Blues guitar scale lesson: Common scales used in blues guitar - Part 1

by Craig Bassett

In this blues guitar scale lesson we'll take a look at a really common guitar scale used for blues improvisation. This scale is great to learn if you want to play blues guitar in an authentic sounding way. In fact, it would be really hard to solo in a blues guitar style without knowing it! Let’s take a look at this guitar scale now...

Blues Guitar Scale #1: The Minor Pentatonic Scale

If blues guitar is your passion, then learning the minor pentatonic scale is essential. If you analyse the playing of your favorite blues guitarists you will see them using in almost ALL of their solos. So, with that in mind, let's take a closer look at this scale...

The minor pentatonic scale is a five note scale that has the following formula:

1 b3 4 5 b7

This formula tells us what we need to change in the major scale in order to create this scale. Let’s work out the notes of A minor pentatonic scale to make things clearer…

Step 1:

Write down the notes of the A major scale. This gives us the following notes…

A B C# D E F# G#

Step 2:

Remove the second and sixth notes from the A major scale. This is because the formula of the minor pentatonic scale doesn’t contain a 2 or a 6. So this would give us…

A C# D E G#

Step 3:

Lower the third and seventh notes of the A major scale by one semitone (1 fret). This is because the formula of the minor pentatonic scale has a b3 and a b7. Once these notes are flattened, it gives us this…

A C D E G

These are the five notes that the A minor pentatonic scale uses.

Obviously, this theory is a waste of time unless you APPLY it. You must learn to use it in real-life playing situations. Once you learn to use it, you will amazed at how useful it is!

To finish off this blues guitar scale lesson, here are a few ideas that would help you learn this scale in a practical way...

- Learning to sing it.

- Learning licks and solos that use it.

- Transcribing the guitar solos of your favorite blues guitar players.

- Practicing soloing using it over backing tracks.

- Memorizing the notes of the scale over the ENTIRE fretboard.

Have fun with this stuff!

Premium members of the Guitar Scale Mastery membership website gain access to Pentatonic Guitar Success. This 246 page e-book helps you master this blues guitar scale lesson over the entire fretboard.

To find out more, please go to: http://www.GuitarScaleMastery.com

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Back 22.05.2007