I found this today and it crystallized much of what I've been thinking about the "blues scale" lately. It's from a piano forum, but I think it applies to all instruments:
Personally I think that whatever musicologist invented the concept of the blues scale did a misservice to all of us musicians that follow. Let me explain...
Blues players didn't invent the blues scale. They invented the blues. Someone came by years later and decided to codify the blues by inventing the concept of a blues scale. A scale which, by the way, does very little on its own to capture the essence of the blues.
Like Saiman, I wasn't really understanding what was going on, so I told my piano teacher that I was having trouble making sense of the blues scale.
He said something that turned out to lead to an epiphany for me. He said, "that's because it's not about playing the blues scale, it's about playing the blues."
That, of course, didn't make sense to me right away, so he gave me an assignment for the next week: learn 10 blues heads (melodies), hands together.
I had to scrounge together everything I knew to do that. The next week, I played the 10, and he said "that's great, now learn 10 more for next week."
That was a lot tougher. I had to start scouring fake books and recordings, but I did it. But something else happened. The epiphany. I started to understand.
There are great blues lines, blues "licks" if you will, that make up great blues melodies and solos. When Wynton Kelly is playing his terrific solo on "Freddie the Freeloader" (Miles Davis, "Kind of Blue"), he's not playing the blues scale. He's playing the blues. And it's great. But if someone went through and analyzed his melodic construction, they wouldn't find a lot of blues scale use.
There's an old adage: "when all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."
That's the kind of trap that I think the blues scale is. It traps the "thinker" into thinking that if they have a tool, the blues scale, then they can use it to play the blues. The true craftsman, though, is going to have a whole toolbox filled with tools, and will know how and when to use them.
As always, I suggest listening. If you want to play the blues, you have to listen to absorb the blues, to internalize it. Practicing the blues scale (especially monotonically up and down) is of limited use. From great recordings, you can hear great melodies, great solos, great licks. Some of those will stick in you. Some of them will speak so loudly to you that you'll just have to sit down at a piano and figure them out. Maybe you'll write down some of them (oh no! transcription!).
Ok fine, but when I listen to great blues songs, I do hear a lot of blues scale. A few years ago when Adam posted a YT about the blues scale, his advice was that you'd do yourself a big favour by sticking to that for a long time before breaking out. I took that advice to heart and I think it is good advice. However, I also think the above advice about listening to good blues is also just as important. Before I could play, I listened. Now I listen and play. I still mostly stick to the blues scale when playing blues though. ----------
Timeistight and Harpdude61 are both correct. Scales are not music, but they define the keys we are playing in and it's where we get our triplets and riffs. ---------- Noodles
Last Edited by on Jun 21, 2012 12:12 PM
"Isn't the blues scale just the minor penatonic with the flat 5 added. Let's all see how long we can play blues in 2nd and never bend the 4 draw."
Well...Delta blues is mostly minor pentatonic and the 5b actually doesn't work that well on a lot of that type of blues material.
There is a difference in how you INTONATE the 3b and the 7b playing blues scale as compared to playing straight minor pentatonic if you play an instrument that is capable of doing so.
A musician I work with once said "The blues is just a floating dominant 7th chord."
If you listen to Rice Miller (SBW2) he plays a lot of chord tones that are NOT blues scale notes.
There IS a difference between playing BLUES and playing the blues scale. And most harp players lean on 4D* just because they don't know WTF else to do.
You know, after i stopped being so blues scale oriented in my blues playing, i actually began to get more regular paying gigs. But maybe that's just a coincidence.
Last Edited by on Jun 21, 2012 12:43 PM
To me, the blues scale is a shortcut: take three blue notes, add the root note from each of the three main chords and now you can start playing the blues. Trouble is, people want to finish there; they think that's all you need. It isn't. The blues is a lot deeper than that.
I also think we harp players should spend a lot more time learning to spell and extend chords and a lot less time looking for the magic scale that'll fit with anything.
You know, the best musicians i know keep telling me that it's about CHORDS, not scales. I happen to know quite a bit about scales on the diatonic Richter tuned harp. I need to learn more about the available arpeggios. The available chords, as such, are too primitive to bother with.
But i have figured out some of the extension tones which are very cool for working the high end.
Last Edited by on Jun 21, 2012 1:24 PM
the blues scale is blues like a pile of boards is a fence.
a jazz guy once told me that there is only one scale and that it is the chromatic scale. i thought that was an interesting point. ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
The blues scale is a good place to start. Especially for slow blues. We have all seen harp players that can please the crowd by living on the 4 draw.
