Scales, Scales, Scales.....

Well, the blues scale is the easiest one after the pentatonic - its the pentatonic plus one note... so you might start there.

Longer term, learn the major scales - all of them. Be able to spell them in each key, and learn where the notes are on the fretboard. After that, you can approach any other scale as a formula based on the major scale - learn the formula, and you know what notes to change.

But I'm not sure about your diagrams. For the A blues scale, you're showing both C and C#; the blues scale in A doesn't have the C# - you can use it (heck, you can use any note at practically any time over any chord progression once you get your ears in shape!), but the blues scale is usually understood to be 1-b3-4-b5-5-b7, or E | 5 | - | - | 8 |
B | 5 | - | - | 8 |
G | 5 | - | 7 | 8 |
D | 5 | - | 7 | - |
A | 5 | 6 | 7 | - |
E | 5 | - | - | 8 |

That blues scale is titled "Blues Scale (with major 3rd and flatted 5th)" in two books. Your book, not surprisingly, has what you listed in your post. If yours is more widely used, I will certainly use that without hestitation.

That leaves me with two now. Minor Pentatonic and The Blues Scale. It also looks like you suggested the major scales " - all of them". By this do you mean keys or playing an A MMajor chord like I listed earlier, but in a different position(s)?

One other question that's still vert much part of this discussion. In your book, you mentioned something called a Lead Scale in passing. I either glossed over it (which can happen with all the stuff I am on) or it wasn't given any space in the book. Can you discuss or point me to somewhere that does to you satisfaction? Thanks in advance. :)

oh, and thanks for responding as always. 8)

Well Roy I'm probably about where you are at in terms of soloing and scales etc and here's what I see from my perspective.

When you say you have the A min pent you show just the first positon? Do you know all of the others fluently? I know I don't and that's what I've been working on and like you, I can make some improv solo sound good to a I-IV-V progression with the minor pent there aren't any really bad notes to hit. But in reality we should be able to make interesting solo's with just that one position. Trying to learn all the different scales at once to me will end up being a waste of time because you'll never get any of the down sufficiently. There's so much more to good solo's than just playing notes in a scale. Some of the things I have worked on are using double stops while soloing and lately we have worked on three string dominant 7th chords first on the top three strings in every pent position and now we are on the middle three strings doing the same thing. This is all based on the pent scale positions and I haven't even thought about the other scales at this point because there is so much here I have to work on.

What Noteboat mentioned in his post is the key to good soloing and that is get those ears in shape.

I guess the gist of this is to suggest you stick with one scale and learn all the postions in every key before you go off trying to learn five others.

Ok, now I'm even more confused :)

It's true you can use the natural 3rd - it's done all the time, and in some pretty classic blues riffs - but I I've always thought of it as a chord-dependent tone... one that's outside the scale, but fits well with the I or IV chords, because it's the third of I and the fifth of IV.

But since the V is a chord with tension, you can use pretty much any note over a V chord, so it might make sense to define the blues scale as 1-b3-3-4-b5-5-b7. I've just never seen it defined that way.

Checking Wikipedia, they give three different "blues scales". But none of those match the version you've shown...

1. The hexatonic blues scale, 1-b3-4-b5-5-b7 - that's the one I learned in college, and it's supported by several references, from both guitar and non-guitar books. I also checked Dolmetsch (a good theory reference website), and they list only this version.

2. The heptatonic blues scale, 1-2-b3-4-b5-6-b7. The footnotes supporting this are all from articles in pretty well respected music journals. One, from the title, appears to be from an analysis of music of the 1880s, which most musicologists would consider pre-blues; I think it's a bit of a reach to define a genre's scales by precursor music. And the natural fifth is a chord tone of I and V, and it's the ninth of IV, so it fits just fine as a chord tone or color tone, no matter what chord you're over - it's one of the "safest" notes you can use, and it's used all the time in blues of all genres. So I'm thinking any blues scale that leaves it out isn't based on the blues I've heard. But if I get a chance, I'm gonna read those journal articles.

3. The nine-note blues scale, 1-2-b3-3-4-5-6-b7-7. This one cites a theory text that I haven't read. And while I recall other books referencing the 3rd and 7th being played a bit out of tune (off the top of my head, the Harvard Dictionary of Music does this - but I've moved most of my theory library to the school, so I'll check later on today)... I just don't recall ever seeing a definition that doesn't flat the fifth - as both of the other Wikipedia examples do.

