If you were to hang on this note for too long it might sound out of place and too dissonant.īut when you use it to walk up to the next note (5 th string 5 th fret, or the open 4 th string) it creates enough tension and dissonance that resolves wonderfully when you get to the next note. That’s exactly what this note is- a passing tone.

These are chromatic notes that are used to walk up to other notes in the scale.

Free resources for guitarists by Stuart Bahn. Something common in Blues and Jazz is to use a chromatic “passing tone”, also called a passing note. Minor pentatonic and blues scales CAGED shapes and major pentatonic and dominant pentatonic CAGED shapes. This note is the “Blues note” and makes this scale a Blues scale. The note that makes this scale a Blues scale instead of a minor Pentatonic scale is the 4 th fret on the 5 th string. The minor pentatonic scale has the following intervals: 1 b3 4 5 b7 To create the blues scale, we add a b5 to the minor pentatonic scale: 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7 The b5 is sometimes referred to as the blues note. The minor blues scale has the scale degrees, 1, b3, 4, 4. The blues scale is a modified minor pentatonic scale. The Major blues scale is essentially a Major pentatonic scale with an added half step between the 2nd and 3rd scale degrees (see the formula below). This note became known as the blue note, and is the flat fifth in the case of the. For example, a C Major blues scale has the notes C, D, Eb, E, G, and A. The blues scale (or Pentablues) is the pentatonic scale plus one note. When taking a closer look at the blues scale, you notice that sometimes we play two notes a string and sometimes we play three notes a string. This is intentional to make the chromatic section much easier to play. The Major blues scale has the scale degrees 1, 2, b3, 3, 5, and 6. You'll notice that the fingering I called out uses the 1st finger twice in a row on the 5th string. That’s technically 7 note’s you’re playing, but since the last note is essentially starting the scale over we don’t include it when we say that there are 6 notes in the scale. The G Blues scale starts on a G note (6 th string, 3 rd fret) and ends on a G an octave up.

Blues scale guitar