Since I've added overbends, no note is off limits while playing the blues in any position. I've found places to use the flat 2nd, major 3rd, major 7th etc..etc.. in the blues. Just like any genre, you will find places to flavor the music with all the notes.
Still, a beginner with hopes of playing some slow nasty blues should learn the blues scale. It does not seem as important on tunes like Sweet Home Chicago or the fast, major sounding blues.
It's really all about what level you are at in your playing. I agree with the blues scale as a foundation for anyone that plans on being pretty much a blues player.
"It's really all about what level you are at in your playing. I agree with the blues scale as a foundation for anyone that plans on being pretty much a blues player."
Well, whether you are a blues player or any other kind of player, why focus on learning just ONE scale? No matter what instrument a musician plays, if they only know ONE scale, that pretty much defines what level they are at: incompetent.
Has anyone tabbed out the available arpeggios?
Last Edited by on Jun 21, 2012 1:50 PM
This is something none of us should belabor too much; mastering the scales that contain the blue notes we seek for a solo is a desireable goal, but not as an end. Scales played as scales sound like scales, not jazz, blues or country or rock and roll or anything in particular; the player with the right ear selects the right notes to build a solo that is musically coherent, interesting, exciting. Knowing where the notes are in the scale makes for a more powerful performance. Talent and style have everything to do with it; they are the means with which you turn mechanical knowledge into music, genuine expression. ---------- Ted Burke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VPUDjK-ibQ&feature=relmfu www.ted-burke.com
Scales as a tool can be valuable. Like many things in music. Key Signatures for instance. Having an idea of the "safe" notes in a key is never a bad thing. Its knowing when to break out of those that is the trick. Knowing when to break away from the blues scale. Like anything though there is a long way from being able to play scales. And being able to make music.
In second position, the I7 chord is draw 2, draw, 3, draw 4, draw 5 blow 6, draw 7, draw 8, draw 9 and blow 9. The IV7 chord is blow 1, blow 2, blow 3, draw 3 half-step bend, blow 4, blow 5, blow 6, oveerblow 6, blow 7, blow 8, blow 9, blow 10 full-step bend and blow 10. The V7 chord is draw 1, draw 2 half-step bend draw 3 full-step bend, blow 4, draw 4, overblow 5, draw 6, blow 7, draw 8, blow 9 half-step bend, draw 10 and then you run out of harmonica (unless someone can bend the hole 10 overdraw up a semitone).
After learning which notes make up a scale, I start to focus on each scale degree.
After the tonic, or starting note, each successive note of the scale has a gravitational pull towards or away from the tonic, or "note at rest" as I like to think about it.
I try to sensitive myself to the push/pull of the different scale degrees - which are stronger, which are just suggestive of a movement towards or away from the tonic, which one creates emotional surprise if you move in a different direction than the gravity is pulling.
Eventually, I find that one note will start to suggest the next one. Whether I go with it or fight against it is up to how I feel in the moment.
This is how I approach an improvised solo.
In studying other's solos, I take all this into account and it seems to deepen my understanding of what makes their solo feel so effective to me.
Iceman's way of explaining things accords with my experience of the scale degrees.
The first illustrative example that went through my mind just now was the opening melodic sequence of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water," cross harp.
2d 3d* 4b.....2d 3d* 4d* 4b.............
Rhythmic placement helps determine the meaning of a scale degree. Because the first three notes are hit smack on the first three downbeats of a bar, they aim towards the 4b; they almost create it as a new key center...."We're packing up and moving to the subdominant now."
If you displaced the first three notes forward, you'd get the opening strain of Howlin' Wolf's "I Ain't Superstitious."
2d 3d* 4b 3D*.....2d 2d
That fourth note, the 3d*, is stressed and held for a moment, which is why I've notated it as 3D*, with a capital D, and why I've followed it with an ellipsis.........
Key thing here: notice the entirely different feeling you get from the note sequence 2d 3d* 4 in these two cases.
In each case, the melody begins with the first three notes of the blues scale, and it's extremely important not just to know those notes, but to get the intonation on that second note, the blue third, just right.
That's why I tell students: learn the blues scale!
But "learning" the blues scale doesn't just mean learning how to play each note with proper intonation and in one specific sequence. It means, among other things, learning how each note sounds--how it pushes, pulls, subtly changes its meaning, its function--when you mess with the placement of each successive note relative to the bar line and when you mess with duration, stress, all those other things.
The problem with talking about scales as a way of making melodies is that you sometimes forget to talk about rhythm, duration, and stress.
