Blues scale is an excellent place for beginning improvisers to begin developing melodies. Its structure resembles that of minor pentatonic, without the flat fifth note.
This blues scale starts on the G string and ascends up to the high E string, so remember to shift your finger position up one fret when reaching the B string when playing this scale!
Fingerings
The G Blues Scale is an essential scale to know for those seeking to improvise and create their own distinctive musical style. Based on natural minor with the addition of the flat fifth note (commonly known as the ‘blue note’) this scale gives off its distinct timbre and emotional power – this note gives rise to its wide popularity across genres including traditional twelve-bar blues, Boogie-Woogie, RnB Soul Jazz etc.
Fingerings for this scale are quite similar to those for minor pentatonic scale, as shown below. The only real difference is adding in a “blue note”, which can be added into any of the fingerings for minor pentatonic scale to form blues scale.
Beginners to the scale may benefit from beginning by learning and mastering the minor pentatonic scale, before progressing onto learning the blues scale and how it works. This will ensure a solid understanding of how this particular mode operates so it’s easier to incorporate into their music.
Once you have an understanding of both versions of the minor pentatonic scale and blues scale, it may be beneficial to combine them for added variation and bluesiness – further improving your playing quality overall.
An effective way to gain experience using this technique is by listening to some of your favourite blues and blues rock songs, particularly ones featuring famous riffs or solos constructed using blues scale techniques. Doing this will give you a good understanding of how this approach can be applied when creating music of your own.
As an aid to understanding how to finger the scale, we have provided three blues scale g licks below that will give you a feel for how it should sound when played on guitar. One lick is solely based on minor pentatonic scale while two others include blue note from blues scales.
Chords
The blues scale is an increasingly popular choice among guitar players who wish to add tension and chromaticism into their soloing. Based on minor pentatonic scale, this form adds a flattened fifth note – known as blue note – in order to produce its distinct sound. Widely utilized across different genres such as rock and jazz music.
The blue note is an integral component of blues scale, and understanding its use is critical. It creates dissonant tones when used sparingly but too much can make your playing harsh and unpleasant; therefore, practice using this scale sparingly in small doses until your sound has developed its own personality.
Blues scale is an easy and accessible scale to learn, and can be played in different fretboard positions for maximum flexibility and tension-building guitar solos. Furthermore, its combination with chords creates interesting melodies.
When playing blues scale, it is recommended to utilize a clean tone without overtones or distortion, while maintaining a steady rhythm with slow tempo for best results. This will ensure that all notes in your scale are hit accurately.
Blues scale guitar music allows for the creation of various chords, such as major, minor, and dominant chords. Switching between them while soloing allows you to effectively build and release tension while maintaining a flowing and fluid rhythm.
One of the most frequent blues scale chords is the minor dominant chord, making up nearly any minor blues scale pattern and providing extra tension when playing over minor key songs. Furthermore, adding extensions such as minor diminished or major diminished can add different tensions or moods by using this chord as part of its harmonic framework.
Scale Shapes
Once you have the pentatonic scale patterns under your fingers, it is a wise move to begin working on some blues scale shapes. These will help strengthen your technique, memorization and melodic variation when improvising – for starters try playing around with each of the five shapes to see how they link together to form longer melodies.
Blues scales can be thought of as minor pentatonic scales with one extra note – often known as the blues note and creating its distinctive sound. Aside from adding this note, all other aspects remain the same for this form.
Bendable notes like this one make it easy to add extra expression and expression into your playing, giving your playing extra expression. But keep in mind that these extra notes should only be used sparingly; too much can make your music sound harsh. Use it like spices: use it to flavor but don’t let it overpower it.
To play the blues scale on an acoustic guitar, it is essential that you can move smoothly from shape to shape. To accomplish this task, familiarizing yourself with where each scale shape sits on the fretboard will allow for fast switching when improvising solos or duets.
Start out by studying this diagram which displays the blues scale in shape 1 (middle C position) and shape 2 (open G position). This will give you an idea of where and what it sounds like for each position on your fretboard.
Notice how both scale shapes overlap, without any gaps between notes. This is due to the notes used for the blues scale being an amalgam of tones from minor pentatonic scale; making it easy for anyone to play and laying the foundation for mastering it.
Variations
There are various variations of the blues scale, each adding something different to your sound. A great starting point is with the major blues scale which adds a flat fifth to a minor pentatonic scale for instant bluesy flair – its formula being 1 – 2 – b3 – 3 – 5 – 6.
The major blues scale can be played on any fretboard and is an effective way of honing your improvisational skills for chord progressions beyond twelve bar blues. Once you master this scale, try switching it out for minor blues scale in any of your favourite songs!
For an added kick, there is also a six-note blues scale which fits seamlessly into rock and country music. This scale consists of the pentatonic scale plus one extra note known as the blues note for that distinctive sound you hear in many blues songs.
Remember, though the blues scale has given birth to an entire musical genre, it remains a set pattern of notes used across musical genres and periods. Classical music uses similar patterns while jazz and pop use them similarly; thus making the blues scale an invaluable way of playing any style of guitar music.
Other variations on the blues scale include hexatonic and octatonic blues scales. Both these variations rely on minor pentatonic scale, but feature an additional note – usually major sixth – which adds Dorian mode elements for an enhanced jazz experience.
Another variation is to move the scale around in different positions on the fretboard, giving you more ways to move it for a unique and captivating sound. As its movements mirror those of both minor and major blues scales, simply alternate changing one shape for another as you work your way along the neck.