the blue note in blues scales

fguihen

Ive been trying to put some theory behind the blues scale so as to improve. Some folks say to add a major 3rd to give a real blues sound where as others add a diminished 5th.

my question is, how do you know if the scale should have a diminished 5th or a major 3rd, besides trying out both and seeing which sounds better?

i have a mate who is ace at blues guitar, but doesnt understand any of this!! he just plays! annoying huh!

Doctor J

I would say the blues is all about feel and not about theory or technique. Maybe you're thinking too much about it. I'll wager BB King, Albert King, Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker, etc wouldn't have known what a diminished 5th was if it fell out of a plane and landed on them, but they seemed to do ok at blues guitar.

fguihen

i defo am overthinking. i have a way of overcomplicating things. but ive been trying blues for a year now, just trying to "feel it" rather than apply some technique to it and so far it hasnt worked. in fairness though any technique i have ( finger accuracy/speed) is real sloppy so ive started to try to improve that over the last few weeks so perhaps il give it another few months to allow my overall playing to improve first.

molloyjh

Your best bet is to keep listening and playing along with some of your favourite blues tracks. You'll get it after a bit. I'd be quite like your mate and would play a good deal of blues relatively well, but haven't a clue about the theory. Sure BB never even plays chords, and Hendrix hadn't a notion about scales (so I believe). Use your ear and ignore your brain and your eyes. Don't ever try to play a track exactly either, one of the best things about blues music imo is the freedom it allows you. Its very easy, once you're comfortable with it, to play a totally different solo to a song that you're listening to right off the bat.

fguihen

yea, most people say not to play whats on the cd but just improv. thats all good and well, but when i just do my own thing i end up just playing a very simple blues, and i dont learn any of the more complicated licks and phrases that would improve my playing, so im trying to pick up licks and riffs from the masters, and to get that i have to try to pretty much play note for note.

damonjewel

I always thought that blue notes were unspecified notes that come out of bending notes up and down. Anyhow for blues I'd keep it simple by using the pentatonic scale the E scale is E G A B D it works good with Minor and Major E chords it also works well as a nice major pentatonic scale for GMaj, but really put the emphasis on expression e.g. sliding, bending, pull offs, phrasing etc

molloyjh

damonjewel wrote: »

I always thought that blue notes were unspecified notes that come out of bending notes up and down. Anyhow for blues I'd keep it simple by using the pentatonic scale the E scale is E G A B D it works good with Minor and Major E chords it also works well as a nice major pentatonic scale for GMaj, but really put the emphasis on expression e.g. sliding, bending, pull offs, phrasing etc

Spot on. Most blues is just the simple stuff anyway and the use of bending and hammer ons etc is what helps make the simple stuff sound so much better. Themore you play the standard/simple 12-bar blues the more variations and possible patters you'll see anyway.Just keep up the practice and you'll get it. The person I learned most of my "tricks" from was Clapton, and for as great a guitar player as he is the more you look at the blues he plays the more you realise he's just playing the simple stuff too most of the time.

Music4life

Gary moore and Joe bonamassa would be eduated in the theory business.In my opinion I think they are the best players around:D.I would agree with learning by ear.It sounds like you have problems phasing and accenting licks and riffs?Thats what the blues is all about!

-=al=-

B5 or B7 will give u a bluey feel

u have ur typical blues pentatonic and mixolydio for that kinda groove, nice to mix it up a bit, and adding a major 3rd can give a good vibe, mix it up homeos

kahler

the "blue note" would be a flattened fifth. generally. also try using the minor pentatonic a lot. a typical blues scale is a minor pentatonic with a flattened fifth thrown in . so in A you would have "A C D D# E G A". after that you are on your own. do try and learn phrases. always helps to throw them in and give yourself time to think..

eoin5

I really like going from a minor third to a major third in a blues run, its a really distinctive bluesy thing to do.

-=al=-

It does sound cool alrite

Thomas from Presence

Doctor J wrote: »

I would say the blues is all about feel and not about theory or technique. Maybe you're thinking too much about it. I'll wager BB King, Albert King, Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker, etc wouldn't have known what a diminished 5th was if it fell out of a plane and landed on them, but they seemed to do ok at blues guitar.

I have to disagree. The three Kings (you forgot Freddie!), JL Hooker et al had the distinct advantage of growing up in a culture were blues and gospel were all around them. If you took them out of their cultural paradigm and tried to show them Irish traditional music (note: not IRA ballads) they would be unable to grasp the forms as it's an alien tradition. The lessons would be broken down to scales and charts within 60 seconds!

Expressing music in theoretical terms allows anyone regardless of their cultural background to engage with the compositional forms, improvisational frameworks and even clichés.

Theory and blues is like the alphabeth and reading. When we first learn to read we learn the syllabic sounds of the letters, then the spellings of words and ultimately the grammar of sentences. Over time we get to the stage were we can type vasts tracts of prose on the internet without thinking about these rules as they become part of our knowledge.