The moment you cross-pollinate a scale with those three other variables--that's when you're starting to think musically. And that's why the exercise of learning ten blues heads is great: It helps transmit knowledge of those three other variables--if you understand that the knowledge is there to be gained.
And, BTW, if you pause and think about the two melodic examples I've used here, you'll realize that the rock-blues example is entirely unsyncopated--it doesn't swing, it's industrial--whereas the other example DOES swing and IS notably syncopated, especially in that pair of stutter-step 2d's at the end. "Smoke on the Water" is brutal, inexorable, heavy: the foundational heavy metal song, in fact. "I Ain't Superstitious" is something else. The "blues scale" shows up in both songs, but the inner logic of each song is determined by a lot more than that one thing they share.
Then again: counterstatement. On a deeper level, the final two notes of the Deep Purple head--which I haven't notated here, a 3d* and 2d--ARE, in fact, displaced ahead of their respective downbeats. The final two notes of the Wolf head are......well, the next-to-last note is smack on the beat, while the last note sneaks in ahead of its downbeat.
Point is, rock-blues owes a debt to blues--not just the blues scale, but certain ways of creating melodic meaning by displacing notes from downbeats to upbeats.
You can play these two respective heads perfectly well without being able to analyze them in the way I've analyzed them here. But you can't play them well unless you've EMBODIED the stuff I'm talking about here, so that you feel it and know how to execute it. It's good to be able to drill down, seminar-fashion, and explore what makes melodies tick, verbalizing it all--but you certainly don't need to verbalize it all. I've never verbalized the inner logic of these two melodies before this post, right here. But I did the micro-learning that let me feel what made each melody work a long time ago,
Last Edited by on Jun 22, 2012 8:00 AM
Progressively, learning the scales (merely good note choices), the gravity inherent in all the scale degrees, the next logical step is placement of notes within the measure.
For example, what I call "The Dismount" (second half of my "Mutha of all Blues Licks" concept) is -in harmonica tab- 4 hole inhale, 4 hole inhale bend, 3 hole inhale, 2 hole inhale, usually played quickly and found at the end of a lot of ascending blues ideas on harmonica.
Take this Dismount and, tapping your foot 4 beats/bar, play it on the first beat. Listen and feel the effect.
Then, play it on the second beat. Listen and feel the effect.
Obviously, continue into the third and fourth beat, repeating the above.
Each placement creates a different feel or effect of this Dismount.
Of course, the more advanced students will want to find those places between the 4 beats to place this idea in order to feel the effects.
In a sense, this one little idea has expanded into 4 or more "licks" (I really don't like this word). ---------- The Iceman
"Well, whether you are a blues player or any other kind of player, why focus on learning just ONE scale? No matter what instrument a musician plays, if they only know ONE scale, that pretty much defines what level they are at: incompetent"
hvyj..my quote was.."The blues scale is a good place to start." I did not say to focus soley on it forever.
Many of us are happy being incompetent blues players. I would be happy if I never played another genre. I have a great time playing blues. I'm in a "blues" band. The blues is the only genre I "feel". Call me incompotent if you like but I am having the time of my life and the venues we play in keep inviting us back. Maybe we don't sound as incompetent as we really are.
I dare ro say that some of the greats...even some of those in Adam's lists can't play any scale.
@harpdude61: i did not say, nor did I mean to imply, that a musician who plays only blues is incompetent.
What i did say is that a musician who only can play (or work off of) one scale is incompetent. And IMHO this is so whether he is plays blues or plays any other style of music.
EXAMPLE: I started a thread a while ago about whether the Etta James tune "I'd Rather Go Blind" was actually a blues (I said it was not). Many disagreed and the only consensus was that a lot of people consider it to be a blues and it is in the repertoire of many blues bands. OK, say you are on a blues gig in a band with no keyboard and no horns and that tune gets called. In order to play it, or to mimic the keyboard and/or horn parts, a blues scale won't work. One needs to work off of a major pentatonic scale.
You certainly can vary note placement in relation to beats and fool with what notes can/should be placed where in relation to the meter like Adam describes. BUT A BLUES SCALE WON'T WORK on this tune.
I'd like to think a COMPETENT blues harmonica player should be able to handle "I'd Rather Go Blind." But ya can't pull it off trying to do it using the blues scale. And it is an unfortunate reality that a lot of harp players try to force fit blues scale licks over whatever material is being played. One size does not fit all, even if the player only plays blues.
