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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.
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10-07-2013 09:14 AM
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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
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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.
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I played bluegrass before jazz, and I stills think in Major. If I'm playing a blues in A, I'm probably thinking C major. It's the same thing, one is the relative major while the other is a relative minor. There really is just one "Blues Scale", the only difference in major or minor are the chords that you are playing it over.
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Is it really a scale? What's the definition of a scale? A sequence of ascending notes? Yup, it's a scale.
Originally Posted by kofblz
is it legitimate? It's momma was the major pentatonic and [MOD: stop right there!]
I think we can all agree that the major pentatonic is used in country soloing. And adding a b3 is a common decoration. Maybe there wasn't a common name for it, but it sure sounds familiar.
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While C Major pentatonic and A minor pentatonic have the same note set, they have a different tonic or home note. This means while the fingering is the same, you will play different things or at least resolve differently. Originally Posted by Strickland
This is like G Mixolydian and C Ionian/major. Same fingering, different sound over the chords.
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Some thoughts on blues flavored lines and the "blues scale":
To me there is the minor pentatonic. Within that one is the major pentatonic, but I always convert to minor for simplicity when thinking pentatonic.
Then there is the blues scale which is really only a minor pentatonic with the b5 added.
But I usually don't think of the blues scale when I want to play lines with a blues flavor, but rather blues intervals:
When I want to create a blues sound I can add the b3, b5 and/or the b7 of the tonal center. This is in relation to the tonic, despite the chords changing. The same way as you employ the blues scale in rock, not adhering to each chord but relating to the tonal center.
So the blues sound is superimposed on top of the changes.
The minor blues scale used on, say a standard 12 bar blues gives me the b3, b5 and b7 blue notes.
But the blues scale implies that all these three tensions are often played together.
Therefore I personally like to think more in terms of blues intervals. Considering those three colors separate, not part of a scale, but available colors I can add to my lines that don't have the "baggage" of a scale. This doesn't facilitate them always having to be played in the same lines, such as the blues scale could.
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Gotcha. A Pentatonic with a b3. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
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Yes, "major blues scale" is just a label for that common practice of using major pent with a passing b3. The added b3 obviously gives it a blues flavour, but it remains clearly a "major" sound, compared with the darker "minor" sound of the other blues scale.
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don't know that monk would have called it that, but he used it (straight no chaser, blue monk).
first print reference of the term that i've seen is 2004 (hal leonard essential elements by michael sweeney and mike steinel).
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What you need is Greenblatt's "The blues scales", a great book about the use of these two scales and its manipulation.
There is a sentence in the book I've made mine, it says something like this: If you don't use a certain kind of blues in your jazz, there is not jazz at all.Last edited by sjl; 10-08-2013 at 07:59 AM.
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I thought all blues players from straight blues to jazz use both forms (maj and min) of the blues scale. I'm a bit surprised it even gets brought up...
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I wondered about that as well. I always just think of blues in its simplest form as being a mixture of major and minor pentatonics, the "blues" scale (adding the b5) and mixolydian. Originally Posted by princeplanet
But then your spice rack also has diminished flavors, whole tone flavors, lydian dominant flavors, tritone flavors and plain old chromatic flavors. I got a kick out of Metheny saying that with reference to this tune, once into the soloing starting at 2:00 - 4:15 that this is "just a minor blues". But really that's what it is.
Last edited by Flyin' Brian; 10-08-2013 at 10:56 AM.
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I'd say those were based on chromatic lines between chord tones, rather than scales as such. Originally Posted by randalljazz
IOW, although the opening 5-note lick of SNC uses 5 out of 6 notes from the "major blues" scale, that's coincidence IMO. The next phrase doesn't; it adds 2 other notes (that one might say came from the minor pent). And just as one might be concluding that he's mixing major and minor pent, the lick running into the V chord is wholly chromatic - almost an entire octave of the chromatic scale, with a brief pause on the M3 of the V chord before running up to its 7th.
So IMO he's not thinking scales at all, he's thinking chromatic shifts (as he often did).
IMO, this term "major blues scale" is another after-the-event reduction of a fairly common practice, applying a thought process that the original artists would probably not recognise. The so-called "bebop scales" are another example of that. Taking a set of pitches out of context and trying to come up with a scale name for them.
