Theory Question: Which blues scale over which key?

[wrench45us]

"Finally, try using this C blues scale with the blues progression in Eb...."

when you look at that, it's not all that different from what's being proposed already, since Cminor and Eb share the same notes

my last piece was kind of trip hop, but basically uses this Eb Cminor 'ambiguity' and it wanders keys a bit, but the basic mode of notes that got played by 'lead' instruments was c, d, eflat, f, gflat, g, bflat -- I'm not sure what mode that actually is since i'm not exactly trained, but I will say an A or A flat in 'lead' voice sounded really off, even when there may have been an Aflat chord, the C or Eflat was in the lead. The Gflat can pretty much be heard as the flattened 3rd of the Eflat

anyway, for those with interest
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInf ... ID=4384317

[egbert]

If you want to get into the esoteric stuff there are method books on improvising on pentatonics. You can for example take the full set of 12 pentatonic majors [1,2,3 5,6] and try them against any harmony - you can rank them from inside to outside. Some great players have explored this in great depth. So C pentatonic major will sound very consonant over Cma 6, Ami7, etc but very dissonant/outside over C#ma6.

The "blue" notes are actually not strictly speaking on the 12 tone scale - the blue third is often said to be in the space between the minor and major thirds and the blue fifth is not necessarily the diminished fifth either. Instruments that can bend into the microtones - strings and horns, synth and the voice are perfect for this, piano players often make do with crushing the two notes (eg Eb and E in the key of C) as an approximation.

[mistertoast]

In case anyone is intersted, most of Skip James' songs are picked in open Dm (DAFDAD) tuning.

I didn't mean this discussion to be about the blues, though. Tons of rock and pop songs are written with the melody being in the blues scale (or "one of" the blues scales).

[soulata]

Easy...

Let's say you're playing over C7:
- Most often you'd play C blues scale (C, Eb, F, Gb, G, Bb)
- A blues scale works ok, especially the E and Eb notes which are your minor and major 3rd in C7
- Eb and F# blues scales would work as well, if you know how to use them


@Hink, I wouldn't say that the blues scale is minor pentatonic + dim. 5th (although I see your point). In my classes minor pentatonic means C, D, Eb, G, A...or even C, D, Eb, G, Ab. not to say you're wrong or I'm right or anything, it's a different system of thinking, nah, categorising.

k

[Hink]

In case anyone is intersted, most of Skip James' songs are picked in open Dm (DAFDAD) tuning.

I didn't mean this discussion to be about the blues, though. Tons of rock and pop songs are written with the melody being in the blues scale (or "one of" the blues scales).

not to be nit picky...but yah mixed it up it's DADFAD...

[mistertoast]

>>not to be nit picky...but yah mixed it up it's DADFAD...Wink

Did I? My bad. I was going from string 1. I'm not a guitar player.

1=D 2=A 3=F 4=D 5=A 6=D

[Hink]

Easy...

Let's say you're playing over C7:
- Most often you'd play C blues scale (C, Eb, F, Gb, G, Bb)
- A blues scale works ok, especially the E and Eb notes which are your minor and major 3rd in C7
- Eb and F# blues scales would work as well, if you know how to use them


@Hink, I wouldn't say that the blues scale is minor pentatonic + dim. 5th (although I see your point). In my classes minor pentatonic means C, D, Eb, G, A...or even C, D, Eb, G, Ab. not to say you're wrong or I'm right or anything, it's a different system of thinking, nah, categorising.

k

Well a minor pentatonic is 1 (root), b3, 4, 5, b7 the scale popularly called the blues scale is 1, b3, 4, b5, 5 b7, which is just what I said and an easy way to remember it...I'm speaking in intervals and a formula that works across an octave no matter what key....I'm not sure what key you thinking about, I might be wrong but neither you mention is either a major or minor pentatonic

[Hink]

>>not to be nit picky...but yah mixed it up it's DADFAD...Wink

Did I? My bad. I was going from string 1. I'm not a guitar player.

1=D 2=A 3=F 4=D 5=A 6=D

You're going high to low and I'm going low to high....I should of realized that before...now try that tuning but put the low A to a G...it's pretty sweet...

[Hink]

I swear I just found this now...I googled define minor pentatonic scale the 4th one down gave this def...check out the last thing said...like I say I swear I found this after, but it's how I learned to remember it.

In music, a pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes per octave. Pentatonic scales are very common, and found all over the world: in the tuning of the Ethiopian krar and the Indonesian gamelan, in the melodies of African-American spirituals and of French composer Claude Debussy.

One of the most common pentatonic scales, sometimes called a major pentatonic scale, can be constructed in many ways. A simple construction takes five consecutive pitches from the circle of fifths; starting on C, these are C, G, D, A, and E. Transposing the pitches to fit into one octave rearranges the pitches into the major pentatonic scale: C, D, E, G, A:

Another construction, derived from Western European classical music, begins with a major scale and omits the fourth and the seventh scale degrees: a C major scale is {C, D, E, F, G, A, B}, so omitting the F and B again results in the sequence {C, D, E, G, A}. The major pentatonic scale can also be seen as all the pitches that are not present in the major scale: in C major, the remaining pitches are G flat, A flat, B flat, D flat, and E flat, the notes in the G flat major pentatonic scale. These notes are also the black keys on the piano keyboard.



