Scales for jamming over Blues

Hi Dave

The scale in question - made up of the root, flat third, third, fifth, sixth, and flat seventh - doesn't have a name. Or at least not a name that I know of. If anyone does know the name, it will be Tom Serb, one of our most knowledgeable Guitar Noise Forum members.

I can tell you that it is derived from combining elements of both the major scale and the minor pentatonic. We have a lesson on that here at Guitar Noise that you can find at the following URL:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/lessons/turning-scales-into-solos-part-5/

This whole series, "Turning Scales Into Solos" may be of interest to you because it does address the "finding independence from guitar tab" question you have. Start with the first lesson and see if it might be of help to you.

Hope this answer turns out to be useful and I look forward to seeing you again around on the Forums.

Peace

Thanks for the reply and Toby answered too and said he was using the major scale and adding the pentatonic notes to spice it up so now I understand !
I am playing guitar a long time but really am on a mission now to learn to play the blues independent of tab. The reason-is that because I only play alone ( no jam mates etc)I find that after learning A piece from tab ( at the moment I have just learned Green Green Rocky Road by van Ronk) I forget it after a few weeks if I don't play it daily. I want to know enough to be able to " wing it" a bit and not depend on tab so much. I really think this is a big topic that I would love to see addressed here as I think most guitar players play alone and they must all find this as frustrating as me!
I am going to look at those lessons you spoke of and if anyone has any other hints for me it would be great!!
Thanks again

Glad to be of help.

I think that you'll find most of our lessons here, even our song lessons (which spell out songs in both notation and tablature) are written with the idea of you using the tab only as a starting point and then playing the song with your own flair. Many of the non-song lessons are tutorials on how to go about applying the knowledge of music you already have to come up with a musical style of your own.

It is an important topic and we'll see about writing more articles about it in the near future.

And welcome to Guitar Noise, by the way. Hope to see around here on the Forums.

Peace

Thanks for that.
I have been looking at a few forum sites to sit in on and I do believe I will stick to this one as its very good on all fronts.
I am in my 50s and have been playing guitar for years but am really determined now to make some progress on a few areas, they are
Fingerpicking ( I am learning different types of Travis picking and aiming to get the thumb independent so that i can keep a rock steady beat going on!)
I am also learning to play more blues with an emphasis on Freedom from Tab so thats what led me to this site.
Anyway, thanks for the welcome and 2 Qs before I go...
1 I cannot seem to find your podcast so is there a name to search under???
2 Do you know where I can get more of the acoustic type backing tracks that you used in the lesson on Turning Scales to Solos?? ( I suppose i could make my own too????)
Thanks again!!

That scale doesn't really have a name... there are a bunch of possible collections of notes that are generally just called "synthetic" scales (meaning they come from various approaches to music theory, rather than from common use).

I'm guessing that in the context of the book it's created to show the notes behind a particular riff, and I'd further guess that the riff is played over the I chord, rather than representing the notes of an entire solo. If you're in C major, the scale is C-Eb-E-G-A-Bb; over a C chord you've got all three chord tones, plus three others...

Eb is often used over a C chord in the blues, as a tension that resolves to the chord tone E. Try sliding from Eb to E over a C chord and you'll get a characteristically bluesy sound. A over a C chord gives you C6, a common "color chord" substitution, and Bb gives you a C7 chord - and in a blues progression, any chord can be played as a 7th, so it'll sound just fine.

But the scale doesn't work so well over the entire progression. Over the IV chord you're missing the root, and three notes (E, G and Bb) can cause some challenges. Over the V chord you've only got one chord tone in the scale. That's not a huge problem, since the V chord is the point of the most tension in the progression, but it would take some experience to put together good lines.

The traditional blues scale is 1-b3-4-b5-5-b7 (the b5 is almost always used as a passing tone). But you can always deviate from it, especially over particular chords - 2 and 6 are chord tones over IV; 2 and 7 are chord tones over V.

Told you Tom would know!

As to your questions:

1) I cannot seem to find your podcast so is there a name to search under???

At the top of every page, right under the Guitar Noise banner, is a link to the Podcast Page (it's between "Forums" and "Chords"). You can also go straight here:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/podcasts/

2 Do you know where I can get more of the acoustic type backing tracks that you used in the lesson on Turning Scales to Solos?? ( I suppose I could make my own too????)

I made the "backing tracks" myself, although calling them "backing tracks" is giving them way too much credit. All I did was record a specific chord progression on an acoustic guitar for a little over two minutes. Doesn't take all that much at all.

You can also Google "backing tracks for guitar" or "guitar jam tracks" and come up with a slew of them. Hope this helps.

Peace