Posts Tagged ‘Playing Blues’

The blues guitar scales are really based off of the pentatonic scales with one extra note added. We call that extra note the “blue note” because it gives the pentatonic scale its obvious “bluesyness.” The only real difference between the scales on the guitar and the same scales on any other instrument is the fact that there is more than one way to play them on a guitar. This is due mostly to the fact that the guitar is a stringed instrument and there are at least 3-5 ways to play any unique note.

The minor pentatonic scale is created using the root (or 1), flatted 3rd, 4th, 5th, and flatted 7th of a major scale. Notice that there is no 2nd or 6th scale tone used. There’s an interesting reason for that but it requires a substantial amount of music theory to explain it and this isn’t really the place for that.

To create the minor blues scale we take the minor pentatonic scale and add a flatted 5th (or sharp 4) to it. In the key of A, this creates a scale with the notes A, C, D, Eb, E, and G in it. Some people don’t differentiate between the minor and the major blues scales. If someone calls a scale a blues scale, assume they mean the minor version.

A major pentatonic scale is created with the 1st (root,) 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th tone of a major scale. In C that would be C, D, E, G, and A. To make it a major blues scale you add a flatted 3rd which gives you C, D, Eb, E, G, and A in the key of C.

Notice that the rule governing relative major and minor keys/scales is also in effect here. If you look at the keys of A minor and C major, which are relative, meaning they contain the same notes, you’ll see the same group of notes.

The A minor blues scale is A, C, D, Eb, E, and G. The C major blues scale is C, D, Eb, E, G, and A. Same notes, different starting point. This sort of thing happens all the time in music. This is of particular interest if you’re playing blues lead guitar because you can see that your blues guitar scales really do double duty. Once you learn one pattern, it’s really useful for 2 keys, one major and one minor.

So how to we apply this scale to a standard 12 bar blues chord progression? What’s cool is that the simplest approach is really simple. Whatever the first chord of the chord progression is, let’s say it’s A7, use that minor blues scale to solo over the song. There’s no need to change scales at any time.

Keep in mind that this is only one possible approach, and in many cases it’s not the best approach. There are several ways to play over a 12 bar progression, or any other kind of chord progression. Many of these approaches use some combination of major and minor blues scales.

It is easy to find the 5 “boxes” or patterns of the blues scale on the internet. A simple search should turn up hundreds of choices. Once you learn the blues scales and have them under your fingers. You’ll want to start jamming with them and learning how to make the sounds you want to hear.

The ability to play blues piano is usually not expected of beginning pianists. There are reasons why most beginning pianists start out playing old songs written by classical composers from centuries past. Many songs written for the piano by such composers as Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky were originally intended as pieces to be used for lessons. Plus, the conventions of classical music lead to chord structures, harmonies, and melodies that were comparatively straight-forward, perfect for students who were not musical experts.

Attempting to play blues piano presents new challenges for pianists. Many non-musicians don’t realize the technical difficulty of blues and jazz music, but in fact, to be an accomplished musician in one of these genres requires years and years of intense training and practice. Some would even say that these musical genres are actually more complicated than pre-20th century musical forms, which would mean that blues and jazz musicians are, in general, the most accomplished and versatile musicians out there.

So, as you can guess, the decision to take the plunge into playing blues piano should not be made lightly. In order to have a true understanding of blues, its scales, harmonies, and rhythms, one needs to have at least a basic understanding of more traditional musical forms. Blues isn’t a parallel form of music to Classical and other traditional genres; no, it’s an augmentation of traditional music. Just like jazz, blues actually complicates traditional music. Thus, your study of blues piano requires at least a solid bedrock of musical knowledge.

I presume that you already know, at the very least, about the traditional major scale. For example, in order to understand and play the C blues scale, you must know the C Major scale.

If you have that knowledge, then it’s pretty simple. The blues scale simply takes the major scale and adds three extra notes. That’s it. The three extra notes are a flatted third, a flatted fifth, and a flatted seventh. Thus, the C blues scale has all of the same notes as the C Major scale — that is, C D E F G A B — with the three additional notes being E flat (or D sharp), G flat (or F sharp) and B flat (or A sharp).

That’s right, if you look closely at the blues scale, you’ll find that there are only two notes that are not included. In the C blues scale, only C sharp and G sharp are not played.