Btw, the majority of the paying gigs i happen play are blues gigs and I have a good time doing them. But, FWIW, even on blues gigs I think my soloing would get pretty tiresome if I only used blues scale licks. But, YMMV.
Last Edited by on Jun 22, 2012 10:08 AM
I'd like to think a COMPETENT blues harmonica player should be able to handle "I'd Rather Go Blind." But ya can't pull it off trying to do it using the blues scale."
Well, if you can get through "I'd Rather Go Blind" using A major pentatonic, you get through it using the F# blues scale (aka the A major blues scale): it has all the same notes with one spicy addition. But in either case you're missing an important chord tone: the D natural in the B minor chord.
Last Edited by on Jun 22, 2012 11:41 AM
@timeistight: Well, the minor pentatonic scale and the major pentatonic scale are the same notes, and the nature of the scale just depends on what note you start on. That's why a D harp works for A in second position and F# in fifth position--same scale, different starting note. (The breath pattern for the major pentatonic in second is the same as the breath pattern for the minor pentatonic in fifth, but each starts on a different note.)
The "major blues scale" is just a major pentatonic scale with an added 3b. So, with all due respect, I think the distinction you are making is more semantic than substantive.
In any event, whatever you want to call the scale that does work, it is NOT the regular A blues scale (A,C,D,Eb,E,G) that starts on A.
Btw, even if one is working off of the A major pentatonic as a base (A,B,C,#,E,F#) there's no law that says you can't also throw in the 4th (D, which is an important chord tone) and I do when i play this tune. I do not stick strictly and exclusively to the major pentatonic scale--you need to use chord tones, too. And I guess that's sort of the point--certain scales are useful as a guide, but not as a template.
Last Edited by on Jun 22, 2012 4:03 PM
The fourth is a useful note in that song - for example the descending three note riff leading into the chord change is the third, second, root of the chord. i.e. C# B A (on the A before the change to Bm) D C# B (Bm before the change to A)
With all the talk about it it must be kind of important. If it helps it helps is It not a good foundation to build on .it is not all you need to learn but if it will help why not use it. Kuddz you got some good stuff there.
@timeistight: "play out of the chords and the scales take care of themselves."
The best musicians I know keep telling me the dame thing.
Thanks for the arpeggio notations. But i pretty much had I, IV and V in second position figured out. What about II, III and VI which are minor chords? I mean, "Sissy Strut" comes off the III, II is needed for "I'd Rather Go Blind" and all sorts of old rock tunes use the VI.
Then there are the arpeggios for the (mostly) minor chords in fourth and fifth position which are important for playing minor key material. I don't suppose you've worked out those?
Personally, since i play no other instruments, my facility with figuring out arpeggios is somewhat limited--I can do it, but I'm not facile with it.
Last Edited by on Jun 23, 2012 8:58 AM
@hvy: If you've practiced diatonic scales, then you alrady have all the notes you need for the Chords diatonic to those scales. You just have to skip every second note.
For example, the A major scale is A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A, so its I chord is A, C#, E, G#, its ii chord is B, D, F#, A, its iii chord is C#, E, G#, B, etc. Playing the arpeggios up and down the scale is a great way to get facility with them.
@timeistight: Well, it's not quite as simple as that since i don't practice scales using, for example, the 2, the 3 or the 3b as tonics in second position, and i don't OB. And dominant 7th scales are not diatonic unless you want to view them as mixolydian modes. Then, minor scales may or may not be diatonic, depending on the type of minor involved.
So, it's not like playing arpeggios on a piano or a chromatic harp. There's a little more intellectual gear changing involved.
@GamblersHand: Thank you. That is extremely helpful.
@GamblersHand: What about II in Fifth (root=F#=2D*)? A lot of minor tunes use the II.
My problem is I have to think out the notes in an F# minor chord. One of the effects of only playing harmonica and no other instrument is I never had to learn to spell out scales--I've kinda sorta been working at that, but I've been more lazy than diligent about it. If i'd get up in the morning, and spend 5 minutes or so writing out all 12 diatonic scales everyday for a week, i'd probably have them memorized by now.
The ii chord in a minor key is usually a half-diminished chord (aka m7b5). In E minor the ii chord is spelled F#, A, C, E (the second, fourth, sixth and tonic of the E minor scale). To play that on a C harp would be 2 draw half-step bend, 3 draw whole step bend, 4 blow and 5 blow (5 overblow, 6 draw, 7 blow and 8 blow in the middle octave).
If you're talking jazz melodic minor, then the ii chord is a minor 7 chord. Same notes except C# instead of C natural.
