Everything You Need to Know About the Blues Scale on Guitar

Learning the blues scale on guitar is something of a rite of passage for every guitarist. If you’re a beginner with reasonable dexterity and you’re serious about learning, you’ll find the blues scale to be extremely useful.

For intermediate guitarists, this scale is essential, but it’s also important to understand that scales are merely the alphabet of the blues language. It’s important to go beyond that and play real blues melodies as well, so you can start to better understand the style.

In this article, we’ll talk about the technique for how to play the blues scale on guitar, as well as some more advanced theory on how to apply it to real music.

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How Do You Play Blues Scale on Guitar?

When you think of the blues, you might think of sad, slow music. But the blues can be fast and happy too. The blues scale is a great way to add some bluesy feel to your guitar playing, no matter what style you’re into – and here are some general tips:

• The blues scale is made up of 6 notes: the root note, flat 3rd, 4th, flat 5th, 5th and flat 7th. 
• To play a blues scale in any key, you just have to start on the root note of the key you’re in and play those six notes in order. So, if you’re in the key of C, you would start on C and play C-Eb-F-Gb-G-Bb. 
• Once you’ve memorized the pattern of notes for a few different keys, try improvising with them. Y
• ou can use the blues scale to solo over any 12 bar blues progression. Just find the root note of the chord being played in each bar, and start your solo on that note. For example, if you’re playing a 12 bar blues in C, you would use a C Blues Scale over all of the chords. 
• The great thing about improvising with the blues scale is that there are endless possibilities. You can use it to play single notes or bend them to create long sustains sounds. You can experiment with different rhythms and techniques. 
• Once you’ve got the hang of it, you can start to add your own personal flavor to your playing. 

So go ahead and give the blues scale for guitar a try – your guitar playing will thank you for it!

Ready to become a better guitar player? It’s time to sign up for guitar lessons. You’ll learn everything you need to know about this fun, groovy style of playing, plus basic skills like what you see in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tKEkV7bB1E

What is the Blues Scale on Guitar?

The blues scale is one of the most essential scales for any guitar player to learn. It is a versatile scale that can be used in a variety of musical styles, and it sounds great both when played solo and when used as a backing for other instruments.

In its simplest form, the blues scale is simply a pentatonic scale. That might sound complicated, so let’s break down the theory.

Look at a piano if you have one, or look up an image of piano keys. Take a look at the black keys on the piano. They naturally fall into the pentatonic scale pattern. If you want to hear the pentatonic scale in the easiest way, just play anything you want on the black keys only.

The gaps between the groups of black keys show you something very important about the scale. Some of the notes are farther apart than others. This is because there are two types of “intervals” (or, spaces between notes) in the pentatonic scale. There are whole steps and minor thirds.

The whole step is made up of two half-steps. This is also equal to two frets on the guitar. The minor third is made up of three half-steps, which is equal to three frets on the guitar.

Whole steps and minor thirds are also referred to as “steps” and “skips.” Being aware of this pattern of steps and skips is the most important aspect of learning the blues scale.

Practice with the Pentatonic Scale

Let’s put the theory we’ve just learned into practice. The main resting or finishing note of a key is called the “root.” 

As an example, we’ll look at the key of A minor. In the key of A minor you have the notes A – C – D – E – G. Those would be all natural notes (with no sharps or flats) and all white keys on a piano.

In any key you make a pentatonic scale in, you start with the root and go up a minor third (three half steps), then a whole step, then another whole step, then one more minor third, then one last whole step.

So in the key of A minor, the interval pattern from the root  is:

(A) Skip (C) Step (D) Step (E) Skip (G) Step (A)

The same interval pattern would apply to any key, so even if the notes change, the sound of the scale will be similar. In other words, the interval structure is what determines most of the mood of a scale.

When you go to learn this on the guitar, the main thing you will learn to do is memorize “boxes” or patterns of whole steps and minor thirds that go across the strings.

We will talk about these more in the next section, but realize that it is an incredibly important and fundamental exercise to master at least one pentatonic box that you can use for playing songs.

Is a Blues Scale and a Pentatonic Scale the Same Thing? 

The main difference between the blues scale and the pentatonic is the addition of one note. In the whole step between the third and fourth notes, you will play the note that falls between the third and fourth notes.

For example, in A minor, you’ll add an Eb in between D and E. So the interval pattern for the blues scale in the key of A minor would look like:

A (Skip) C (Whole Step) D (Half Step) Eb (Half Step) E (Skip) G (Whole Step) A

The reason this extra note is present is because it has a special place in a lot of blues melodies. It’s important to mention that it’s not enough just to have the extra note in the scale. The way you use it to create the blues sound is to play it in blues licks.

The best way to understand this is to learn the scale, and then play songs that use it so you can see the way it gets applied.

Playing the notes of the blues scale in totally random ways does not produce a “bluesy” sound; only playing the scale in the way it shows up in the traditional canon of songs will get you to the right place as a blues guitar player.

RELATED: 5 Easy Blues Guitar Licks

How Do You Turn a Pentatonic Scale Into a Blues Scale?

The blues scale is a minor pentatonic scale with an added flat 5th degree, or blue note. The flattened 5th degree gives the blues scale a distinctive sound that is often associated with the blues genre of music. This note usually falls on the 3rd string when played in the key of E, and can be played as either an open string or as the 2nd fret on the 3rd string. 

To turn a pentatonic scale into a blues scale, simply add the flat 5th degree to create a 6-note scale. For example, in the key of E, the notes in a pentatonic scale are E, F#, G, B, and C#. To turn this into a blues scale, we simply add the flat 5th degree, which would be Ab (A flatsharp). Doing so gives us the notes E, F#, G, A flat sharp (Ab), B, C#. 

The formula for turning any pentatonic scale into a blues scale is simple: just add a flattened 5th degree to create a 6-note blues scale. For example, in the key of A minor pentatonic, the notes are A, C, D, E flat (Eb), and G. To turn this into a blues scale, we simply add the flattened 5th degree which would be G sharp (G#). Therefore, the full blues scale in the key of A would be A, C, D ,E flat (Eb), G sharp (G#), and A. You can use this same formula to turn any minor pentatonic into a blues scale.