If you want to play blues piano, learning the blues scale is your first step. Even doing nothing more than playing the scale, you’ll hear a “bluesy-ness” to the scale, and if you are a fan of blues, it will sound great to your ears.

Once you can do this, you are ready to play blues piano. The next step is to try improvising. Come up with a chord progression. C F G C is a standard blues chord progression, except — and here is another important point — it is fairly standard in blues music to turn nearly every chord into a seventh chord. So, this progression, in blues form, would be C7 F7 G7 C7. Of course, with the new notes added in, you must remember that, in most cases, these should be played as minor 7th chords. Thus, both the C7 and F7 chords use notes that are not in the traditional C Major scale.

Once you have your chord progression down, improvising is easy. Come up with a simple, bluesy melody, and go from there. Just remember that in order for the music to have that special blues quality, you need to utilize those extra three notes that are not in the traditional scale. Those are the notes that give blues its edge. In that light, it’s really not difficult at all to play blues piano.

Join me as I take a look into some practical tips and advice about mastering blues guitar. We’ll be analysing what the fundamentals of blues are as well as the importance of improvisation, and the benefits of rehearsing with guitar backing tracks.

Blues guitar is one of the most artistically expressive forms of guitar that exists today. Not many guitarists know this but the blues is the foundation for a variety of different genres that are extremely popular today, including rock, hard rock, metal, and even some hip hop music. There is a lot involved in completely masting blues guitar playing, and it takes a lot of time and dedication to be able to pull it off.

In order to be able to master blues guitar you have to be very familiar with the basic principle of blues music itself. Blues music is one of the only styles of music to actually have a scale named after it. Learning and dominating the blues scale is one of the first key steps to completely mastering blues guitar playing. The blues scale is used in more than blues music. There is a lot of rock music that uses this scale too. So whether you plan on being a blues guitarist or not, this scale is definitely very beneficial to learn and master.

So What Is The 12 Bar Blues?

The 12-bar blues progression is the main foundation and cornerstone of the vast majority of blues tunes out there. As such, to start playing blues, you will need to understand what a 12-bar blues progression is.

The underlying concept of the 12-bar blues is the I-IV-V progression, where I, IV and V represent the chords or notes that you will be using. To this, you will no doubt have two questions that spring to mind immediately, “what is I-IV-V,” and how do I use it?”

Let me explain what I-IV-V is all about When you play a blues progression, you will only be required to use 3 chords. The main principle of I-IV-V let you know what are the chords to use, as follows: a slightly oversimplified approach, which happens to work for the keys of A,C,D,E and G, which is enough for right now, is to simply count out the letters of the alphabet starting with the key you’re playing in. The first, fourth and fifth letter you count represent the chords that you will be using in your blues progression.

For the key of A we count: A-b-c-D-E-f-g

Thus, for the key of A, we will be using A-D-E as our I-IV-V progression. Similarly if you count out starting with E, you will find that for the key of E we will use E-A-B as our I-IV-V.

Music theory students refer to the I as the “tonic”, the IV as the “subdominant”, and the V as the “dominant”. I will not use these terms in this lesson, but knowing that may help you understand what other people are talking about sometimes.

Chords and Progressions

Another key element to blues is to learn the chords and chord progressions that are commonly used in blues guitar. Learning these will help you to create your own blues progressions and melodies. It’s important to remember that not all blues music is played at fast speeds. Some blues music is played slowly and soulfully. It’s as if you can see inside of the guitarist’s soul as he tells a story with his music. Accuracy is the foundation of playing solid, soul-bearing blues music, and not just raw speed.

An integral part of playing and mastering blues guitar is learning how to improvise. After you master the scales and chords, it’s time to put them into practice. Improvising is where your creativity and knowledge come together to create passionate blues music. There are a variety of different improvisation techniques that you should practice along with learning your chords and scales.

One of the best ways to fully master blues music is to practice with guitar backing tracks. These backing tracks can improve the productivity of your practice time immensely. It’s like practicing with an entire blues band, which will help you develop your improvisation as you put to use your knowledge and solo over the backing tracks. These will produce good, solid structure and timing as you learn to play along with other musicians, and learn to play over key changes. Guitar backing tracks are the secret to success in mastering blues guitar.