The blues scale · From Zero to Mozart

The blues scale is the minor pentatonic with one note added — a ♭5, the "blue note." Six notes, and it carries the whole vocal, bent, aching sound of the blues.

From minor pentatonic to blues

Minor pentatonic: ^1 ♭^3 ^4 ^5 ♭^7. Add a ♭5 between the ^4 and the ^5, and you have the blues scale: ^1 ♭^3 ^4 ♭^5 ^5 ♭^7.

72 bpm

The G BLUES scale. The extra note — D♭, the ♭5 — sits between C and D, squeezed in. It's a passing note: you slide through it or lean on it briefly on the way to the ^5. That's the 'blue' sound.

The blue note is meant to be bent

In real blues playing, the ♭5 (and often the ♭3 and ♭7) aren't fixed pitches — they're bent, slid into, played a little sharp or flat of dead centre. On the violin you can actually do this: place the ♭5 slightly low and slide up toward the ^5, or add a wide, slow finger vibrato. A blue note played dead in tune barely sounds blue.

76 bpm

A tiny blues lick in G. The D♭→D is a quick slide up into the ^5 — you smear through the blue note rather than landing on it. Play it lazy and behind the beat.

Try it

Try

On the A string, play B♭ (1st finger, pulled back), C (low 2), then slide your 2nd finger up a fraction toward D — don't stop cleanly, just smear through — then back down. Keep it loose and slightly out of time. That slippery, vocal quality is the blues scale doing its job.

The usual mistake

Playing the blues scale stiff and metronomic, every note in tune and on the beat. The blues is about bend, slide and behind-the-beat phrasing — the notes are a starting point, not the whole story. A classically-trained ear wants to clean it up; resist that.