« | Home | »

Learn To Play Guitar – The Blues Scale

By Mike Hayes | February 26, 2010

The challenge for most guitar players is ‘what scales should I
learn and which one should I learn first?’ There’s no shortage
of scales available to the newbie guitarist in fact that’s part
of the problem, too much information.

Let’s start at the beginning …

The basic scales to learn would be:

1.The minor pentatonic scale

2.The major pentatonic scale

3.The blues scale

I’d learn them in that order, master the minor pentatonic, next
the major pentatonic and then the blues scale. I’ve covered the
major and minor versions of the pentatonic scales in previous
articles today our focus will be on the blues scale.

The Blues Scale

The blues scale is one of the most unique and frequently used
scales. It is also important because it is the first real scale
of American origin. The reason for the flexibility and feeling
inherent in the blues scale are these:

(a) All of the traditional scale forms that form the backbone of
“legit” musical training such as the diatonic major scale stem
from the European musical culture. These scales all began and
developed in an atmosphere of disciplined conditions e.g., they
are a product of the piano keyboard.

Traditional scales where created and developed over the passage
of time on the piano keyboard using a mathematical and
scientific approach. The history of music shows the human
intellect’s even increasing need for more and more complex
harmonic textures and with that need for harmonic complexity and
sophistication came the need to create more harmonically rich and
exotic scales.

(b) In contrast the blues scale had its roots in an untrained,
natural vocal origin. The important distinction between the
“legit” scales and the blues scale is that the blues scale was a
human vocal sound transferred to the instruments available at the
time such as guitars played with a slide often referred to as
“bottleneck” guitar as the slide was more often that not created
out of the glass “neck” of a bottle.

Other instruments such as the bugle, trumpet and later the
saxophone emulated the vocal sound or the work songs of people
working on plantations, road and railway gangs.

Most early exponents of the blues scale, for example could not
read music; did not study to develop their talent and facility;
they were not technically aware of what or how they arrived at
the music they produced. They heard and felt their music and that
was all they needed.

Basic blues song structure

The blues started back in the 19th century as a form of folk
music, it was originally performed by individual singers,
guitarists, and banjo players. By 1920 three distinct blues
formats had developed: the 8 bar blues, the 12 bar blues and
the 16 bar blues.

From these three the 12 bar blues quickly became the most popular
format it is still the most common blues form use by contemporary
musicians.

The versatile nature of the blues scale makes it one of the most
popular scales in modern music make sure you learn how to play
this scale on the guitar.

Topics: Blues Scales | No Comments »

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.