Minor Blues Scale vs Major Blues Scale

[kofblz]

For bluegrassers, the major blues scale is simply the Lester Flatt G run. lol

[Jazzpunk]

I think "Maj and min blues scales" are good terms. they clarify more than confuse. I also have no objection to the term "bebop" scale! Certainly did me no harm...

+1

[coyote-1]

If you listen to Lester Young, Charlie Christian and B.B. King, it's the so-called major blues scale that's most prominent. The common B.B-style intro, a rising figure (in C) - Eb, E, G, A, C - is one obvious example. Albert King was one of the few guys to favour the minor blues scale and his influence on rock and blues/rock players like Stevie Ray Vaughan has left us with a skewed view as to its overall importance. Incidentally, a useful feature of the major blues scale is that it includes the major 6th (rather than b7) that defines the 6th/13th of the I chord, the major 3rd of the IV chord and the 9th of the V chord. "Texas Tenors" such as Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb and Buddy Tate would play rhythmic figures around that scale step alone for whole choruses!

Hi, first time poster here... 'Rock' blues, with its ubiquitous I IV V7, gets tedious after awhile - in part, because it doesn't lend itself to much more than the minor blues. Whereas 'jazz' blues makes room for virtually any substitution or progression you care to toss in, and therefore opens itself up to major-ish playing while still comfortably ensconsing minor-ish runs.

[gggomez]

My analysis of Grant Green is in its infancy but I think I am seeing a pattern of:

- I chord plays Minor Blues
- IV chord the I chords Minor Blues but the minor 3rd swapped out for the major 3rd of I

So in the first 6 bars he plays - sad, happy, sad sad, happy happy

He also seems to progress to using the minor pentatonic up a tone as his story progresses, say in bar 13 or 15 might play C Minor pentatonic over Bb for example.

[edh]

I was shown this particular pattern when I started playing jazz. The pattern was a major scale with a b7 added.
example: C D E F G A Bb B C. Is there a name for this scale. IIRC my teacher called it a scale of some type.

[docbop]

I thought there was only one blues scale, what is called by some as the minor blues scale. When did the major blues scale come into being? It feels more like an arpeggio to me - a 6th chord with a couple of chromatic notes thrown it.

Seems like a lot of vague terminology gets thrown around when discussing the blues.

Don't forget the early Swinging guys like Lester Young and Charlie Christian and their Brues scale 1, 2, b3, 5, 6 they liked the 9 and 6 a lot. . You'll hear smooth players use it too.

[kofblz]

Don't forget the early Swinging guys like Lester Young and Charlie Christian and their Brues scale 1, 2, b3, 5, 6 they liked the 9 and 6 a lot. . You'll hear smooth players use it too.

Isn't that the major blues scale? 1,2,b3,3,5,6

Here's that 3 fret thing again. G major blues is also an E minor blues scale, G major's relative minor.

[docbop]

Isn't that the major blues scale? 1,2,b3,3,5,6

Here's that 3 fret thing again. G major blues is also am E minor blues scale.

No 3rd just the 5 notes. It's another color use more Swing less Gut-Bucket.

[christianm77]

To me, the major blues scale is the blues scale in the relative minor of the major key. So, we have:

C minor blues
C Eb F F# G Bb

C major blues = A minor blues
A C D Eb E G A

So, this is a scale with the major and minor thirds together. Bear in mind the run C D Eb E is very common in jazz lines.

Melodically, an example of a melody that uses this scale exclusively is the horn break in Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder. I also here Lester etc using a lot. The major blues is a pretty handy scale for many applications, and you can get through a surprising number of chord progressions by swapping major and minor blues.

[nado64]

Could you define your terms?

I've heard of this:

C Major Pentatonic: C D E G A
A Minor Pentatonic: A C D E G
A Blues Scale: A C D Eb E G
C "Country" Scale: C D Eb E G A

Perhaps your major blues is my country

C mixolydian Pentatonic : C D E G Bb
McCoy Tyner uses often this scale to create voicings on the V7.

[nado64]

My analysis of Grant Green is in its infancy but I think I am seeing a pattern of:

- I chord plays Minor Blues
- IV chord the I chords Minor Blues but the minor 3rd swapped out for the major 3rd of I

So in the first 6 bars he plays - sad, happy, sad sad, happy happy

He also seems to progress to using the minor pentatonic up a tone as his story progresses, say in bar 13 or 15 might play C Minor pentatonic over Bb for example.

Another form is :
On I7, the "I major scale" can be played.
On IV7 and V7, the "I minor scale" can be played.

[kofblz]

Another form is :
On I7, the "I major scale" can be played.
On IV7 and V7, the "I minor scale" can be played.

For IV7 chord returning to the I7 chord I like:

(IV7) IV major blues scale into I minor blues scale into

(I7) I major blues scale

[JonR]

C mixolydian Pentatonic : C D E G B

You mean C D E G Bb...
A C9 arpeggio, essentially.

[JonR]

My analysis of Grant Green is in its infancy but I think I am seeing a pattern of:

- I chord plays Minor Blues
- IV chord the I chords Minor Blues but the minor 3rd swapped out for the major 3rd of I

Interesting, do you have an example? (link with timings ideally)

He also seems to progress to using the minor pentatonic up a tone as his story progresses, say in bar 13 or 15 might play C Minor pentatonic over Bb for example.

A Bb13sus sound.

[nado64]

You mean C D E G Bb...
A C9 arpeggio, essentially.

oops ! I edited my post.

[MikeShaw]

Jon - I find your comments very encouraging.

