A Lead Guitar Lesson For How To Easily Alternate Between The Blues And Major Scales

A Lead Guitar Lesson For How To Easily Alternate Between The Blues And Major Scales

It is useful in guitar improvisation to change between a major scale and blues scale. Playing the major scale sounds sweet and melodic. Switching to the blues scale provides darker sound that provides a contrast to the major scale. This lead guitar lesson shows how to learn this.

A very useful method of playing a major scale has the following fingering. We will start with an A major scale. The first note, A, will be played with finger 1, the forefinger, on the fifth fret of the first, or lowest, string. We can notate this as 151. The entire scale, then, is: 151-171-191-2101-4121-192-3112-4122. This is not the easiest way to play this scale, but as we will see, it is very flexible.

The A major scale can then be continued into the next octave without having to change hand position, as: 193-3113-4123-194-3114-195-2105. Venturing into the third octave can also be done from this hand position, as: 4125-196-2106-4126. Alternatively, the final notes of this third octave of A major can be reached by switching hand position, as: 1125-3145-4155-1126-3146-4166-4176.

This technique flexible in that most of the notes over three octaves can be reached from one hand position, in this case at the ninth fret. Incidentally, the fingering at this hand position also allows one to improvise in the Phrygian mode.

Practice this scale, going up and down one, two, then three octaves. If flat picking, alternate picking up and down each note. Play slowly at first, only playing faster after perfecting the scale at a slower speed. Once the scale is mastered, it is easy to transpose to other keys. For example, playing a G major scale is done with the same finger pattern, but starting two frets down, with 131. The only tricky transposition is to E major, where several notes will be played on a open string. You can get used to this by placing the first finger on the nut for those notes.

To switch to the blues scale, you will be moving to a position that is convenient for playing in the key that is the relative minor of A major, which is F# minor. You can quickly find your blues position by sliding your hand down to place your fourth finger to the fifth fret, where the first note of your A major scale is. Your first finger is now at the second fret. Play your blues scale as: 121-541-122-342-123-343-124-344-125-355-126-356.

Notice that for the blues scale, the third finger is stretched to the fifth fret on the fifth and sixth strings. This is because the third finger has more power than the fourth finger for bending strings for blues phrases. Thus, the blues scale is played mostly with only two fingers. This is where we get the term two-finger blues.

One you have mastered switching between these scales for any key, you have a tool to use during improvisation. Once you figure out what key a song is in, you can decide to use melodic phrases on the major scale, or go for an edgier sound by using the blues scale. You can also switch between these scales for different moods in different parts of the song.

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