blues improvising

[MWR]

1. You're right that we aren't altering the 5th we're adding the b5. That was my mixup in terminology.

2. You're also right that you can mix sharps and flats when refering directly to a specific scale in a specific key i.e. G Harmonic minor is G,A,Bb,C,D,Eb,F#. But a specific scale is not what I'm talking about. I'm refering to a scale FORMULA, the intervals that make up the scale and how they relate to the major scale. Scale formulas tell you far more than a key ever would and they are independant from keys. They tell you about the tonality of the scale which is the most important thing when talking about notes that are enharmonic. Save for your more exotic scales, no scale formula mixes sharps and flats. In fact the only mode from the major scale that uses a sharp as an alteration is Lydian. Every other mode is altered by flattening one or more notes. Pentatonics are included in this as they are basically major or minor scales with notes taken away.

3. The blues scale is a minor pentatonic with the b5 added. It would NEVER be refered to as a #4 if you were playing it in a blues setting. I'm absolutely positive about this. Read a book on blues guitar and see if they call it a #4. My bet is you'll feel stupid after doing this.

but it makes more sense to call it a #4 because the b5 refers to chords of diminished quality. another example is the maj9#11 chord: have you ever seen it refered to as maj9b5? if you wrote it with the b5 rather than the #11, it confuses the player because they wouldn't know whether or not they should keep the perfect 5th as well. by calling it a #4, the player has no confusion about the quality of the chord's actual 5th.

This right here I think shows how off you are.
First of all why in the name of Zeus' butthole would a player be confused as to whether he should play a perfect 5th or not? That's a seriously rediculous thing to say. The perfect 5th, particularly in a maj9#11, would do almost nothing to change the tonality of the chord. It's a perfect interval! A player that could play a maj9#11 and locate the perfect fifth surely would be competant enough to decide if he should play it or not. I'm also not understanding why calling that chord a #11 tells you whether or not to play the perfect fifth any more than calling it a b5 does. Explain yourself.

I can see you're new here and obviously trying to flex your theory muscles but you're only traveling deeper into "I'm full of shit" territory. You know what you're talking about to a certain extent, I'll give you that, but you're wrong in this case.
Oh well, proceed with your fruitless efforts to prove me wrong, if you must.

[guitardmb]

Back to improvising.........any suggestions. Common blues progressions other than the common blues riff that everyone learns in their first week of guitar?

[EnFuego]

The funny thing is that I read every word of the posts from MWR and Zenful, knowing that I will not comprehend/retain any of it.

Good to see you back around here MWR.

[zenful]

1. You're right that we aren't altering the 5th we're adding the b5. That was my mixup in terminology.

2. You're also right that you can mix sharps and flats when refering directly to a specific scale in a specific key i.e. G Harmonic minor is G,A,Bb,C,D,Eb,F#. But a specific scale is not what I'm talking about. I'm refering to a scale FORMULA, the intervals that make up the scale and how they relate to the major scale. Scale formulas tell you far more than a key ever would and they are independant from keys. They tell you about the tonality of the scale which is the most important thing when talking about notes that are enharmonic. Save for your more exotic scales, no scale formula mixes sharps and flats. In fact the only mode from the major scale that uses a sharp as an alteration is Lydian. Every other mode is altered by flattening one or more notes. Pentatonics are included in this as they are basically major or minor scales with notes taken away.

3. The blues scale is a minor pentatonic with the b5 added. It would NEVER be refered to as a #4 if you were playing it in a blues setting. I'm absolutely positive about this. Read a book on blues guitar and see if they call it a #4. My bet is you'll feel stupid after doing this.

but it makes more sense to call it a #4 because the b5 refers to chords of diminished quality. another example is the maj9#11 chord: have you ever seen it refered to as maj9b5? if you wrote it with the b5 rather than the #11, it confuses the player because they wouldn't know whether or not they should keep the perfect 5th as well. by calling it a #4, the player has no confusion about the quality of the chord's actual 5th.

This right here I think shows how off you are.
First of all why in the name of Zeus' butthole would a player be confused as to whether he should play a perfect 5th or not? That's a seriously rediculous thing to say. The perfect 5th, particularly in a maj9#11, would do almost nothing to change the tonality of the chord. It's a perfect interval! A player that could play a maj9#11 and locate the perfect fifth surely would be competant enough to decide if he should play it or not. I'm also not understanding why calling that chord a #11 tells you whether or not to play the perfect fifth any more than calling it a b5 does. Explain yourself.

