The Pentatonic Blues Scale is a great tool for Blues Guitar and Rock Guitar soloing and improvising. For major blues scales, a flattened note found on the third scale degree is added, and in minor blues scales a raised fourth scale degree is added. Very Different Sound For Just Adding One Note Pentatonic and blues scales for guitar are an essential part of any players guitar riff tool set. (how to guitar solo) Blues improvising - Part one. The Idea is that we play four notes from every note in the scale. How to play blues scales. This lesson is perfect for those that are interested in blues phrasing ideas! All of the root notes are "E" because this is the E Pentatonic Blues Scale. But this does in no way mean that Blues is a kind of “limited” music or that the black slaves back then could be reduced to people who only know 5 notes. This added scale tone is a f5th in the minor pentatonic. Pentatonic scales are useful for improvisers in modern jazz, pop, and rock contexts because they work well over several chords diatonic to the same key, often better than the parent scale. This note is responsible for giving the blues scale it’s signature “bluesy” sound. Start Here! The major pentatonic scale is a wonderful, simple way to add colour to your blues playing. I strongly advise getting hold of some pentatonic backing tracks and trying out some licks – you’ll be amazed at how great it can sound! The first thing is to learn where all the root notes are. You can't do that! The minor pentatonic scale consists of 5 of these notes (1, b3, 4, 5 and b7). There are a lot of ways to play this scale, including minor, major, or adding notes to make it sound bluesy. Sound familiar? The notes in the scale can be described as steps on the guitar fingerboard according to the following formula: whole and a half, whole, half, half, whole and a half, whole from the first note to the same in the next octave. Fingering. The other blue dots will also be the A notes in this scale. In that sense, it’s not really a note in the scale at all. Knowing the pattern of white/black keys for the 12 major scales tells you the pattern for the relative minor scales. Learn all 5 patterns of the E Pentatonic Blues Scale and learn to play blues guitar! Find guitar scales using graphic interface. It comes from the major scale, which is a seven note scale. In fact getting this scale to sound like authentic blues is not actually that easy! Here are a selection of easy licks to get you started – all are in the key of A, but the basic pattern can be moved to any key, up or down the neck. The red dots indicate a root note, the blue dots indicate a blues note and the black dots indicate a note in the scale. This cool new scale is the minor pentatonic with an additional note. Introducing the pentatonic scale! Since the blues scale is only one note added to a pentatonic scale and seeing as the major and minor pentatonic scales are related, just learn your pentatonic shapes and know where to add the blues note. Mastering the Pentatonic and Blues Scales - Amazing Guitar … After getting a hold of this scale, I recommend working on it in the key of E and D since many of the notes can be played with open strings. Listen to Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine and AC/DC’s Back In Black, for instance – those iconic licks are founded upon the pentatonic scale.And the ‘neutrality’ of the scale means it’s also been employed in other genres, such as country, blues … The Blues Scale, which as you can probably guess from its name, is a commonly used scale in The Blues! Unlike other scales, which often have seven or more notes, the pentatonic scale consists of just five notes. Fletcher breaks down this versatile scale and plays his favorite phrases rooted in pentatonic blues. The guitar neck diagram shows you the big picture for the E Pentatonic Blues Scale. Attempt to play them in different positions up and down the fretboard (i.e. The blues scale is just the minor pentatonic scale with one additional note, which gets labeled #4 or a b5 depending on context. If you want to start playing lead guitar, improvising blues and rock, or writing classic sounding rock tunes, the pentatonic blues scale is definitely the place to start. Don’t feel you have to play too much. This cool new scale is the minor pentatonic with an additional note. The minor blues scale is related to the natural minor scale and the minor pentatonic scale. Once you’ve got the pentatonic scale deeply engrained, you can try adding in those extra notes. If you are unfamiliar with the notation below, don’t worry – the diagonal lines simply mean a slide up, or down towards the note following it. The additional note is a 'spice' that works great in a Blues soup, but too much and it can make your soup a little sour. (Basic Scale Guides for Guitar. The pentatonic scale is one of the most commonly used scales used in music. So you can play any of these notes in any order and it should still sound great -it will help if you start or end on the root, but generally you can’t go wrong. Your email address will not be published. It’s pretty slow here, but playing this kind of riff quickly is very much the basis of blues-rock soloing. Ultimately you’ll use a combination of both approaches, without even thinking about it! Your email address will not be published. If you want to play A-major pentatonic scale all the blue notes has to be A. Pentatonic scales are widely attributed with shaping rock music. Includes Audio, Backing Tracks and Clear Diagrams! Ex. To play the Blues Pentatonic Scale in a certain key first locate the note on the low E string and use pattern 1 as your reference point. The Major Blues Scale uses the 1, 3♭, 3, 5 and 6 notes of a scale.. It has a unique sound and is commonly used across all genres, not just blues! If you have a good knowledge of your blues scales, you’ll develop an understanding of how existing songs and solos run. They