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How to Work with This Scale:

It’s been written over 3 octaves, from the low open E to the top E on the 12th fret of the first string. 

I have intentionally included a few open notes, this gives you the breathing space to move to the 4th fret and then the 7th. This method player is different to a lot of players that play a very horizontal stlye, straight up and down the neck.  I like the sound of the open strings, and with a scale like this it will give you some great guitar solo options.  As stated in my previous article it is a good mode / scale to use over the E7th chord in a blues. 

To download the printable version, click the following link E Blues Scale Super Altered Scale

The standard blues scale has been around for quite some time, also the country blues scale, the one that is really a C# blues scale played over songs in the key of E. 

I’m reasonably confident that I have invented a new scale that is highly useable, easy to play and is more flexible over a lot of songs.

When you play the standard blues scale, the second one on my TAB and music dots chart, it sometimes sounds too blues too strong.  An alternative is what I personally call the Country Blues Scale, the third one on my TAB and music notation.  The Country Blues Scale is fantastic, sounds great over some tunes but if you look and listen to it closely it is minus the 7th (really flattened 7th) . 

I woke up about five this morning and had a brain wave, a moment of inspiration and I thought ‘ What if I take the Country  Blues Scale, remove the 6th (the C sharp) and replace it with the 7th instead. 

Why oh why have I never thought of it before and why on earth have I never seen it over 38 years of playing guitar?
Is it because we often miss the simple and obvious.

So the notes are E,  F sharp , G natural, G sharp, B and D natural.

Yes we could create hybrids of this but this is a great starting point and I’ll be adding information in the near future on how to use it intelligenty, it comfortably sits over chord one of an E blues, the E7 chord.

 I decided to call it the Super Blues Scale at this point, but may change it later.

To download this scale click: Super Blues Scale in E
 

I’ve written a guitar TAB and music notation chart that uses triads (three note chords) and have also added a simple bass part.  I’ve used a common chord pattern, it consistts of. 

Cmaj7 A7 D7 G7

Cmaj7 A7 D7 G7

E7 A7 D7 G7

C Eb7 D7 Db7

The last line is a series of chord substitutions for the Cmaj7 A7 D7 G7

If you study this chord chart very closely you’ll see there’s a lot to work with. There are so many variations that could be used. Often you need to call on different styles to add to your musical skillset, else all your music might end up sounding the same.  This sort of playing is great if you have to accompany a singer in a jazz ballad.  Once you get it inone key and see how it works, with a little thought you’ll be apply to take the basic principles I’ve used here and run with it. 

To download the printable version click on the link:  Jazz Guitar Chord Tutorial

How chords are made is not that difficult to understand.  You will require a tiny bit of patience and the ability to count up to 13 and also know the alphabet from  A to G.

Having a good understanding of how chords are made will help you with your guitar soloing and accompaniment, many guitar players bypass this type of information.  I would encourage you to get on top of the basics of this info and a whole lot of newe areas of your playing will open up.

If you look at the music stave above, you’ll notice that I have numbered each note and also given it an alphabetical name, no big deal, no rocket science here.

Chords are grouped into three basic categories: 

Major, Minor and Sevenths. However I did have a very long discussion once with the great guitar player Ike Isaacs and he was leaving the question open ended about whether there was a fourth type.  But I’ll keep it simple here and agree with most of the planets musicians and say there are three.

Major chords have a strength about them, they are reasonably bright sounding, I could say ‘happy’ sounding but it’s not quite correct. Examples would be C, D, G, A, E with no numbers written after them.

Minor chords are very sad sounding, the saddest of all being the D minor chord.  Many composers for films will write in the key of D minor T evoke sadness in a a film, think tissues and hankies. Examples would be: Dm, Em, Gm, sometimes written with a minus sign D-, E- or Dmin or Emin etc

Seventh chords imply movement.  They are just major chords with an extra note, their sound creates a feeling of wanting to go to another chord. The way that a seventh chord is generally written is:  G7, E7, A7 etc.  They are commonly used in Blues music and variations of 7ths are common in Jazz, they’ll often look like G7b5#9 etc but let’s keep it simple.

The way chords are made is generally by taking the 1st, 3rd and 5th of a scale.

If you look at the top line of music above, you’ll see it is C, E and G, this is called a major triad.  You could play a couple of C’s E’s or G’s in it instead of just one, it’s still a C major chord.

