Lead 402 - The Blues Scale

The blues scale, or minor blues scale, is meant to be played over all three chords in the blues progression. The scale is a minor pentatonic scale with the addition of the b5 scale degree giving us:

1   b3   4   b5   5   b7

While the b5 is not in any the dominant chords, you will immediately hear how its presence combined with the minor 3rd creates the "classic" blues sound. As we have already touched on, the blues is more about sound and phrasing as opposed to perfect scale choice and technique - which is how this scale was derived - not from a theory perspective, but from a sound perspective.

Below are the five patterns of the blues scale and a few jam tracks. Practice these the same way we have learned all of our scales so far. Learn all five patterns, try them in different keys, practice them over the jam tracks, and make sure you can run up and down the entire neck in these shapes before advancing. This shouldn't be too difficult as we are simply adding a note to a scale we already know intimately well.

Pay attention to the sound of the scale and when it's appropriate to play on the b5 and b3. You will find that the b3 is pretty good to hang on most everywhere, while the b5 is best used sparingly - mostly in passing. We will dive into this more in the blues phrasing section.

Jamtracks:

1.  Blues in C

2.  Blues in A

3.  Blues in G

4.  Blues in E