But I'm thinking back to my college days, when I'd spend Monday nights at the Checkerboard Lounge blues jams. I'd play with all these old blues men, and I'd ask a lot of questions about what they were doing, especially about the chord substitutions they were using. They'd throw in ninths, sixths, #5s and so on into their chords, and I wanted to understand the how and why behind what they were doing. Without exception, they'd say "that's the blue note". And when I'd press for a better understanding, they'd laugh and tell me that I hadn't paid my dues yet.

It took me a good ten years to really understand what they meant. Music theory is full of qualifiers to rules - stuff like "the bottom number of a time signature is the note that gets one beat", or "don't use parallel fifths"... and then you get into compound time or Debussey and you start needing "except for" revisions to the rule. These "except for" parts are outside the simple rules that will serve for most music, but well inside what the composer hears - and the composer is ALWAYS right. The 'rules' about blues scales and blues harmony are also a lot simpler than what's possible, and if it's possible, it's done. But defining the 'except for' rules in theory terms is a more trouble than it's worth... if you've spent enough time to really tease out an understanding of the "rule" and its exceptions, you've spent enough time 'paying your dues' to hear what to play and when, and it will always be right.

What the old blues guys were really telling me was: it's easier to play it than say it. Just listen harder, and you'll get it in time.

cnev, you are correct in your assumption. I did only learn the one minor pent scale pattern. Not only do I not know all te others fluently, I do not know them at all. I realized this a couple months back. I tried to backwards engineer sections of the Allman Brother's Band's, "In Memory of Elizibeth Reed". (I did the same excercise on Led Zep's "Since I've Been Loving you".) No, I certainly cannot play it right now. I did want to know basically what scale Bett's and Duane were using and IIRC, there was a variation of a minor pent scale that semi-matched. Yes, I know the song has many genre influences. Royfusious say, "One must learn what it is that do not know before one can learn what one doesn't know." (after your head is found after spinning off, it makes sense) That got me on this part time research. And that brings me to noteboat.....

Tom, I am confused as well. That's why I posted this. Music is not binary. Hence, some things go well and some things do not, and that can change and be opposites depending on song or task. :? :?

OK, so I have two possible directions. Learn another set of minor pent scales before going on, or learning some different, basic scales. I know the first position minor pent. The Blues pent as Tom described looks like a fine and dandy second scale to focus on. I will become fluent at that before I go to a third. I will follow that pattern until I feel I have a sufficient arsenal in my tool bag.

And I will also finally learn the fret board so that I'm not hitting numbers anymore. I don't play numbers, I play notes.....poorly. :mrgreen:

Here's what I am currently thinking:
#1: Minor pent currently known.
#2: Blues scale as submitted by Tom.
#3: Another Minor Pent discussed by cnev and yet TBD. (Any suggestions?)
#4: Major Scale (and will need a suggested pattern to start with)
#5: Major Pent in the first position

And at some point during all of this, I need to re-read the last third of your book, again, and re-read the articles oin the GN site, again, to determine what scales and in what key must I play when playing with another's chord progression.

In closing, I know for sure, without a doubt that I am much, much better at any solo when I follow my scale than I am to remember TAB from a book.

Roy here's where I think I'd make a change to your thinking.this would be my 1-5

#1 - Minor pent 1st position
#2 - Minor pent - 2nd Position
#3 - Minor pent 3rd position
#4 - minor pent 4th position
#5 - Minor pent 5th position

To me there is no use going on to other scales if you can't make these work and maybe starting with the minor pent is not necessarily the best or only way to start but whatever scale you start with to me this is what you need to work on not one position of ten different scales.

Obviously all the notes are the same where ever you move the pattern but you (me too) should be able to come up with a killer solo with any one of those positions if you can't do that with one what would be the point in learning the other's they'd be useless for all intents.

I would stick with whatever scale you want to start with and ONLY concentrate on that for several months this isn't somethign your going to learn well in a few weeks as you need to train the ears.

