My brain is weird (also blues scales, etc.)

[dixonge]

So I'm taking music lessons to brush up on the basics, learn some theory and finally maybe figure out how to improvise a bit. Today I was introduced to the blues scale and it's kinda like magic! I was going through a descending exercise and suddenly it triggered something in my brain. I told my teacher that I thought I recognized that from somewhere. Five seconds later I had it - Supertramp, Bloody Well Right, Intro. He pulled it up on his phone and played it over a speaker. Basically the whole intro is one big Gm blues scale improv, but the final measure is just walking up and down the scale accompanied by woodwinds and brass. That's the part I recognized...

 

Here's the intro w/ a transcription:

 

 

[MAJUSCULE]

Congrats, that’s a big moment. Connecting the fingers to the ears is essential. Think you might end up recognizing it in a few more places.  

[dixonge]

8 hours ago, MAJUSCULE said:

Congrats, that’s a big moment. Connecting the fingers to the ears is essential. Think you might end up recognizing it in a few more places.  

I'm sure I will. Theory is a *big* hole in my music knowledge. I got pretty good at chord inversions and just sort of plateaued for a few decades...

[JamPro]

Want another big "aha" moment?  Play that scale in all keys (ok: I myself skip C# and F# because I cannot recall ever having been asked to play blues in C# or F#).  Three minutes per scale x 10 keys will take you about 30 minutes.  This exercise will POWER-BOOST your playing, and give you great confidence in blues and beyond-blues playing situations.

[CEB]

Just some random crazy thoughts.
 

Get those scales down cold. Even C# and Gb.  I played a Gb blues last night in rehearsal. Gb is more common in blues than many think. 
 

Take C blues scale and look at the number of common notes in F blues scale.  So start to solo through the I scale over the IV chord and notice the sound.  In a I-IV-V blues you often only just need the I and V scales. 
 

Then remember all the notes are in play. Scales are just suggestions. As long as you get the one right all other notes can be passing tones. 

[Outkaster]

Scales are a pain in my ass...but so essential.  I have been struggling a little with Bb minor lately. 

[Adam Burgess]

These “aha” moments always feel amazing. Opens up so much more stuff!

It’s tough practicing when you feel you’re on a plateau and not improving. Makes it all sweeter. Nice one 

[dixonge]

1 hour ago, JamPro said:

Want another big "aha" moment?  Play that scale in all keys (ok: I myself skip C# and F# because I cannot recall ever having been asked to play blues in C# or F#).  Three minutes per scale x 10 keys will take you about 30 minutes.  This exercise will POWER-BOOST your playing, and give you great confidence in blues and beyond-blues playing situations.

that is part of this week's homework...

[rickzjamm]

Any step forward big or small in your musical journey is awesome!!!

[JamPro]

1 hour ago, CEB said:

Get those scales down cold. Even C# and Gb.  I played a Gb blues last night in rehearsal. Gb is more common in blues than many think.

You must be playing with more advanced musicians than the ones that let me hang around 

 

I do my Major II-V-I and Minor ii-V-i in all keys, even C# and F#.  And yes I must admit that I notice that my handling of C# and F# is somewhat weaker because I am not doing my blues exercises in C# and F#.  Last night, I decided to do Tenor Madness as my blues exercise - play a walking bass underneath and the melody on top in all keys except C# and F#.  And I said to myself "Tenor Madness is a classic and I should probably do it in ALL keys".  So I tried it in C# and F# and yes it was more clumsy than when I play in the other keys, but it was indeed doable.  Point taken.

 

Dixonge: my suggestion - again to POWER-BOOST your skills - is to practice that blues scale in the context of a blues song that you then play in all keys.  Initially I would suggest you start out lite: s-l-o-w-l-y play a 12-bar blues using shell voicings in your LH (or when starting out, even just bump the chord root in quarter notes) while playing that blues scale with your RH.  Do it in all keys.  As you progress (and you WILL progress), you can add in boogie-woogie LH, or more variations on your RH scales (relative minor blues scale, Lydian scale, altered scales, etc.).  This is an exercise that is easy to start, challenges you more as you progress, and because it is a blues, is fun to play.

[MathOfInsects]

I feel the need to curmudgeon about the idea that playing music or an instrument can be “power boosted.” The one and only way to play better is to play more. You can be targeted or efficient in your practice so you can apply what you practice to what you play (and vice versa), and you can be canny about the way you listen to music so that listening itself becomes a form of practice. But otherwise the only magic pill is time.

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, JamPro said:

Want another big "aha" moment?  Play that scale in all keys (ok: I myself skip C# and F# because I cannot recall ever having been asked to play blues in C# or F#).  Three minutes per scale x 10 keys will take you about 30 minutes.  This exercise will POWER-BOOST your playing, and give you great confidence in blues and beyond-blues playing situations.

And yet another "Aha"!

Make the flatted third of the blues scale the tonic and now you have a pentatonic major scale, good for country, rock and "happy blues" tunes. 

Dual purpose, just by starting in a different place. 

Us guitarists have it easy compared to keyboardists regarding scales. On the guitar they are also "shapes" and you can simply move them up and down the neck. Chords are also shapes and can be moved easily. Once you know your basic scale and chord shapes you can just move them around and easily play in any key. 

To be honest, I don't know many guitarists who do that although it's right there in front of them every time they use a capo to change keys. 

[CEB]

3 hours ago, JamPro said:

You must be playing with more advanced musicians than the ones that let me hang around 

 

I do my Major II-V-I and Minor ii-V-i in all keys, even C# and F#.  And yes I must admit that I notice that my handling of C# and F# is somewhat weaker because I am not doing my blues exercises in C# and F#.  Last night, I decided to do Tenor Madness as my blues exercise - play a walking bass underneath and the melody on top in all keys except C# and F#.  And I said to myself "Tenor Madness is a classic and I should probably do it in ALL keys".  So I tried it in C# and F# and yes it was more clumsy than when I play in the other keys, but it was indeed doable.  Point taken.

 

Dixonge: my suggestion - again to POWER-BOOST your skills - is to practice that blues scale in the context of a blues song that you then play in all keys.  Initially I would suggest you start out lite: s-l-o-w-l-y play a 12-bar blues using shell voicings in your LH (or when starting out, even just bump the chord root in quarter notes) while playing that blues scale with your RH.  Do it in all keys.  As you progress (and you WILL progress), you can add in boogie-woogie LH, or more variations on your RH scales (relative minor blues scale, Lydian scale, altered scales, etc.).  This is an exercise that is easy to start, challenges you more as you progress, and because it is a blues, is fun to play.

 

i play with players but Gb is popular regardless for two reasons.  1 ) Strats tend to sound good tuned down a half step making G become Gb concert.   2) A lot of guitar riffs in Gb are based around 2nd frets to open pull offs or hammers.  Guitars like those open string licks. 
 

You need to play the piano until the piano plays you but … there are also a lot of guys who play a lot … for their entire lives and never get good. Knowledge is useful if you can use it. 

[MathOfInsects]

Yeah, I have to say that Gb is one of the more common keys. It's also a great blues key to play in; it fits nicely under the hand. 

The best key for how the blues scale "works" is F (on piano), though it doesn't get called a lot for some reason.

[MAJUSCULE]

Played Redneck Woman at a jam last night and it's in F#/Gb.  

[El Lobo]

1 hour ago, MaskOfInsects said:

The one and only way to play better is to play more.

I've said this for years. And the corollaries are: if you want to improvise better, improvise more. If you want to play standards better, play standards more. If you want to play over changes better, play over changes more. And so on ... 

[El Lobo]

1 hour ago, MaskOfInsects said:

The best key for how the blues scale "works" is F (on piano), though it doesn't get called a lot for some reason.

Guitarists don't like to play in F. But horn players do. 🎷🎵

[MathOfInsects]

41 minutes ago, MAJUSCULE said:

Played Redneck Woman at a jam last night and it's in F#/Gb.  

I played a "mostly country" gig last week and found a fair number of tunes in Gb. Redneck is a 12-bar in Gb, or sorta 12-bar. Another was that one that sounds like a country version of Blurred Lines. The Applebee's one. Also sidenote: holy cow does that song suck.
 

[KuruPrionz]

39 minutes ago, El Lobo said:

Guitarists don't like to play in F. But horn players do. 🎷🎵

"SOME" guitarists don't like to play in F. Many of us play in the key that works best for the singer. F is different than E if one is playing cowboy chords. Up the neck a few frets and F is not any more or less difficult than any other key. Proven science... 😊

[Adan]

The intro to Bloody Well Right vamps between Ab and Bb.  The gm blues scale works because those notes with the exception of G are all in the Bb7 blues scale, and G is a natural addition to any blues scale.  But the tonal center is Bb, not G.  The flatted 5 of Bb (E) doesn't really sound right to my ear in this jam, but throwing in the Ab7 blues scale riffs over the Ab chord seems to work.  Then of course it modulates to gm for the verse.

 

 

[El Lobo]

1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

"SOME" guitarists don't like to play in F. Many of us play in the key that works best for the singer. F is different than E if one is playing cowboy chords. Up the neck a few frets and F is not any more or less difficult than any other key. Proven science... 😊

Right. If there's a singer, I hope ALL of us play in the key that works best for the singer. And of course if the guitar is playing up the neck, F is a half step away from E or Gb(F#) so it's not any harder than those keys for guitarists. 