I can see you're new here and obviously trying to flex your theory muscles but you're only traveling deeper into "I'm full of shit" territory. You know what you're talking about to a certain extent, I'll give you that, but you're wrong in this case.
Oh well, proceed with your fruitless efforts to prove me wrong, if you must.

that's funny, because every book i've ever read on blues guitar refers to it as a #4...

and a perfect 5th might not tell you anything about the tonality of a chord, but a diminished 5th certainly will. you cant possibly tell me that you think a blues scale sounds anything like a diminished scale, so why use an interval name that is associated with a diminished quality?

and as you said in #1, its just a mix up in terminology. it doesn't really matter what you call it, all im trying to get across is that its less confusing to call it #4. besides, you just keeping saying that its definitely b5 without giving any reasoning for it. at least im giving some explanation as to why i think #4 is a better term. you've done nothing of the sort in your attempt to prove your point

[guitardmb]

1. You're right that we aren't altering the 5th we're adding the b5. That was my mixup in terminology.

2. You're also right that you can mix sharps and flats when refering directly to a specific scale in a specific key i.e. G Harmonic minor is G,A,Bb,C,D,Eb,F#. But a specific scale is not what I'm talking about. I'm refering to a scale FORMULA, the intervals that make up the scale and how they relate to the major scale. Scale formulas tell you far more than a key ever would and they are independant from keys. They tell you about the tonality of the scale which is the most important thing when talking about notes that are enharmonic. Save for your more exotic scales, no scale formula mixes sharps and flats. In fact the only mode from the major scale that uses a sharp as an alteration is Lydian. Every other mode is altered by flattening one or more notes. Pentatonics are included in this as they are basically major or minor scales with notes taken away.

3. The blues scale is a minor pentatonic with the b5 added. It would NEVER be refered to as a #4 if you were playing it in a blues setting. I'm absolutely positive about this. Read a book on blues guitar and see if they call it a #4. My bet is you'll feel stupid after doing this.

but it makes more sense to call it a #4 because the b5 refers to chords of diminished quality. another example is the maj9#11 chord: have you ever seen it refered to as maj9b5? if you wrote it with the b5 rather than the #11, it confuses the player because they wouldn't know whether or not they should keep the perfect 5th as well. by calling it a #4, the player has no confusion about the quality of the chord's actual 5th.

This right here I think shows how off you are.
First of all why in the name of Zeus' butthole would a player be confused as to whether he should play a perfect 5th or not? That's a seriously rediculous thing to say. The perfect 5th, particularly in a maj9#11, would do almost nothing to change the tonality of the chord. It's a perfect interval! A player that could play a maj9#11 and locate the perfect fifth surely would be competant enough to decide if he should play it or not. I'm also not understanding why calling that chord a #11 tells you whether or not to play the perfect fifth any more than calling it a b5 does. Explain yourself.

I can see you're new here and obviously trying to flex your theory muscles but you're only traveling deeper into "I'm full of shit" territory. You know what you're talking about to a certain extent, I'll give you that, but you're wrong in this case.
Oh well, proceed with your fruitless efforts to prove me wrong, if you must.

that's funny, because every book i've ever read on blues guitar refers to it as a #4...

and a perfect 5th might not tell you anything about the tonality of a chord, but a diminished 5th certainly will. you cant possibly tell me that you think a blues scale sounds anything like a diminished scale, so why use an interval name that is associated with a diminished quality?

and as you said in #1, its just a mix up in terminology. it doesn't really matter what you call it, all im trying to get across is that its less confusing to call it #4. besides, you just keeping saying that its definitely b5 without giving any reasoning for it. at least im giving some explanation as to why i think #4 is a better term. you've done nothing of the sort in your attempt to prove your point

really it makes more sense and is less confusing to call it a b5 because there is already the b3 and b7. So why switch from flats to sharps. the key of D isnt written as a F# and a Db. Its F# and C#, so why say b3 #4 b7 when you could easily and less confusingly say b3 b5 b7.

You say that the blues scale isnt of diminished quality, but it isnt of augmented either. So either way, using your reasoning, it doesnt make sense.

Besides jazz and blues use more 7th and dimished chords than other types of music, so saying b5 would make more sense.

[MWR]

That is interesting that in every book you've read on guitar refers to it as a #4 and every book I've read calls it a b5. