Blues Guitar Scales – Minor Pentatonic Scale and the Blues Scale

If you have ever seen a live blues concert, then you know the most powerful part of the concert is the solo. In blues, solos simply radiate the guitarist’s emotion, and you instantly feel something. This may be true with the majority of music today (mostly rock), but without the scale that has created the solo, the audience would struggle to relate the notes to the song.

In this article, we are discussing the “Minor Pentatonic Scale” because it is very closely related to the blues scales of today’s music (in some cases the scale is pentatonic). Then, we move on to the “Blues Scale.” Both are highly relevant in blues-style guitar playing.

The Minor Pentatonic Scale:

The minor pentatonic scale is the most common scale because it (or some variation of it) is used in almost every blues guitar solo. Still, it is amazing how something so simple can really whip music into shape.

It is called the pentatonic scale because penta means five, thus the scale contains five notes. The pattern for these notes is: 1 b3 4 5 b7

You are probably thinking to yourself, what do those numbers mean? Those 5 numbers release a secret lock on your guitar, and the guitar now plays music for you! Although we all wish that was true, these numbers are actually a formula that tells us what we need to change in the major scale in order to create the pentatonic scale. In order to make the formula bit more understandable, we are going to work out the notes of the A minor pentatonic scale.

Step 1: Write down the notes of an A major scale. A B C# D E F# G#

Step 2: Take out the 2nd and 6th notes. A C# D E G# Since the formula only calls for 1, 3, 4, 5, and the 7 notes of the scales, you remove the 2nd and 6th notes because they are not included in the pentatonic scale.

Step 3: Lower the notes a semitone.A semitone is basically one fret or one half-step down from the original note. So, since the formula calls for a b3 and b7 (or flat third and flat seventh), lower the third and seventh notes; the new scale will look like this: A C D E G.

The Blues Scale:

Now, the blues scale is closely related to the pentatonic scale; all you have to do is add 2 notes.

As you can clearly see, the only difference between the blues guitar scale and the pentatonic guitar scale is that the blues scale has 2 extra “blue” notes added on the 5th string, 2nd fret, and the 3rd string, 4th fret. The new formula for a blues scale is as follows:

1 b3 4 b5 5 b7 1

Remember, the b in front of the numbers represents
a flat note (lower the note a semitone or fret). So, the following is an example of translating the blues scale formula into an A blues scale:

A C D D# E G# A

Now that you know the blues guitar scales, go out there and start wailing on your guitar like B. B. King and Eric Clapton.

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