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When you start learning jazz and try to improvise on the changes of a tune, it’s possible to come up against the difficulty of not being able to follow all the chords right away. There are certain structures, like for example the blues<\/strong>, on which it is possible to stay on the same scale throughout the piece! This can come in very handy!<\/p>\n The blues is a 12-bar structure that you obviously have to know, but you can always improvise on the blues scale, as well as on the pentatonic scale!<\/p>\n Pentatonic scales are the scales that gave birth to blues and jazz. At the end of the 19th century, these scales were mainly sung by African Americans working in the fields and exploited by wealthy white landowners. The transmission of these scales was done mainly orally, by singing.<\/p>\n When it was necessary to transcribe blues solos at the beginning of the 20th century, attempts were made to adapt the sounds of these African scales to the Western tonal system. We thus obtained the pentatonic scale, contained in the diatonic scale. But certain notes sung by the blues men did not correspond to those of the diatonic scale. It was therefore necessary to add additional notes to the pentatonic scale: the blue notes.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The blues scale<\/strong> is the pentatonic scale to which we add a note. This note is known as the \u201cblue note.\u201d In the case of the minor pentatonic it will be the diminished fifth, and in the case of the major pentatonic it will be the minor third. For example, for the A minor pentatonic scale it will be E flat, and for the C major pentatonic scale it will also be E flat, since C major is the relative major of A minor!<\/p>\n In summary: The blues scale<\/strong> = minor pentatonic + the blue note (diminished fifth)<\/p>\n Example: Blues in F<\/p>\n F minor pentatonic = F – A flat – B flat – C – E flat<\/p>\n (We can already use this scale to improvise on the structure of the blues in F. See the example in the video!)<\/p>\n blue note = B<\/p>\n Blues scale = F – A flat – B flat – B natural – DO – E flat<\/p>\n At the bottom of this page, you can receive the score by email with all the pentatonic and blues scales in all keys!<\/p>\n Here is the first video of the series where you can listen to all this and understand better:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\u00a0<\/h3>\n
Blues scales and blue notes: a bit of history<\/h3>\n
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What is the blues scale?<\/h3>\n