But starting with the minor pent or blues is the easiest to solo over some I-IV_V progressions and sound halfway decent. The complexity increases dramatically when you start use teh major scale and other progressions it's not near as easy to sound good.

If it helps any, you can use the minor pentatonic when soloing over the relative major. The relative major is the major chord starting on the 3rd note of your minor chord so, if you're playing an Aminor pentatonic, you can use that over C major as well - it contains the chord tones, C, E, and G from your C major chord, and the A minor pentatonic has the B tone which would be the maj7th of C (so it works over a Cmaj7 too). Pat Martino uses minor scales and pentatonics frequently over major chord progressions, if you want to listen to what a jazzer can do with them. There are also other applications of your minor pentatonic that will let you play jazzy lines, but I'd learn the 5 positions cnev detailed.

I'd go with the minor pentatonics, the major pentatonic, the blues scale, and the major and natural minor scales for now. The pentatonics are just the major and minor scales, but missing a few notes, and the minor and major scales will use the same patterns on the fretboard (the Amin patterns will be the same as the C major patterns, as C is the relative major of Amin).

Just to recap (for clarity)...
If you're using a Dminor pent, you can use it over Fmaj (F being the min3rd in Dm)
Eminor pent over G maj (G being the min3rd in Emin)
Gmin pent over Bbmajor (Bb being the min3rd of Gmin)
and so on

Hope this helps some, Roy.

Thanks Scrybe,

I'm confused, but perhaps getting closer.Please look at this statement and tell me how useless my thought process is:

If I am playing a song in the key of F, and more precisely, I do a full barre on the first fret do achieve this chord. The fingering is 1-3-3-2-1-1 or F-C-F-A-C-F. All those notes are irrelavent. It's in the key of F. In order to find out which minor pent scale(s) I can use, I can look for the root note and say "I am going to play an F minor pent scale" and be totally cool. I can also say that I can find the minor pent scale that has the F note, in this case a D minor pentatonic, and it will work?

Does it matter the chord progression, or can I only play Dm pent over the song while the F chord is being played?

Thanks Scrybe,

I'm confused, but perhaps getting closer.Please look at this statement and tell me how useless my thought process is:

If I am playing a song in the key of F, and more precisely, I do a full barre on the first fret do achieve this chord. The fingering is 1-3-3-2-1-1 or F-C-F-A-C-F. All those notes are irrelavent. It's in the key of F. In order to find out which minor pent scale(s) I can use, I can look for the root note and say "I am going to play an F minor pent scale" and be totally cool. I can also say that I can find the minor pent scale that has the F note, in this case a D minor pentatonic, and it will work?

Does it matter the chord progression, or can I only play Dm pent over the song while the F chord is being played?

Almost....

you can use the F min pent in an F blues, where the chords are F7, Bb7, and C7. It'll work there.

but over an F major chord with no 7th, it'll probably sound off.

what you can use over an F major chord is the min pentatonic based off the relative minor of F, and the relative minor of F is Dmin. So, you can use a Dmin pent over F major.

The Fminor pent works over Fmin, or over F7. It also works over the relative major of F, which is Ab major.

So if I use an F-B-C progression (I-IV-V), the F minor pent will not work?

So if I use an F-B-C progression (I-IV-V), the F minor pent will not work?

I-IV-V would be F-Bb-C

I'm going to fence-squat and say......it might. It should work if you use F7-Bb7-C7, but I'm thinking F-Bb-C with no 7ths wouldn't work. That said, I'm just trying to imagine the sounds off the top of my head, and it's been a while since I've tried it. Try it and let your ears judge.

I've shown this before somewhere...... I practice in the Keys of A, D & E.
Here it be.....

Made it in AutoCAD......

Thanks for the charts, tinsmith.
So if I use an F-B-C progression (I-IV-V), the F minor pent will not work?
I-IV-V would be F-Bb-C

Now that, the Bb, I do not understand. Back to my books. Why the 1/2 step for the 4th chord?

I think on that note, I'm going to bed. I will re-approach all this tomorrow. :x

Maybe someone could tell me why playing 12-bar blues in G requires a flatted Iv? So, it's I-IVb-V or F-Bb-C. I see it now all over the place, but do not know why. If I was to say 12 bar in C, it would be I-IV-V or C-F-G.