Module 6: The bluesLesson 3intermediate⏱ 75 min, then 15 min a day for two weeks

Soloing on the blues: blues scale and Mixolydian

Solo on the F jazz blues with the minor pentatonic and blues scale, the major blues scale and the Mixolydian mode of each chord, and learn how the blue notes rub against the chords.

Why two different approaches

There are two honest ways to solo on a blues, and the great players use both in the same chorus. The first is the blues approach: one scale (the minor pentatonic with its added blue note) played over the whole form, regardless of the chord of the moment. Its notes rub against the chords, and that friction is the sound of the blues. The second is the chord approach: a scale for each chord (Mixolydian for every dominant seventh), so that the line spells out the changes the way a bebop line does. The first is easy to start and hard to make interesting; the second is harder to start and sounds "correct" but can sound like an exercise. This lesson gives you both, in one position each, and then shows how to mix them.

You need the F jazz blues from lesson 1 in your ears, and you should be able to find any note on the neck quickly (fretboard note names).

The minor pentatonic and the blues scale

The minor pentatonic is five notes: the root, the flat 3rd, the 4th, the 5th and the flat 7th. The blues scale adds one more, the flat 5th, between the 4th and the 5th. That added note is the one that makes a line sound like the blues rather than like a minor scale with notes missing. Here are both, with the two other scales from this lesson, spelled from F:

The engine spells the flat 5th of F as Cb, which is correct: it is the lowered 5th degree. On the guitar it is the same fret as B, and the tab below shows it that way. Both names refer to one pitch.

The first position to learn sits at the 1st fret, where the root is under your first finger on the 6th string. It is the "box" every blues guitarist knows, and it stays within four frets so that one finger per fret works throughout.

\tempo 100
.
\ts 4 4
:8 1.6 4.6 1.5 2.5 3.5 1.4 3.4 1.3 | 3.3 4.3 1.2 4.2 1.1 4.1.4{d} | :8 4.1 1.1 4.2 1.2 4.3 3.3 1.3 3.4 | 1.4 3.5 2.5 1.5 4.6 1.6.4{d} |

Blue notes against the chord

Why does one scale work over three different chords? Compare the F blues scale with the chords of the blues (the tables below show every note). Over F7 the scale supplies the root, 5th and 7th as chord tones, while its flat 3rd sits a half step below the chord's major 3rd and its flat 5th sits a half step above the 4th and below the 5th. Those two notes, the blue notes, are not in the chord: they are tensions that resolve, the flat 3rd up to the 3rd and the flat 5th either up to the 5th or down to the 4th. Over Bb7 the picture changes: the flat 3rd of F is the 7th of Bb7 (a chord tone), so the same note that was tense over the I chord is at rest over the IV chord. That shift of meaning, note by note, is what you are learning to hear.

The exercise below plays the two blue notes against F7 and resolves each one. Everything apart from the blue notes is a chord tone of F7, so the check passes only because the lesson explicitly allows the flat 3rd and the flat 5th. Play it slowly and listen to the tension and release.

\tempo 90
.
\ts 4 4
:4 1.3{ch "F7"} 2.3 :8 1.2 4.2 :4 3.4 | :8 4.3 1.2 4.2 1.2 :4 2.3 r | :8 1.3 2.3 1.2 4.2 1.1 4.2 :4 1.2 | :4 3.4 :2 2.3 :4 r |

The major blues scale

The minor pentatonic over a dominant chord is dark. The major blues scale is its bright cousin: the major pentatonic (root, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th) with the flat 3rd added between the 2nd and the 3rd. It gives you the chord's major 3rd and 6th (the 13th), with the flat 3rd as a passing blue note into the 3rd. Over the I chord of a blues it sounds like Wes Montgomery and Grant Green; over the IV chord it does not work (its 3rd and 6th become the major 7th and the 3rd of the IV, and the major 7th is wrong on a dominant chord), so when the chord changes to IV, change scale or go back to the minor side.

\tempo 100
.
\ts 4 4
:8 1.6 3.6 4.6 5.6 3.5 5.5 3.4 5.4 | 1.3 2.3 5.3 3.2 1.1 3.1 4.1 5.1 | 5.1 4.1 3.1 1.1 3.2 5.3 2.3 1.3 | 5.4 3.4 5.5 3.5 5.6 4.6 3.6 1.6 |

A useful fact: the F major blues scale and the D blues scale contain the same six notes (compare the two tables: the D blues scale is the F major blues scale starting on its 6th). So you already know the shape; you only have to hear it from a different root.

Starting your line on the 3rd or the 6th rather than the root is the quickest way to make the major blues sound come out.

