Improvising With The Blues
We’re back to talking about scales to use for improvising. Here’s the sample phrase we’ve been improvising over:
||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||
In previous chapters we improvised with the C major pentatonic and then the G major pentatonic. See the previous posts for details.
Now we’re going to use yet another scale to play over this phrase in C major, with the intention of hearing some Blues. Here’s the pattern we’re going to use:
|-------------------3-6----| |-----------------4--------| |-------------3-5----------| |---------3-5--------------| |-----3-6------------------| |-3-6----------------------|
Play this pattern just shown over a tape recording or midi file of the C major progression.
How did it sound? We can get it to sound even better by highlighting those bluesey dissonances like this: start out playing the G major pentatonic (described in the Scales To Use For Soloing Part II) over the progression, and then after a few seconds play the Eb major pattern just given.
This pattern is the Eb major or C minor pentatonic. Yes, it has two names. It’s not a true blues scale, but it conveys the feeling of the blues. And that feeling comes from just two notes within the Eb major: Eb and Bb. Playing those two over chords in the C major scales produces the sweet, “incorrect” intervals we call the Blues.
We now have three different scales to play over the C major progression. Are you ready for yet another? We’ll dig in next issue.
Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow
This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - September 15, 2005 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.