Music is exactly the same and blues is no different. All the rules become second nature with practice over time and then you can express yourself with feeling. Otherwise you're just groping in the dark.

Blues is a growing and developing music. Knowing skills like combining modes and pentatonics or using modal pentatonics over extended chords (they use 9, 11 and 13 chords in blues these days!) helps you develop your own voice in the framework. (Check Robben Ford)

Showing a pale Irish guy a pentatonic scale to widdle up and down is not enough.

fguihen

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

Showing a pale Irish guy a pentatonic scale to widdle up and down is not enough.

I completely agree. half the lessons online just give a pentatonic scale and tell you to mess around. ive been doing this for a year now with no results. i knwo the patterns now but i cant build a phrase or work one out to save my life.

ive started learning individual phrases from the web. its painstaking learning phrases one at a time, but im actually finding that i can stitch them together pretty well and my ear is picking up sounds and combinations from the phrases that im working in elsewhere. it seems to be a good way to learn, without getting bogged down with theory, as long as i keep it up! if i get even only 5-6 nice phrases per week, its still gona build up after a few months, and help me to no end.

Thomas from Presence

fguihen wrote: »

I completely agree. half the lessons online just give a pentatonic scale and tell you to mess around. ive been doing this for a year now with no results. i knwo the patterns now but i cant build a phrase or work one out to save my life.

ive started learning individual phrases from the web. its painstaking learning phrases one at a time, but im actually finding that i can stitch them together pretty well and my ear is picking up sounds and combinations from the phrases that im working in elsewhere. it seems to be a good way to learn, without getting bogged down with theory, as long as i keep it up! if i get even only 5-6 nice phrases per week, its still gona build up after a few months, and help me to no end.

What you're doing is like learning a foreign language by learning off phrases by rote. It doesn't work. You're not creating or improvising, you're regurgatating.

I'm willing to offer you a free guitar lesson to prove the point. This approach is a disaster I've seen repeated too many times!

Rigsby

The ideal thing IMO is to have a good ear and at least some basic theory. To be able to play what you hear, to be able to figure out how the piece of music was constructed, and communicate that to someone else is the holy grail.

Krsnik87

fguihen wrote: »

I completely agree. half the lessons online just give a pentatonic scale and tell you to mess around. ive been doing this for a year now with no results. i knwo the patterns now but i cant build a phrase or work one out to save my life.

ive started learning individual phrases from the web. its painstaking learning phrases one at a time, but im actually finding that i can stitch them together pretty well and my ear is picking up sounds and combinations from the phrases that im working in elsewhere. it seems to be a good way to learn, without getting bogged down with theory, as long as i keep it up! if i get even only 5-6 nice phrases per week, its still gona build up after a few months, and help me to no end.

Where have you been learning your phrases from? I've been looking around for them but can't seem to find anything decent... I've just been listening and TRYING to copy some BB King :pac:

Thomas from Presence

I recommend this book to my students.

It's up on Amazon here.

It lays out the theory very well and there's plenty of examples showing the theory put into practice. There's so much in it you'll be kept busy for a while. As your musical vocabulary grows so will the means for you to express yourself on the instrument.

Blackhorse Slim

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

Showing a pale Irish guy a pentatonic scale to widdle up and down is not enough.

Damn right. We might end up with another Rory Gallagher :eek:

-=al=-

meh tis a bith of both, ya gota feel mostly and have a good ear, knowing a bit of theory and whats goin on helps, but ya know a lot of people get by without it

fguihen

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

What you're doing is like learning a foreign language by learning off phrases by rote. It doesn't work. You're not creating or improvising, you're regurgatating.

I'm willing to offer you a free guitar lesson to prove the point. This approach is a disaster I've seen repeated too many times!

what about the guys ( and there are many) on youtube, or people you know who play a real cool blues lead piece, and when they break it down its a bit of a clapton style lick, a bit of a bb king style lick and a few more licks thrown in? it sounds great, and a mate of mine who i think is ace on the guitar did this. he just watched videos of SRV and jimi, working out their phrases and licks and sticking them together.

TBH, I cant think of how else to learn. ive spent a year trying to just "feel" it, but that doesnt work, i just end up walking around the pentatonic, i cant come up wtih decent licks and cant do a decent run as i just lose track of myself. if i learn a few phrases, start sticking them together, become more familiar with how some of the greats create phrases off the scale and what they like to do, how can that not benifit me?

Im not saying your wrong, i just dont know how you advise i should try to learn and improve.

Thomas from Presence

Blackhorse Slim wrote: »

Damn right. We might end up with another Rory Gallagher :eek:

At best we'd get a Gallagher copyist. Rory was unique. He synergised a very Irish approach to his phrasing and was known to throw in plenty of non pentatonic ideas in to the mix. You'll only get something unique when there's a blend of influences.

Voodu Child

-=al=- wrote: »

meh tis a bith of both, ya gota feel mostly and have a good ear, knowing a bit of theory and whats goin on helps, but ya know a lot of people get by without it

Yep, that's the truth right there. Anybody who says theory is a bad thing is wrong.... but on the flip side, anybody who says you need theory or you'll be a 'copyist' or whatever, is even more misguided.

The best approach is whatever works for you, be it lots of theory, no theory, or somewhere in between.

-=al=-

alan mc's always right :cool:

Thomas from Presence

voodoo_child wrote: »

Yep, that's the truth right there. Anybody who says theory is a bad thing is wrong.... but on the flip side, anybody who says you need theory or you'll be a 'copyist' or whatever, is even more misguided.

The best approach is whatever works for you, be it lots of theory, no theory, or somewhere in between.

It's all down to what you want to achieve. If you want to sound precisely like another guitarist then copy his licks. By definition this is what a copyist is. Again that may be someone's goal and thats fine.

Theory isn't a big deal. It's not as fun as blaring through the Thrill is Gone over and over but for a minimal investment you can make your own musical statements far quicker if you know a bit. You can overkill on either way but not having any theory at all?! Thats a bit like trying to be an illiterate poet.

Thomas from Presence

fguihen wrote: »

what about the guys ( and there are many) on youtube, or people you know who play a real cool blues lead piece, and when they break it down its a bit of a clapton style lick, a bit of a bb king style lick and a few more licks thrown in? it sounds great, and a mate of mine who i think is ace on the guitar did this. he just watched videos of SRV and jimi, working out their phrases and licks and sticking them together.

TBH, I cant think of how else to learn. ive spent a year trying to just "feel" it, but that doesnt work, i just end up walking around the pentatonic, i cant come up wtih decent licks and cant do a decent run as i just lose track of myself. if i learn a few phrases, start sticking them together, become more familiar with how some of the greats create phrases off the scale and what they like to do, how can that not benifit me?

Im not saying your wrong, i just dont know how you advise i should try to learn and improve.

This "feeling it" bit is something that only comes with fluency. You'll get some great licks mixing around bits of the usual for sure and it's excellent for helping your phrasing but what if you have to improvise over some chord changes that you never encountered before or want to come up with something that is truly your own? What if you want to play out a solo from you that has a beginning, a build, release, tension and an ending?

To carry on the analogy I used you learn the language. Here's my recommendation in as small a size as I can fit it!

Learn about chord formations. See how famous licks fit the scale over the chord.

Here's an approach and some ideas.

Major Key Blues

Okay, say you want to play in C major. Before there is a pentatonic there is a set of notes that make up the harmony in your progression.

C major = C D E F G A B C


OK, next you have your chords in your 12 bar,

C7 F7 G7

Ok then we have C major pentatonic
C D E G A C

Lets take the 12 bar one chord at a time. Lets start with C7

C pentatonic is good for most of time but will be limiting ultimately as it is only 5 notes. As blues has always been progressive we'll push a little difference in there:

If you look at the notes in a C7 you have C E G Bb. Notice your scale doesn't have Bb? No problem, drop it in and you'll get a C mixolydian pentatonic (we'll kill the A just to keep it as simple as the form requires).

Looks like this



Ok Next problem, which notes to use and how? This where the work your putting in now combines with this knowledge. All the licks you know 'work' because they pay respect to the notes of the chord they are played over.

To be able to use those scales effectively you need to be able to "see" the C7 chord sitting on top of the scale shape to see what notes are in common. To show you how I arrived at this would open another can of worms about the CAGED system of which you should find a lot written about on the internet.

Anyway here is a C7 at the 5th fret and here are your scales again with notes in common C7 highlighted:





OK now you have your ingredients. Now you infuse the work your doing now with this and you'll get more options. Take a lick you know, play it in one of the scales above over a C7 chord and start experimenting with changing the rhythm of the phrasing and make the notes highlighted the notes you home in on and end on. Your ear will get used to these sounds and over time they will become part of your vocabulary.

This is a bit of a taster to demonstrate an idea. There can be as much or less to this you think you need.




Ok here's a more complex and exotic but still blues sounding idea. Say the band player plays a C9. This is a poly chord. Why? It has two chords contained within it. C E G Bb D. C E G Bb=C7 but G Bb and D are also Gminor when played together. If you play a Gminor pentatonic over C7 you get a wealth of flavours that you wouldn't normally see this side of jazz while still being bluesy.

There are lots of other ideas and they pop up in the work of all the greats. If you know what the idea is called and what it sounds like you can concieve a melody in your head and fly it out while everyone else spends years learning what notes are 'bad' through trial and error or while they may stay with the 'safe ones'.