 4th fret.

To play the A minor blues scale in 5th position, use your index finger for notes on the 5th fret, your middle finger for the 6th, your ring finger for the 7th, and your pinkie for notes on the 8th fret. This scale starts on the 5th fret of the low E string. This version is also known as an E-shaped blues scale.

The A minor blues scale in the 7th position starts with your index finger on the 7th fret of the D string. You will need to shift your hand position up one fret when you reach the B string so you can play notes on the 8th fret with your index finger. This scale is also known as the D-shaped blues scale.

To play the A minor blues scale in 12th position, start with your index finger on the 12th fret of the A string. This scale does require you to shift your hand position up one fret once you reach the B string so that your index finger is on the 13th fret. Then, you must shift your hand back to your starting position for the high E string. This scale is also known as the A-shaped blues scale.

In this Technique of the Week, Kirk Fletcher (Fabulous Thunder Birds and Mannish Boys) teaches the pentatonic blues guitar scale which is essential for beginner blues guitarists. Fletcher breaks down this versatile scale and plays his favorite phrases rooted in pentatonic blues.

Each of these scale shapes are moveable. This means that you can play these patterns anywhere on the neck of your guitar. Learning and memorizing the notes on the E, A, and D strings of your guitar will come in handy as you practice moving each of these scales up and down the fretboard of your guitar.

Play the 12-bar blues using downstrokes and emphasize the first and third beat of every measure to get the right rhythm. You might also find this 12-bar blues described as a blues shuffle thanks to this shuffling rhythm. Here is a guitar tab showing a standard 12-bar blues pattern.

Blues Scale ExercisesPracticing the blues scale in A minor is a great way to train your fingers and your ears while you learn this versatile scale. First, practice playing the scales on your own until you are comfortable playing the A minor blues scale in each position.

Then, with a looping accompaniment of the 12-bar blues in A, practice playing the A minor blues scale in each position, but with a syncopated rhythm. Listen to the accompaniment and play the scale in sections, treating the notes on each string as one phrase. Once this feels easy to you, experiment by breaking up the scale into three- or four-note sections across strings.

Another great way to practice the blues scales on guitar is to spend time playing each shape up and down the neck of your guitar. Starting with the E-shaped blues scale, play each scale ascending and descending, beginning at the first fret and moving up one fret for each repetition of the shape. Play the scale in this way up to the thirteenth fret, then begin moving down one fret for each cycle until you arrive back at the first fret.

Playing the scales over a 12-fret span on your guitar will allow you to hear the scale in every key, helping you to train your ear. You can also use this exercise to help you memorize the notes on the E, A, and D strings by saying the root note of each scale as you go up and down the neck.

The term blues scale refers to several different scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. A blues scale is often formed by the addition of an out-of-key "blue note" to an existing scale, notably the flat fifth addition to the minor pentatonic scale. However, the heptatonic blues scale can be considered a major scale with altered intervals.

The first known published instance of this scale is Jamey Aebersold's How to Play Jazz and Improvise Volume 1 (1970 revision, p. 26), and Jerry Coker claims that David Baker may have been the first educator to organise this particular collection of notes pedagogically as a scale to be taught in helping beginners evoke the sound of the blues.[4]

In the Movable do solfge, the hexatonic major blues scale is solmized as "do-re-me-mi-sol-la"; In the La-based minor movable do solfge, the hexatonic minor blues scale is solmized as "la-do-re-me-mi-sol".

An essentially nine-note blues scale is defined by Benward and Saker as a chromatic variation of the major scale featuring a flat third and seventh degrees (in effect substitutions from Dorian mode) which, "alternating with the normal third and seventh scale degrees are used to create the blues inflection. These 'blue notes' represent the influence of African scales on this music."[12]

Hit songs in a blues key include, "Rock Me"..., "Jumpin' Jack Flash"..., "Higher Ground"..., "Purple Haze"..., "I Can See for Miles"..., "After Midnight"..., "She's a Woman"..., "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress"..., "Pink Cadillac"..., "Give Me One Reason"..., and many others.[13]

In jazz, the blues scale is used by improvising musicians in a variety of harmonic contexts. It can be played for the entire duration of a twelve bar blues progression constructed off the root of the first dominant seventh chord. For example, a C hexatonic blues scale could be used to improvise a solo over a C blues chord progression. The blues scale can also be used to improvise over a minor chord. Jazz educator Jamey Aebersold describes the sound and feel of the blues scale as "funky," "down-home," "earthy," or "bluesy."[14][page needed]

I have no real knowledge about music theory, so my question may be nonsensical. Before my question I need to state an assumption which may be wrong and gets me confused: when playing a song in a certain scale, usually all chords will only contain notes in that scale?

As for your initial assumption, that "when playing a song in a certain scale, usually all chords will only contain notes in that scale": that's actually untrue! See Does playing in scale mean only using notes from that scale? You can (and eventually will) have pitches outside the scale, but often these are best done following particular stipulations that we can't outline in a single answer.

The twelve-bar blues in C is based on chords built on C, F, and G. Sometimes there are extensions, and sometimes there are other chords inserted, but that's the basic twelve-bar blues. These chords are used to create the harmonic background of the blues.

Meanwhile, the C blues scale, which you accurately described, is typically used to solo, not to create the harmonic background. In other words, the pitches of the blues scale can often fit on top of the twelve-bar blues, even if they aren't always a part of the twelve-bar blues progression. (But note that you can use other scales/concepts to solo, not just this one.)

Blues is a musical form that enjoys a somewhat loose relationship with theory, and perhaps this should be taken as a lesson to all musicians that over-explaining music with theory should be, for the most part, avoided. That does not mean that you should take a pass on learning some music theory and applying it to your music and playing; knowledge of theory is extremely useful. It is great that you are asking questions like this as you attempt to better understand the music.

In music that is based around a harmonic progression, it is perfectly fine to form the melody from notes which are not found in the underlying chords. These notes provide some tension, and are frequently resolved to a note that is a chord tone.

You could just play the 1st and the 5th on C chords and F chords, and the root on G chords, in this way playing only notes from the scale that match the chord of the moment.

It is also worth noting that good players very often do not play a single scale over a set of chord changes (blues or otherwise). Instead of playing the C blues scale over 12 bar blues changes, you could play A pentatonic minor over C, D pentatonic minor over F, and E pentatonic minor over G (this is equivalent to C pentatonic major, F pentatonic major, and G pentatonic major). Or you could try any number of other scales that "fit" with your chords.

The take-away should be that it is important to not just choose a scale that fits a chord progression and then to run that scale over the progression. Even when you do have a scale that fits over several chords, listen to the chord that you are playing over, and try to make what you are playing fit that chord, or play something against that chord (generating tension).

If it helps, think of the scale as the series of notes that match the chord (not the chord being formed of notes that match the scale.) If it helps, think of a chord progression like 'Too Close' in Cm

But if you're thinking in terms of scale being the notes that fit the current chord, suddenly the Bb vs B makes a lot more sense. The Bb is part of the Eb major scale, and the B is part of the G major scale.

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