doc-phil wrote
Thanks a lot Rob dos! I appreciate the post. It made a lot of sense. One question regarding the first bit of your post about the 12 bar blues in A, D and E. Can you play the same scale, in the same position over all three of those chords? Cos what if there is a rapid chord progression, I wouldn't have to then shift scale positions every time the rhythm guitarist goes from A to D to E etc etc would I?
Tailon. wrote
Ok let me askthis question , cos this is something i have never understood
say we playing the 12 bar blues
in E ,so the chord progression would be E A B .
when the rhythm is playing the E chord i would assume the scale i play would be the E scale , when the rhytm changes to A , does the scale you play over it change to A .
I'll try to keep this non technical. Through a post here and there I read that you should stay in the key... however, playing a minor pentatonic over all three from its root would not be in key but adding blue notes.
Blues is a cool beast to learn... Your chords are (usually) based on a I - IV - V progression in major or minor. If you don't know what I just said... its simple...ish. Your I-IV-V is all your major chords right? Lets say E-A-B... the minor blues would just be making those chords minor. The beauty of blues is that its rare to just find a straight ahead normal triad... meaning that these chords are usually made into 7ths.
7ths in this case being dominant (V) chords. Playing the major pentatonics would give you yr happy clappy sound... and sticking to the I chord's scale (in this case E major) might pose a bit of a dilemma. You will have a clash in the I chord with the b7 (of the chord, D) and maj7 (of the major scale, D#)... a clash in the IV chord with the b7 (of the chord, the note G) and the maj3 (of the scale, the note G#)...
With a blues or jazz mans ears, those would be awesome blue notes to add passing flavour. To a beginner, its a "what the hell!"
If you stick to the C#m pent/blues scale... you'll have the beginning of your solo nicely worked out for you. If you use major pentatonics on the roots of the chords... depending how you play the scale shape, you may find a problem with the maj6 (the 5th note in the major pentatonic scale starting from the root) of the scale and the b7 of the chord. The reason being that these two notes are a semitone apart and you'll have this warbling of sound waves effect going on. However, if you play that same note an octave up... it changes it completely. Now that note acts as a 13th and is much better to the ear...
To add effect to your soloing over I-IV-V progressions, in their dom7 form... or as E7-A7-B7... you could play the mixolydian mode from each of the three chord roots. You stay bluesy, the sound stays happy, etc.
Another one is that you can take the minor pentatonic from the three roots of the chords... and you have a bluesy nature happening. Mixed with the blues scale, you have quite a few extra notes to keep your ears challenged.
The minor blues can be your minor pentatonics/blues/dorian scale if you wish. By making the minor v chord a major V chord, you can change the minor pentatonic into a mixolydian over that chord... you could also use a harmonic minor.
All this is a maybe... the best part would be to start from the top... jam a while on it and then start experimenting. I gave a lot of suggestions here which could serve as homework to some... or meaningless drivel from the dude with the hair to others. Your choice. I hope this helps.
And yes, Keira and everyone else is correct that a teacher helps with the theory... but in the end its you who has to practice training your ear and no teacher can do that for you... not even me or Andres Segovia.
A good ear training program would be Earmaster Pro 5... I think it is $50... one of the best apps out there. Helps with hearing progressions too, along with scales and melodies and rhythms. It also has a jazz section in it... very very cool.
