em and g major

Just for fun, I Googled "traditional blues scale" and "major blues scale" and read the top 10 results for each.

Under "traditional blues scale", every site shows the regular old blues scale, 1-b3-4-b5-5-b7

Under "major blues scale" I found four different scales:

- the regular blues scale
- the blues scale with an added major third (1-b3-3-4-b5-5-b7)
- the major pentatonic scale
- the major pentatonic scale with the added passing tone (the one we're talking about here as the 'major' blues scale)

So there's clearly no consensus. One of the the two sites showing the 'major' blues scale from this thread also notes - while talking about the 'regular' blues scale: The so-called blues scale was not used widely before the 60s, when it became popular with guitarists and film composers

Ah, the accuracy of the internet. That quote overlooks a few people who were playing the blues before the 1960s - you might have heard of some of them: Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Bukka White, Leadbelly, Son House.... :)

That's a hoot! :lol: