The first position e shape its because its the most comfortable shape to play in. The notes to the right in one form, will be the same as. While the majority of pentatonic melodies in this box are expressed on the highest 4strings, this lick demonstrates how you can open up the lower end of the box position. The pentatonic scale is a 5 note scale that is widely used in rock, blues, country, and other genres. We can add the flat 5, b5, or blue note to the pentatonic scale, making it a sixnote scale called the blues scale. If you dont keep a practice log you want to start one for sure. The difference is just a matter of whether you resolve to b b or to g when using the scale. It is one of the most commonly used scales in rock music, with a timeless bluesy sound that is favored in every genre from country to metal. For free music learning resources and video instruction, please visit. E pentatonic blues scale free pentatonic blues scales. Scale diagrams can also be labeled with either letters or scale degrees. Each scale is illustrated in more than one fretboard position, giving you.
Below is a download link for the pentatonic scale pdf. Though it takes you longer to use this scale in your solos, the payoff is well worth it. This is the scale you see in the guitar scale chart on this page. The last exercise is coming out of playing the minor pentatonic scale as chords. In this lesson youll learn the one scale that is responsible for about 95% of all the blues licks you hear the minor pentatonic and minor blues scale. Blues scales blues is an irresistible tonality for a guitar player. This article and interactive web app help you learn all of the pentatonic scale diagrams. This pdf contains the diagrams for all the major and minor pentatonic scales in all keys for guitar in standard tuning. Were going to look at the shape and learn where the root notes are on the fretboard. To help your understanding of these sequences above, you can see the tab of a number of these sequences of the a major scale at the top of this article. Learning the dominant pentatonic scale gives you a smooth transition between what you already know and the next step in your blues guitar soloing progress. Everyone loves to play the blues, but if you only know the minor pentatonic scale, your playingnot to mention your audiences attention spanmight suffer. Blues scales are built off the same notes found in the pentatonic scale with one added note.
Heres a nice middle register lick which can be used a quick flurry before going back to the bottom root note. How to play the minor and major blues scales with solo examples. E blues scale guitar lesson lick 1 blues rock soloing guitar. Adjust the start fret option to further highlight a finger pattern for playing the selected scale in a different position on the fretboard. It contains the sections chord, scale and arpeggio. There is quite a bit of music theory in this lesson that will help you understand how the blues actually works. Oct 21, 2016 chart of the major blues scale on the guitar neck. This article is going to be a collection of all the helpful scale diagrams found on the lessons and they will all be located here in one place to make them easier to find. Tabs, fingerings, box patterns, licks, pdf and more. The chromatic progression from the 5 th down to the minor 3 rd is a classic move. D pentatonic blues scale free pentatonic blues scales. How to play the blues scale for guitar six string acoustic.
All the scales featured on this page work over the standard 1 4 5 blues progressions, but ive made it clear when a scale can be used in a minor key, major key, or both. The e minor pentatonic scale how to play blues guitar. That b5, or blue note, adds a lot of tension and color to the scale. Acoustic blues guitar unleashed playing on the porch style blues griff hamlin. Blues scales are the most commonly used scales in most genres of music. Master the minor pentatonic scale using the whole fretboard. It is also useful to practice your scales and sequences over a backing. Thats great if you start out with soloing, in fact its better to stay with that for a while to explore all the possibilities and to really be able to improvise with that one shape. As it turns out, this scale is related to the previously mentioned major pentatonic. In this blues guitar lesson we are going to take a deeper look at how the blues scale is actually made. Lesson 8 the e minor blues scales dvd 3 in this lesson.
Click this link for to grab your free beginner pdf ebook with pentatonic blues scales, charts and diagrams. Mastering a simple blues guitar scales chart will help you learn how to speak the musical language of. Pentatonic scale shape exercises around the fretboard. From the c major scale, three pentatonic scales can be derived. Three essential blues scales every guitarist should know. The guitar scales chart book features all of the widelyused guitar scales pentatonic, blues, etc. You can get more diagrams in the tuning of your choice by using my interactive web app here. Guitar lovers manual chord, arpeggio and scale pdf with.
You can get more charts in with custom tunings using my interactive scale generator here. A pdf document for the harmony chart in this lesson can be found here. Welcome to the sixth video of the blues guitar quickstart series. Despite its name, the blues scale is not only used in blues music. This pdf contains the scale charts for the blues scale in all keys for guitar in standard tuning. Get better at blues guitar how to use the blues scale.