A minor version of the pentatonic scale is obtained by using the same notes as in the major pentatonic scale, but starting one step lower to obtain the tonic note; an A minor pentatonic scale is A, C, D, E, G:

Only certain divisions of the octave, 12 and 20 included, allow uniqueness, coherence, and transpositional simplicity, and that only the diatonic and pentatonic subsets of the 12 tone chromatic set follow these constraints (Balzano, 1980, 1982).

The pentatonic blues scale is the minor pentatonic with a lowered fifth

here's the link

http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/pentatonic_scale

[mistertoast]

As far as the microtonal aspect of the blues scale goes, the whole area from the 4th to the 5th is open. That's everything between F and G in C blues (not just the F# or Gb).

Other common microtonal ranges are from flat to natural 3rd (above the Eb), and from 6 to flat 7 (below the Bb).

I've heard these come from the singing ranges of African music, as translated approximately to the western scale.

[jplanet]

While "Just try it and see what you like" is the eventual path to take, a more helpful and methodical approach would be to:

- First play the minor blues scale based on the root key of the piece (even if the secondary chords are not in the scale). Become familiar with the mood and pharases this inspires you to create.
- Then play the major blues scale, so if your piece is in C, use the A minor blues pattern, but focus on C as your melodic root.

From there, they key is to find what notes you end up naturally resolving melodies with (if it is other than the obvious root). So, if you find yourself constantly resting on G, then experiment with playing a G blues scale over it.

Essentially you have five "modes" to play with, each will lend a different mood, or compell you to play different melodies.

The above steps are, for me, a process which happened over a long span of time...I started out knowing nothing except for the most basic approach, then I went through a phase where everything was major blues, then I had fun for a while changing the root during solos...You may not have the luxury of time in a piece you need to record this week, but eventually this is how you will form your own blues vocabulary...

[Hink]

As far as the microtonal aspect of the blues scale goes, the whole area from the 4th to the 5th is open. That's everything between F and G in C blues (not just the F# or Gb).

Other common microtonal ranges are from flat to natural 3rd (above the Eb), and from 6 to flat 7 (below the Bb).

I've heard these come from the singing ranges of African music, as translated approximately to the western scale.

exactly, and in the key of C the other three are C (root), Bb (b7), and Eb (b3)

it occurs too me that maybe I shuld explain I.m using the small "b" in every case not as a note but as a flat...

[mistertoast]

Thanks for the discussion. The conversation was better than I had hoped for. jplanet, I'll try that. Seems like there's really 12 choices, rather than five. Maybe seven of them are approximately usueless, though. I'll try for myself and see.

Seems like a good way to get out of rut and cliche. I think I read once that Zappa didn't admire anyone who had not developed their own system of harmony. That's off the top of my head, though. He might have said something else not quite like that. Seems like a lot to ask to me.

[rp314]

Seems like there's really 12 choices, rather than five.

Well, if you want to learn the theory by checking out what others have done (not that you can't discover things by yourself, of course ) you can always take a tune by any of the traditional blues folks that has been notated, or you can learn off a record, and see how they primarily used the pentatonic scale against the standard chord progressions.

Then, find a book with transcriptions of Charlie Parker, Art Tatum or any of the great jazz performers, playing blues and see what they did with all the notes in between. And, yes, they did often use them as embellishments (which the traditional folks sometimes also did with the "bending" of notes) but jazz artists did really go beyond that.

The fact that the blues went through interesting metamorphoses over time is part of the fun of it, if you ask me.

[soulata]

Easy...

Let's say you're playing over C7:
- Most often you'd play C blues scale (C, Eb, F, Gb, G, Bb)
- A blues scale works ok, especially the E and Eb notes which are your minor and major 3rd in C7
- Eb and F# blues scales would work as well, if you know how to use them


@Hink, I wouldn't say that the blues scale is minor pentatonic + dim. 5th (although I see your point). In my classes minor pentatonic means C, D, Eb, G, A...or even C, D, Eb, G, Ab. not to say you're wrong or I'm right or anything, it's a different system of thinking, nah, categorising.

k

Well a minor pentatonic is 1 (root), b3, 4, 5, b7 the scale popularly called the blues scale is 1, b3, 4, b5, 5 b7, which is just what I said and an easy way to remember it...I'm speaking in intervals and a formula that works across an octave no matter what key....I'm not sure what key you thinking about, I might be wrong but neither you mention is either a major or minor pentatonic

I'm just saying that C, Eb, F, G, Bb is one way of describing minor pentatonic, but (theoretically) that's only Eb major pentatonic played from the parallel minor (aka C).

The "real" C minor pentatonic would be C, D, Eb, G, A. I don't expect we'll agree, though it's just another way of looking at things.

now back to blues