Why? That's what I want to know. I've been playing this kind of stuff for decades, and I don't recall ever thinking that knowing scale names helped me in any way, either to understand or to play either blues or jazz. YMMV, naturally
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Why? Because names, like all mnemonics, are useful if not absolutely necessary if one is to pass on knowledge in a written form. You use verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, adverbs etc without needing to know what they are. But when trying to teach language by books, it is helpful to have descriptions of different classes of words. Music is the same. Originally Posted by JonR
Why? That's what I want to know. I've been playing this kind of stuff for decades, and I don't recall ever thinking that knowing scale names helped me in any way, either to understand or to play either blues or jazz. YMMV, naturally.
Seems some of us forget what it was like to not know they stuff we now do.....
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Sure. My question is about which (and how many) labels we actually need. It obviously helps if we can see stuff written down (words and notation alike). But there comes a point when the words are self-defeating, or when analysis goes deeper than it has to. Take something apart into too many pieces, and it becomes hard to see how it all goes back together. Originally Posted by princeplanet
Of course, I learned most of what I know way back before I can remember learning it. (As a teacher I confront the issue all the time; I had to deconstruct my knowledge back when I began teaching.)
What I do know is that I was improvising on (admittedly simple) folk, blues and jazz tunes before I knew any scale patterns. I did know a little basic major scale theory, but mainly I just knew chord shapes and melodies - I know I didn't think much about "key" and issues like diatonic/chromatic; I just worked with the songs I knew and didn't see any need to ask theoretical questions. From a mix of trial and error and listening to records, I could tell that solos were melodic and rhythmic phrases based on chord shapes and chord tones - often incorporating chromatic approaches - and it was an easy enough principle to implement.
It was many years later that I started taking jazz lessons and encountered the amazing ins and outs of chord-scale theory. For a while it half bemused and half impressed me, until I realised that sticking with my old habits produced solos at least as good as those religiously following CST, and usually better. CST was fascinating in its own right, as an intellectual body of knowledge, but I found it no use in improvisation, and it seemed to miss the point.
I can understand how it arises from modal/impressionist jazz - where it's very useful - and I can also understand how non-chord instruments such as horns might find it useful (if they're not used to practising arpeggios).
But it's also struck me how many people find it complicated and baffling, like a whole set of rules they need to learn before they even begin: learning scales and modes and then trying to learn how to "apply" them. It makes improvisation seemed hard, and really it isn't - although admittedly there are some basics you need to grasp before it becomes easy "my" way.
I also recognise there's an element of personal taste and preference here. Some people actually like the sound of scale-based solos, all those streams of 8th notes. That's fine, it just doesn't appeal to me. I began with chords, learned the fretboard via chords, and like the sound of lines that link chord tones melodically (including chromatic embellishment). (When I played modal jazz myself, I enjoyed scale-based noodling to some extent, but I was always trying to impose chord-like structures and tensions within it.)
Hence the "YMMV" above.Last edited by JonR; 10-09-2013 at 09:54 AM.
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Well, if you are unusually gifted, or are lucky to be shown everything you need to know (not just Jazz), then maybe you don't need names, although even there it can be helpful- eg~ "play that thing-a-majig that sounds like three blind mice that keeps going down"... or, "play a descending whole tone scale"....
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...
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and, as you well know, practice precedes theory... Originally Posted by JonR
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I just wish it wasn't called a scale. It's more of a gesture: "add certain passing tones so that chord tones land on the beat" -- "See how I bebopped that line to land on the third?" Originally Posted by princeplanet
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...
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I know, but still, the name serves to distinguish it from the "straight" scale. I get the objection though, who has ever played a "bebop" scale in a solo that cant be viewed as "scale + passing tone". But it has a useful place in today's pedagogy, it trains you to hear the sound of landing downbeats on chord tones. Sure there are plenty of ways to do this, but having one way to start the ball rolling is helpful for newcomers. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
Also, there's the Barry Harris method of connecting chords. That is a harmonized "bebop" scale... Can't argue there....
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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. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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. Originally Posted by princeplanet
I also have no objection to the term "bebop" scale! Certainly did me no harm...
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.
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Talking about names, not methodology!
But yeah, I agree with you mostly about this...
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Yes! - important distinction. Originally Posted by princeplanet
Maybe the problem (as I perceive it anyway) is too much emphasis on terminology, not enough on methodology.
Too much what, not enough how (let alone why or when...).
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JonR -- where were you when I was first dove into bebop? Great post.
Last edited by Agate; 10-10-2013 at 10:53 AM. Reason: bebep?
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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!
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