I play flute and I am an adult learner - so struggling to catch up. I'm at the point where I can play fairly well and sight read, but have been struggling with improvising for years (even with Jamey Aebersold). Reading pop music and playing it from the sheet music - no problem.

I've been working on learning standards, and practicing bluesey stuff I like lately, and finally (accidentally) I just started jamming along with some guitar blues jam tracks on YouTube. Wow it was a breakthrough.

It's exactly like you said. All the stuff I've been reading, and struggling with - major and minor pentatonic, memorizing all the scale modes, and so on was nice info, but not practical. Yes, the blues scales are nice to refer back to, and understand so it will help me play better, but listening and transcribing and imitating other soloists is what's helping me most to fly on my own over a random blues track (or song!) in a fairly familiar key. Your comments underline this.

Of course I'll keep practicing scales and intonation and phrasing and working those screechy high notes towards pleasantness. I still have a lot to learn, but part of my practice now is jamming over blues tracks, and this is very helpful. I have to quote what you said which resonates with me: "It's why beginners often face an uphill struggle: they learn the minor pent patterns, and then wonder why their soloing sounds dull and generic - they get "stuck in a rut"; they have to work their way back up to the licks and riffs (and bends and chord tone references etc) of actual blues. But if they started from the beginning trying to copy the licks in actual blues recordings, they wouldn't have that problem."

Yes - I'm internalizing licks and improvisational ideas now (without rote memorizing), by LISTENING, and that's more helpful.

Thanks again!
Mike

I'm not saying we don't need any names, and I fully agree that, in both speech and writing, we need words to discuss and learn about music. We have to call the sounds something... and we need agreed and consistent terminology in order to do that sensibly.

My beef is with terms that lead off down unnecessarily complicated paths. I think a lot of experienced musicians - as well as those (like myself!) who actually enjoy theory for its own sake - quite like all the potential ramifications thrown up by apparently simple musical entities. Theoretical concepts can spread like weeds... before long we have a jungle.

When it comes to concepts like "modes", then we need to get out the machete...
They clarify to some extent, in that they delineate groups of notes, simple structures. They produce the appearance of clarity, a sensation of understanding.
But as soon as you listen to blues you find the boundaries blurred. Not only do blues players move around between one scale and the other, they move around (bending, sliding etc) between the scale(s) and the chord tones.
No original blues artist learned by learning scales; they learned by copying licks and chord shapes.
Of course the licks imply certain scales; it's not hard to analyse blues and reduce the commonest note choices to a minor pentatonic scale. But that's the point that's often forgotten: it's a reductive process, because our intellect naturally wants to simplify - to spot patterns - in order to understand.
It's why beginners often face an uphill struggle: they learn the minor pent patterns, and then wonder why their soloing sounds dull and generic - they get "stuck in a rut"; they have to work their way back up to the licks and riffs (and bends and chord tone references etc) of actual blues. But if they started from the beginning trying to copy the licks in actual blues recordings, they wouldn't have that problem. (They'd still need to develop technique, of course, and plenty of listening experience; but we all need that anyway.)
Me neither.
But neither did it do any good, other than giving me a nice comfortable sense that I understood something. The bebop scale concept makes perfect sense. When I read about it I thought "oh yeah, of course!" I hadn't transcribed any bebop solos at all at that point, but I trusted the writers that the concept explained much of them. (I also trusted Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book because he was a good writer and had obviously listened to way more jazz than I'd have time for in the rest of my life.)
But when I actually look at (and listen to) bebop solos, I don't see much evidence of bebop scales.
(The more I looked at Levine's transcribed solo phrases, the more I saw other ways of interpreting them than his. As evidence for any one theory they were far from conclusive.)
I don't regard reducing bebop solos to scale choices to be a very useful process. What I see in that kind of improvisation (and again this may just be about my own chosen perspective) is arpeggios and chromatic approaches. Yes, on one level, there are diatonic-scales-with-chromatic-passing-notes being used - but I'm looking at context all the time (the next level up) and seeing how a particular scale run or chromatic choice aligns with the chord(s) of the moment. That's how it makes sense - that seems (to me) to be the clear thought process the player is employing. Not "I'm going to play bebop dominant here" but "I'm going to play around/through this arpeggio and enclose a chord tone here".

I do think a foundational knowledge of major and minor scales is fundamental - I'm not saying one can understand chords or keys without it. But it's the study of key theory (tonality, chord structure and function) - which all the bebop players knew well - that's the solution to being able to solo in that music. The scales are only the start.

And one can actually approach scales via chords. One can learn arpeggios of G, C and D triads, and one is automatically playing the "G major scale" in a meaningful way; more useful (and musical) than just playing G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G up and down. It's a small step from there to the idea of chromatic approach: preceding chord tones with half-steps below. And then you're sounding "jazzy" right away.

[rintincop]

It seems to me that what the best blues players do is link and blend the two blues scales.
Happy "major blues scales" and the sad "minor blues scale" . Tip: avoid the happy note (major 3rd of the key) when on the !V chord as it clashes with the 7th of the chord.

[lawson-stone]

Yes, that's it. Never heard of the "country scale" either. Guitar books 30 years ago didn't have this scale. When did arrive and why, and is it really a "scale"?

How does a particular scale become accepted as legitimate? The history of musical nomenclature seems like an interesting subject. I'm sure there's a book about it somewhere.

It's just a major pentatonic scale with the flatted 3rd along with the natural 3rd. It gives a bluesy, almost hokey, vibe to a major scale and is popular in major-chord based country songs.

In C, you can either think of it as a C Major Pentatonic with the flatted 3rd, or you can think of playing the traditional blues scale based on the relative minor, i.e. A blues scale, which will be the same notes.