Mixolydian: one scale per chord

The chord approach uses the Mixolydian mode for each dominant chord: the major scale with a flat 7th, which contains all four chord tones of the seventh chord plus the 9th, 11th and 13th. Over the F blues that means F Mixolydian on F7, Bb Mixolydian on Bb7 and C Mixolydian on C7, and the scale changes when the chord changes. The three scales differ by one note each (F to Bb Mixolydian changes the 3rd of F down a half step; F to C Mixolydian changes the 7th of F up a half step), so on the neck they are three nearly identical shapes.

Learn all three in one position, around frets 5–8, so that your hand does not move when the chord does. The first exercise is F Mixolydian; the second is C Mixolydian in the same frets. Build Bb Mixolydian yourself from the map above: it is the F shape with every A lowered to Ab.

\tempo 110
.
\ts 4 4
:8 8.5 5.4 7.4 8.4 5.3 7.3 8.3 6.2 | 8.2 5.1 6.1 8.1 6.1 5.1 8.2 6.2 | 8.3 7.3 5.3 8.4 7.4 5.4 8.5.4 |

\tempo 110
.
\ts 4 4
:8 8.6 5.5 7.5 8.5 5.4 7.4 8.4 5.3 | 7.3 5.2 6.2 8.2 5.1 6.1 8.1.4 | :8 8.1 6.1 5.1 8.2 6.2 5.2 7.3 5.3 | 8.4 7.4 5.4 8.5 7.5 5.5 8.6.4 |

What about the other chords of the jazz blues? Cm7 and Gm7 take Dorian, which has the same notes as the Mixolydian a 4th above (C Dorian = F Mixolydian; G Dorian = C Mixolydian), so you already have them. Am7 takes the notes of F major (or just its arpeggio). D7 wants a flat 9th (the Eb of the key) because it resolves to a minor chord, and Bdim7 is best handled with its own arpeggio, which you will do in the next lesson. For now, on those bars, play chord tones.

Mixing the two approaches

The chorus below is how most jazz guitarists actually play a blues: blues-scale ideas on the I chord, Mixolydian ideas (3rds, 9ths and 13ths) when the chord changes, and chord tones on the "jazz" chords in bars 4, 8 and 12. The chord symbols are written with the tensions the line uses (13 on the dominants, 9 on the minor chords, b9 on the D7) so that every note is checked against the chord; only the two blue notes of F are exempt, and they appear only where the text says they resolve.

\tempo 120
.
\ts 4 4
:8 1.1{ch "F13"} 4.1 :4 1.1 :8 4.2 1.2 :4 r | :8 3.3{ch "Bb13"} 1.3 3.4 0.4 :4 3.5 r | :8 r 2.3{ch "F13"} 1.2 4.2 :4 2.3 :8 4.3 1.2 | :8 3.5{ch "Cm9"} 1.4 0.3 3.3 1.2{ch "F13"} 4.2 :4 2.3 | :4 0.4{ch "Bb13"} :8 1.3 3.4 :4 3.5 :8 0.4 3.3 | :8 2.5{ch "Bdim7"} 0.4 3.4 1.3 :4 0.4 r | :8 r 1.1{ch "F13"} 4.1 1.1 4.2 1.2 :4 2.3 | :8 2.3{ch "Am7"} 1.2 5.2 0.3 4.4{ch "D7b9"} 1.2 :4 1.4 | :4 0.4{ch "Gm9"} :8 3.3 2.3 :4 3.4 :8 0.4 3.3 | :8 2.4{ch "C13"} 3.3 1.2 0.3 :4 5.2 :8 3.3 1.2 | :8 1.1{ch "F13"} 4.1 1.1 4.2 1.2{ch "D7b9"} 4.4 :4 1.4 | :8 0.4{ch "Gm9"} 3.3 :4 2.3 :8 3.3{ch "C13"} 2.4 :4 5.2 |

Walk through it bar by bar:

• Bars 1 and 3: blues-scale cells (root, flat 3rd, 7th, 5th) on F7; the flat 3rd falls back to the root or rises to the 3rd. Bar 3 ends on the flat 5th rising into C, the root of the Cm9 in bar 4.
• Bar 2 and bar 5: Bb Mixolydian material on Bb7, landing on the 3rd and 9th (D and C). Note that Ab, the blue note of F, is simply the 7th here.
• Bar 4: pure arpeggio on Cm9, then the 5th and 7th of F7 landing on its 3rd.
• Bar 6: the Bdim7 arpeggio, nothing else. The diminished chord is so distinctive that its arpeggio is the vocabulary.
• Bar 8: Am7 arpeggio, then D7 with its flat 9th (Eb) resolving down to D, the 5th of Gm9, on the downbeat of bar 9.
• Bars 9–10: Gm9 material (3rd, 7th and the 9th, A) and then plain C7 chord tones, ending on the 3rd and 7th of C7.
• Bars 11–12: the turnaround, using the same cells as bars 1 and 8, and ending on the 3rd of C7 (E), which leads up a half step to F at the top of the next chorus.

Quiz