{"id":3136,"date":"2024-01-26T18:56:28","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/?p=3136"},"modified":"2024-01-26T18:56:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:56:31","slug":"guitar-soloing-the-problem-with-scales-part-4-major-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/guitar-soloing-the-problem-with-scales-part-4-major-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitar Soloing – The Problem With Scales Part 4 – Major Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\nPart 1<\/a>\n\n\n\nPart 2<\/a>\n\n\n\nPart 3<\/a>\n\n\n\nPart 4<\/span>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Scales and Major Blues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you regularly visit guitar forums and social media posts, information on scales to use over major blues chord progressions often ends up confusing and, quite frankly, is often wrong. That\u2019s not to say the subject isn\u2019t slightly complicated but that comes more from trying to relate things to traditional music theory – blues generally breaks a few of the so-called rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To really get to grips with this style of music you need to just learn and practise the style, learn licks, phrases, riffs etc, spend a lot of time working on string bending, expression, and listening to other blues guitarists to build ideas from. Practise until you have enough to piece things together in your own way. Other than the minor pentatonic and blues scale, if you think of things in terms of alternate scale patterns then it\u2019s bound to lead to frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s basically two ways to solo over major blues as far as scales go. One is to use the minor pentatonic \/ blues scale. It creates a minor \/ major clash but it\u2019s what we\u2019re used to hearing in this style and you can go a long way just using this scale. The other is to use the major or Mixolydian scale, but this is where things are mostly misunderstood. We\u2019ll get to this in a little while, but before we do, let\u2019s think about the chords before we move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most blues will be based on the I-IV-V chord progression. Like the minor blues, there are variations but we\u2019re not going to overcomplicate things here, there\u2019s no need. Some blues can get more involved, look at the chord progression in \u201cStormy Monday\u201d for instance (just look it up if you don\u2019t know it), you need to get to grips with the basic I-IV-V first. Remember, most of these old bluesers neither knew or cared about theory, they just built their repertoire by listening to others, trying to imitate them and messing around with what they learned from that. Don\u2019t try to over-theorise everything, if a song goes against the grain, then just learn the song and move on. You\u2019ll eventually find there\u2019s a lot of commonality between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, back to the chords. We have the I-IV-V, we\u2019re in the key of C major so the obvious choice of chords are C, F and G. We don\u2019t often strum the full chord – it sort of works but doesn\u2019t sound very bluesy, even in an up tempo blues they\u2019re a bit too clinical sounding. Because of this, most major blues rhythms will be based on partial chords, blues riffs, fifths and \/ or dominant chords. First let\u2019s look at the common blues riff, the one we all know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example 40<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The common blues riff<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Guitar<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Guitar<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"guitar<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"C<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"guitar<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"guitar<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"guitar<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"guitar<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Check it out here: Pentatonic Workshop at Soundslice<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s all for now folks. Maybe we\u2019ll tackle the dreaded modes in my next ramblings, comment below for questions.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\nPart 1<\/a>\n\n\n\nPart 2<\/a>\n\n\n\nPart 3<\/a>\n\n\n\nPart 4<\/span>\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scales and Major Blues If you regularly visit guitar forums and social media posts, information on scales to use over major blues chord progressions often ends up confusing and, quite frankly, is often wrong. That\u2019s not to say the subject isn\u2019t slightly complicated but that comes more from trying to relate things to traditional music … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3240,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions\/3240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitar-chords.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}