Good day guitar comrades, Darrin Goodman here with some more tasty guitar tid bits for ya’, today I’m going to be talking about the Pentatonic scale and its cousin the Hexatonic scale, aka, the blues scale.
First let’s take a look at the minor pentatonic scale; for these examples let’s use the key of B, then we will take a look at Blues Scale Guitar Tab. The minor pentatonic scale is a five note scale that is found all around the world and is used in many different styles and genres of music. If you compare it to the major scale you will see that differs by no major second, a flattened third, no sixth and a flattened seventh.
Pentatonic scale guitar tab.
This scale works great for improvising and soloing over almost any style of music and is a staple in the sound of the blues. So what about blues scale? Well the blues scale is a six note scale called a Hexatonic scale. It is basically an altered pentatonic scale with an extra note added. The added note is the diminished fifth or flattened fifth if you prefer. By playing the scale with the added note you get a chromatic sequence of the perfect fourth, diminished fifth and perfect fifth which gives it a distinct blues sound.
Blues scale guitar tab.
Try taking licks that you already know from the pentatonic scale and adding in the blue note and you will hear that gives them a whole new sound and feel.
Here is a video I lesson I did a while back that incorporates the blue note.
Blues Guitar Lesson
I hope that you found this helpful on your guitar journey.
Off to practice,
Darrin
If you really want to dig into this subject then you should check out How To Play Smokin’ Blues from Guitar Control founder and instructor Claude Johnson.