If you look at the second line of music above, you’ll see it is C, E flat ( the little b = flat) and G, this is called a minor triad.  Also, just like the major chord, you could play a couple of C’s Eb’s or G’s in it instead of just one, it’s still a C minor chord.

The seventh chord consists of the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th and also the 7th note, but this is IMPORTANT. Look closely at the note though, in truth what is known as a 7th is really a flattened 7th, it is one note lower than the seventh note of the normal major scale. Because of the construction of the guitar fretboard, guitar players often leave out notes of a chord, in the case of the C7, I have omitted the G note, but listen and you’ll notice that it still sounds right.

In these examples I have used only three note chords, for some situations, using a thrree note chord can be better than a full chord.  Regardless what you use, it’s still valid, three, four, five or six.

To download the Free High QualityPrintable version Click the following Link:

How Guitar Chords Are Made TAB

NOTE: Part 2 will be available within four days.

For Blues Scales go to the following link at my other blog/site:

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/blues-scales-learn-guitar-tab-and-dots/

Most guitar players avoid the flat keys, they stick to C, D , A , G and E, because they are guitar friendly.  So let’s break the habit a little with this one and do a B Flat.  The key of B flat includes the notes B flat, C, D, E flat, F, G A  and B flat. 

But the Pentatonic I’ve used (penta being 5) is Bb, C, D, F, G .  Note the fingering of the exercise, I jump to the 5th fret after playing the open G and a few of notes later I jump up a fret.  And then decscending I move back to fret one.  Playing this way will force you to think.

To download the printable guitar scale in TAB and music notes click below:

TAB and Music Notes Guitar Scale Pentatonic Major in B Flat

My next set of six short tutorials will cover Chord Construction Made Easy

Enjoy!

It was about 35 years ago when I first purchased a Stefan Grossman guitar book on blues, in those days, very few music books had guitar TAB. That may sound odd to a lot of people now. The books back then were generally arranged for Piano/ Vocal, that means they had little to do with the guitar and were really just a piano arrangement of the tune. Here’s a few Acoustic Blues Guitar Books worth exploring to help you be a better blues player.

Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar: Mississippi John Hurt Music by Mississippi John Hurt, transcribed by Stefan Grossman. Guitar tablature songbook and examples CD for acoustic guitar. Series: Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar. 96 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.F3176GTA) See more info…

Complete Acoustic Blues Method: Beginning Acoustic Blues Guitar By Lou Manzi. For Guitar. Guitar Method or Supplement. Acoustic; Blues. Book & CD. Published by Alfred Publishing. (22866) See more info…

Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar: Blind Blake Music by Blind Blake, transcribed by Stefan Grossman. Guitar tablature songbook and examples CD for acoustic guitar. Series: Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar. 96 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.F3432GTA) See more info…

 The notes of this scale are D E F sharp A B and I’ll include the next D so it sounds complete. Leraning simple scales like these are very usually for acoustic players, a lot of acoustic players when they are jamming will just all play the same chords.  A little aresnal of scales will enable you to create a bit of interest in a tune by using simple improvisation.  When two guitar players play the same thing at the same time,  then tend to squash each other.  Look for ways of creating space, the ‘Less is More’ principle is very useful in music. 

Ok, how to play the scale:  Start in the 2nd position, this means the first finger lines up at the second fret.  Ones you play the open E on the high string, move up to the 7th fret.  When descending, once you hit the high E note again on the open E string, move back to the second postion.  

Enjoy it, once you know the scale start to break it up into little melodic musical phrases.

To download the printable version click the link:
Pentatonic Major Scale for Guitar in D

This is part 5 of the 6 part series of Pentatonic scales, Part 6 will be uploaded within the next 5 days

To view part Part 4:
http://the-guitarplayer.com/2008/06/12/pentatonic-major-scale-in-a-part-4-of-6/

This one is in A, use it over a chord pattern that uses A D and E.  The notes of this five note scale are A B C sharp E and F#.  The ascending is quite straight forward, start on an open A but be ready in the second position.  The descending part is great on the acoustic, you move up to the 5th fret and uses a couple of open notes and then moves back to the 2nd fret.

An additional thing that I’ve done with it is to put it into 3/4 time, count 1 2 3 1 2 3 123 etc, placing a slight emphasis on the first beat.  

 For part three click on scale link

 Part five will be added in the very near future.