are: 1 - 2 - b3 - 4 - 5 - b6 - b7. Theory of the minor pentatonic scale for guitar. The first lick is really easy. Mastering the Pentatonic and Blues Scales - Amazing Guitar Secrets - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. Then try and make up your own. Please Login to view this content. So if the lowest blue dot was at the 5th fret, we will be in A. The A Minor pentatonic groupings of four exercise is a sequence that takes the pentatonic scale in groupings of four notes from every note in the scale. You can also think of the minor blues scale as a minor pentatonic scale with an added b5 note. However you play it, you cannot go wrong. Join Today!) This final riff adds a short pentatonic intro to the riff used in lick 2 above. Required fields are marked *. When the pattern is applied as major, the same note in the patterns becomes a f3rd. That leaves us with an E minor pentatonic scale: E G A B D. You can use all the same shapes you've already learned for the G major pentatonic scale. This is because the Blues Guitar Scale is a Minor Pentatonic Scale with an extra note added. Guitar: Pentatonic and Blues Scales covers the essential guitar theory for the Minor Pentatonic scale, Major Pentatonic Scale and The Blues Scale and highlights the characteristics of each scale with useful licks and exercises. All of the root notes are "E" because this is the E Pentatonic Blues Scale. The pentatonic scale is a five-note musical scale used by guitar players to solo, improvise, create riffs and licks. The blue note in blues scale. Instead, scales that are derived from the major scale, as well as the minor scale appear with greater frequency. It shows you all positions of the scale. As the ‘pent’ prefix implies, this scale has just five notes, so is simpler than a typical major or minor scale (they have seven notes) – it’s basically a slimmed down minor scale, missing the 2nd and 6th notes. Forgot Password? This extra note adds thats blues feeling to the scale. At the beginning of the scale, start with the lowest root note on the open E string and play that note. The pentatonic scale is a five-note musical scale used by guitar players to solo, improvise, create riffs and licks. It’s important though to point out the difference between the Pentatonic Scale and the Blues scale. The blues scale formula is 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7. As shown above some of the most influential riffs of all time contain just a handful of notes. The Blues Scale Now we have the minor pentatonic understood, the next step is to learn the blues scale. The guitar neck diagram shows you the big picture for the E Pentatonic Blues Scale. To turn our G major scale into a G major pentatonic scale, we just have to remove the 4th and 7th scale degrees. When the pattern is applied as major, the same note in the patterns becomes a f3rd. To hear each pattern check out the E Pentatonic Blues Scale Tab page. Not bad for a scale that’s two notes shy of a major scale. As explained at the beginning of this lesson, the pentatonic scale is a minor scale with two notes (2nd and 6th) missing. The Pentatonic Blues Scale is a great tool for Blues Guitar and Rock Guitar soloing and improvising. On this page there are easy to follow tabs along with audio at three different speeds. It finds its roots in African-American music at the time of slavery and ended up being widely used within blues , receiving the name “blues scale”. Part of the series: How to Play Scales on the Guitar 4. Notice how the patterns overlap and connect to eachother down the guitar neck. This kind of riff was used by Muddy Waters in his famous track Mannish Boy, and it’s been used in countless other blues and rock records. Book 18) (English Edition) eBook: Rob Silver: Amazon.it: Kindle Store The natural minor scale (aka Aeolian scale) has 7 notes. There are a lot of ways to play this scale, including minor, major, or adding notes to make it sound bluesy. Place your third finger on the third fret of the low E string and play that note. It shows you all positions of the scale. If you play the guitar, it’s more about embedding the scale patterns. Going beyond the pentatonic box is also important. Find guitar scales using graphic interface. The notes in a G major scale are G A B C D E F#. I’ve played it with my palm of my picking hand muting the strings slightly. This example uses more notes, but all are within the pentatonic box. Now, this is a good scale just for noodling with at home, but it really is worth jamming along with other players. Here's the free E Pentatonic Blues scale. Time to put your new knowledge to the test with a quick test! The minor pentatonic scale for electric or acoustic guitar is a very interesting scale. In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a slow blues lead using the 5 notes of the minor pentatonic scale (in multiple positions). Part 2 - For Premium Members. Again, roots are colored blue. Scale Test! Slow Walk-Through. It may also be the most popular guitar scale because the box pattern is movable and playable all over the neck. Time to put your new knowledge to the test with a quick test! Tom Kolb’s Connecting Pentatonic Patterns is an excellent fretboard map to help learn the scale all over the fretboard, and very much worth having in your guitar reference library. In this lesson, we are going to be in the key of G major. Roll your mouse over the pattern number below to see what the pattern looks like. This type of scale sequence is used in thousands of guitar solos and is something that every guitar player would want be comfortable with. Once you can remember this pattern, you can position it anywhere on the guitar neck and play in any key. Because transposition is usually pretty easy. If you are struggling play them slowly. A very famous example of the minor blues scale at work is in the Smoke On The Water riff.. 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