The blues players often ad an attitional passing note to the pentatonic scale which is technically known as a flattened 5th that means an extra note in between notes 3 and 4 of the pentatonic scale. Welcome to the scale boxes and diagrams articlepage. Now if you, for example, want to play the d blues scale, then you would use this same pattern but this time starting on the 5th fret a string. So e7 would be and e major blues, a7 would be a major blues etc. High graphic resolution enables printing of best quality large format printouts. Each chord within the progression will use a blues scale starting on its root. Pentatonic scales pdf and instructional video guitar. How are blues chords constructed from the scale music. The cool, swing, chicken picken, jump blues sound that this scale produces makes a solid addition to the repertoire of any modern guitarist. Which chords go along with pentatonic and blues scales. For major blues scales, a flattened note found on the third scale degree is added, and in minor blues scales a raised fourth scale degree is added. You can print out some or all of it, slap it in a 3ring binder, mark it up at will, and print clean replacement pages as needed. The blues scale the blues scale is very closely related to the minor pentatonic scale, and is used unsurprisingly in blues.
Show me chords that sound good with an e blues scale. All the notes in a dominant 7 chord can be found in a major blues scale, 1,3,5, and b7 in e. It is also often the first scale a new born guitar player practice on the guitar. If you are stuck in the pentatonic box then this is the way out of it. In this lesson, were going to shift our focus from rhythm blues guitar over to lead blues guitar by learning a shape for the blues scale. The fretboard is shown with the lowest pitch string at the bottom and the highest pitch string at the top unless youve tuned your instrument differently.
The blues scale is derived from the minor pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scales are a staple of modern rock, blues and pop music. Major blues scale guitar fretboard patterns chart, key of c blues. As always, commit the pattern to memory because we will be using the pentatonic scale, the blues scale, and the mixolydian mode in the next. Since it contains a flatted third and a natural fifth, the minor blues scale is, by definition a minor scale. This is a simple variation on the minor pentatonic from the previous lesson and. The red dots indicate a root note, the blue dots indicate a blues note and the black dots indicate a note in the scale. You can think of this as playing the scale on 3 strings at the same time. After the pentatonic minor scale and major scale, the blues scale is probably the most widelyused scale in guitar improvisation. Here to demonstrate three essential blues scales is tyler larson.
Blues minor blues scale guitar patterns chart, key of a. You should think of the following 5 scale forms as 5 pieces of a puzzle. These are the only scales you need to be the complete blues guitarist, tyler says. Chart of the a blues scale aka minor blues patterns. The pentatonic scale is use primarily used for soloing. The blues scale tones, intervals, blue notes blues guitar. Major and minor blues scales guitar tab and essential licks. C pentatonic works over those chords as well as am7, cmaj7. As well, major and minor blues scales are used in different ways in a lead guitar situation. There is also a major blues scale see modes of the minor blues scale below, and both are commonly used. Microsoft word majorminor blues scales boxes guitar.
Learn how to play the blues guitar scale, one of the important beginner scales. The first scale most guitar players learn is the minor pentatonic scale. It is the only difference between the blues scale and the minor pentatonic scale. Minor pentatonic and blues scales 3831 guitar lessons. They are usually the first scales beginner guitarists learn to play. Guitar lovers manual is a digital book with sound in pdf format for printing purposes. A minor pentatonicblues scale weeping willow guitar. A lot of guitar players use only one pentatonic position shape. I have also included the 5 box patterns you need to learn in order to memorize the blues scales in all.
The blues scale on the guitar fretboard fingering, forms, intervals. All of the root notes are e because this is the e pentatonic blues scale. The blues scale may be the most common scale used in rock and blues. Learn how to play up and down the neck with ease and break out of those box patterns. Below is the a blues scale and this shows an example of the blues scale starting on the e string. This helps you learn the sound of the scale in relation to the sort of chords it may be played over. Often new players are drawn to the instrument because of a desire to play the blues. Jguitars scale calculator will draw scale diagrams showing the fretboard with notes in the selected scale highlighted. The e minor pentatonic scale the e minor blues scale. Scales are presented as fretboard diagrams, as well as in notation and tab. Clicking on the graphics will start playback of the integrated sound. In this lesson we look at the blues scale or minor blues scale. The blues scale consists of six tones wich has the intervals.
Some people use arpeggios to outline the chords of the progression they are playing over, some like using the dominant pentatonic scale. The f pentatonic can be used over chords dm7, fmaj7 and g7sus chords that contain f. In fact, the above g minor pentatonic scale g b b c d f g contains exactly the same notes as the b b major pentatonic scale b b c d f g b b. Okay, theres a few others, but these are the three most important. These are mustknow scales especially for blues and rock so be sure to memorize.