[GovernorSilver]

There are some very good guitarists who use a capo because open string notes sound different from fretted ones, even with a capo.

 

Lindsay most certainly knew what he was doing.  The capo wasn't just to fit into Stevie's range.

 

 

[Outkaster]

I play this with a friend in Bb

[RABid]

My biggest piano regret is not practicing my scales.

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, GovernorSilver said:

There are some very good guitarists who use a capo because open string notes sound different from fretted ones, even with a capo.

 

Lindsay most certainly knew what he was doing.  The capo wasn't just to fit into Stevie's range.

 

 

I agree completely and I do use a capo when the sound calls for it. 

Other times, my first finger is my capo. And other times (not in F) the open strings sound great even if I'm well up the fretboard. 

I don't use a capo when I'm playing one of my scalloped fretboards, too much re-tuning involved. 

There is not "right or wrong" way to play an instrument. If it sounds good, it is good. 

Jeff Healey didn't play guitar like anybody else I can think of, laying it in his lap and pummeling it with his fingers.

Some of his best riffs, he's "fingering" with his thumb on his left hand. Unique but it sounded great. 

[GovernorSilver]

Speaking of scale practicing, I like Open Studio's Jazz Scale for Beginners.   

 

Teaching only the major scale to beginners is something I see I lot in other educational materials.  This course starts you off with that too.

 

Where they start getting good is "marking the dominant" stuff - 5-note fragments of a scale and arpeggios the scale to practice going from the dominant chord to the I chord in major key.  At first the scale is just the major scale, but other scales gradually get worked in.

 

Then they give you something for marking the dominant in a minor key too! - another area left out of too many other lessons for beginners.

 

The course made me realize that what I thought were "chromatic" ideas were actually diminished lines artfully applied - most likely to dominant to tonic transitions.

 

I found a lot of free gold at the link below for blues ideas .   The Soundslice features make it so easy to zero in on a phrase, slow it down and loop it.  Some passages are hard for me to play on keys with only one hand - unlike most of you I am not a keyboard virtuoso - but it's been fun.

 

https://www.openstudiojazz.com/the-easy-way?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=the easy way&utm_medium=referral

[Al Quinn]

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been practicing a blues called Sandu by Clifford Brown in all keys. I’ve played different textures starting with simple and then progressing in complexity but not moving on to the next one until I had the current one down.
 

My process has been:

- RH melody alone

- melody in both hands two octaves apart

- half note bass notes in LH alone

- RH melody and LH half note bass notes

- RH melody and LH half note bass notes with the left side of the RH playing some off beat soft staccato chord fragments. This creates a third hand kind of sound. This is how far I got as of today. It needs more work so I’ll stick with this texture until I’ve got it. I’ve had to learn some new fingerings alone the way which is pretty cool. The next texture is probably a walking LH quarter note bass line.

 

Doing this has been very humbling. While I can play it easily in some keys I really struggle in others. Not all melodies can be played so many times without getting tired sounding but Sandu holds up well for me. Clifford Brown was a melody ninja! 🎵

 

[CEB]

Capos?

 

The greatest guitarists on the planet use  capos because you can not play real Andalusian  guitar literature without a capo (cejilla).  The major issue is the next to last chord in the standard Andalusian cadence is unplayable unless you start every piece with A.  

[bjosko]

I found this page after a search for minor blues scale :

https://pulse.berklee.edu/?id=4&lesson=73

 

I have been a lazy anti theoretical player since the mid 70’s and do not read scores, more than one for one note, where I have to count the lines.

I prefer to play by ear, the music just came to me - I think some time to easily. I have tried sometimes to dig more into the theoretical stuff, but it feels like reading a manual for a washing machine ….

But I often feel that I am playing the same lick again I have played several times, just in another key, so I think it might be time to practice some of those scales. Funny enough, I do often play the minor blues scale without knowing it was what I was playing, but it might be useful to learn and mix it with some of the other scales.

[El Lobo]

7 hours ago, bjosko said:

I found this page after a search for minor blues scale :

https://pulse.berklee.edu/?id=4&lesson=73

Thanks for that link. It's cool. It really helps to visualize what each of the scale/mode names are referring to. Although every time the subject of scales or modes comes up, I always say I use the chromatic scale in my playing. It's true. When I click on the various scales/modes in this link, I don't see the scale that I use, which is almost all the notes except probably the #1 (b2). This includes all the passing tones. I also rarely play the maj7 note if I'm playing the b7. But if I'm playing the maj7, I may play the b7 on the way down to the 6 and 5.