A Mel Bay Publications, Inc. Webzine
August 2009 · Bimonthly
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In this issue: Scales & Theory - The Real Story | Microphone Choices: Spaghetti Mysteries Unraveled and Your Questions Answered! | Custom Tools from a Customizer | Blues Chromatic, Part 7: Combining the Big Chord Approach with the Slide |
Print this Article (PDF) Email Article to a Friend To put it plainly—to become a great blues harmonica player all you need are good blues harmonica recordings and tons of patience (practice time). Listen… copy… try to use. My job as a harmonica instructor is to speed up your learning process by showing you the techniques that may elude you and how to place them into the proper context. It's also my job to sift through what's important for you to study at various stages in your learning. You would think that understanding the notes which make up the three chords of the twelve bar blues progression—and where the notes are found on the harmonica—would be useful for an early understanding of the music. This makes sense, but in fact has no practical use in the beginning. There's no need to build from the ground up when there are tons of great licks you can copy and sound good now. If it sounded good for Big Walter, it will sound good for you! Once you have a vocabulary of licks to move you around the harmonica within the twelve bar blues, you're ready to alter and draw from that vocabulary to fit the feel of the song you're playing. At this point scales start to make sense. The more advanced your playing gets, the more you can benefit from understanding the impact of the specific notes you're playing. This month we're going to take a close look at the blues scale, referencing some material from a past HarmonicaSessions.com® article with an added focus on improvising within the blues scale. The blues scale is a great study tool for harmonica players wishing to learn the notes used most commonly in blues soloing. Many different scales have been presented through time as “the” blues scale. All of them have some validity, so it's worth spending some time to look at them all in depth. Let's start by looking at the major scale. Since most musicians relate scales to the familiar major scale, it will help to start here. Demonstrated below is the G major scale. Click to listen to Ex. 1-3 Ex. 1
The “Blue Note”Playing bluesy is all about tension and release. Tension is built from playing a note not within the chord.This note is dissonant relative to the chord and evokes a feeling of unrest in the listener's ears. The resolving of the note to a chord tone is the resolution of tension. It's this tension, release, tension, release that gives a blues solo its “bluesyness.”These tension notes within the blues scale are known as “Blue Notes.”
The Blues Scale is UniversalAn important point about the blues scale is its universalness. If you are in the key of G, then you will use the G blues scale for the entire song. Though there are other chords in the song (IV and V), there are enough notes in common between the root blues scale (G) and the IV and V chords to work.Phrasing also takes a large role in how it works.If you wish to understand this further you can reference Improvising Blues Harmonica (MB20943BCD). For now, let's agree that all we need to focus on is one blues scale, which can be used over the I, IV and V chords in a song.
The Blues ScaleLet's start with the original blues scale, then we can discuss how other scales differ from it as we go.The G blues scale is demonstrated below.Ex. 2
Let's relate the blues scale to the major scale. The root is the same. The 2nd is omitted. The 3rd is lowered by a half step. The 4th is the same. The flatted-5th is added. The 5th is the same. The 6th is omitted. The seventh is lowered by a half step. Pretty much every note of the blues scale is dissonant except the root and 5th. You can assume that notes within the blues scale will eventually resolve to the 5th or root.
The Quartertone 3rd The Minor Pentatonic ScaleEx. 3
The minor pentatonic scale is very close to the blues scale and is commonly mistaken for the blues scale. The flat-3rd and flat-7th are from the blues scale, though there is one note missing, the flat-5th. Though very close, it's not a blues scale without the flat-5th.
Usable Harmonica Blues ScaleThe example below is the scale I use and show students to traverse the entire range of the instrument playing with more of a traditional blues scale sound.Click to listen to Ex. 4 Ex. 4
At this point we need to narrow the focus and play small portions of the blues scale. To focus on everything at this point is to focus on nothing. We need to internalize blocks of the scale and spend time playing them with a jam track. Click to listen to Ex. 5 Ex. 5Listening to the recorded example (Example 5) on the website you'll hear me playing only holes 1 through 3 within the blues scale. I play one chorus and then leave one chorus for you to improvise (playing on just these three holes).I repeat this for a while, then move to trading 4's (I play four measures and then you play four measures, etc.) When limiting your soloing to a specific range it's also helpful to know which notes match on the IV and V Chords. The IV Chord notes that match are: 1+, 2 and 3' (Root, 5th and flat-3rd) The V Chord notes that match are: 1 and 1+ (Root and flat-7th, though 1+ can sound dissonant if not used properly). Experiment with using the 3” (5th) as well. Even though it's not in the blues scale, it sounds great. Click to listen to Ex. 6 Ex. 6Here I'll add one hole, hole 4. Get to know the quality of the 4th hole. Final Words Good luck and have fun! David Barrett About the Author David Barrett President, Harmonica Masterclass Co. "Leader in Blues Harmonica Education" www.harmonicamasterclass.com Founder/Director, School of the Blues www.schooloftheblues.com Author, Mel Bay Publications & Blues Revue Magazine www.harmonicamasterclass.com/books.htm & www.bluesrevue.com http://www.harmonicamasterclass.com/david.htm [ top ] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