Well, since i don't OB. i can't play jazz melodic minor in 5th.
I can play dorian minor in 3rd or 5th, natural minor in 4th or 5th and harmonic minor in 4th. There's also a couple of minor tunes i do in 2d because of how the melody notes lay out. Can''t handle jazz melodic minor, though.
"The ii chord in a minor key is usually a half diminished chord"
I understand what you are saying, but, personally, this is the sort of specific chord structure info I don't have off the top of my head.
Last Edited by on Jun 23, 2012 1:13 PM
Yes there should be an F# half diminished chord. I left it out of the 2nd position list as if you were playing a song with this chord then you probably shouldn't be playing in 2nd position unless you're skilled at 5ob (and enjoy a challenge).
The half-diminished 7th seems quite rare - most pop/rock songs that require a major seventh bass note often go to the inversion of the V chord - the D/F# if playing in G. I'm sure that it's more common in jazz but personally I've found that I've only played a handful of songs that use a major 7th in the scale let alone the diminished 7th chord.
So the F# (II chord) should be in the 5th position list, and you could also have a VI chord in 4th position.
@Fingers - this sort of basic musical knowledge is very useful, even for blues gigs. At one dep gig we played Jimmy Witherspoon's Aint Nobody's Business, which has a tricky major Third chord to navigate - you don't have many options in second position (unless you overblow), so I couldn't easily bluff it and hope for the best.
Last Edited by on Jun 23, 2012 1:36 PM
@GamblersHand, ime not knocking musical knowledge mate after all knowledge is power! but i managed to play for 15 giging years with just learning by ear and borowing licks from the greats, i may have used some of these scales ect without even knowing it!! i found i could find the feel of a song by instinct and have played with bands i have not met until the live gig....exiting!! well works for me.
@GamblersHand: If i were on a gig and "Ain't Nobody's Business" got called, my instinct would be to use 12th position.
@Fingers: Well, if you've got a good enough ear, theory may not be as important. On the other hand, if you are working with professional musicians it sure is convenient to know enough theory to be able to understand what they are talking about.
Last Edited by on Jun 23, 2012 2:04 PM
@Fingers - and me too, 95% of the time. Mostly I play very simple blues-based music. I might attempt some soul-jazz, funk or rock but I generally stay in my comfort zone with 2nd, 3rd and a little 5th position playing. ...but some music knowledge has helped, with communicating with other musicians, songwriting, and handling the occasional difficult song with a little less trial and error. I've never studied music theory - that seems a little dull to focus on, but probably helps that I'm fairly analytical - a lot of theory is simply recognising patterns
Last Edited by on Jun 24, 2012 4:33 AM
@groyster1 It's useful for when the arrangement and chords used are more complex. Delta blues and Delta-inspired Chicago blues will most often just stick to the blues scale of the tonic, but when the music has more jazz influence then understanding the arpeggios and extended tones can help your playing
In these modern day`s music in america is talked about in scales, chords and other western communications.but when the Blues and all the related music being developed here by black slaves was starting ,most all of these folks couldn`t read or write.and before they used a chord they played modal tones.so it looks like Blues is a singing music language long before it was westernized.so me thinks that all these harp players that get lost in the books would do better learning how to sing the Blues on instrument and voice before they disect it... learn like all them great harp players ,assimilate,copy Sonny Terry,Sonny Boy W,Little Walter and any great harptone you hear.it`s not in a book it`s in the air and in your ears...
Last Edited by on Jun 24, 2012 4:34 AM
I'm an ear player. I'll always be an ear player. In that respect,music theory doesn't do squat for me.But when I'm with the band,just starting to learn a new tune,musical theory helps me get a leg up on what I need to do. It's the language a lot of musician speak. It's a ground floor on which I can build. Once that floor is built,I forget about theory and let my ear be my guide. That's what works for me. Everybody's different. Whatever works for you,is the right approach for you. Buddha could put that music theory to use in his playing in a way I'll never be able to do.
Last Edited by on Jun 24, 2012 8:26 AM
An analogy: Do you catch fish? Or do you have fancy gear and talk about catching fish? I kayak and catch a lot of fish, big fish. It's one of a few things I really do. Others are teaching, parenting and harp - things I love because they cannot be mastered. They all require listening, very careful and intentional listening. Really listening is difficult and as committed as I am to listening I screw it up a lot -so I wear a string on my finger that means STFU. I see it and it helps a lot, in fishing teaching parenting and harp.
Last Edited by on Jun 24, 2012 8:43 AM
