The Blues Scale
Continuing on with the study of blue notes, this lesson introduces the Blues Scale. This scale contains all three of the blue notes: b3, b5 and b7. The fingering shown here is only one option, the fingering will change depending on the musical context.
It is worth comparing the notes of the Blues scale with those of the major scale. Here are the notes of both scales.
Notice that the Blues scale contains both the flat 5 and the natural 5. It does not contain the degrees 2 or 6. Altogether the Blues scale contains six different notes, whereas the major scale contains seven different notes. The major scale used by itself does not sound very bluesy. However, in Blues, Funk, Rock and Jazz, melodies often contain notes from both of these scales. Listen carefully as you play the next example to hear the difference between them.
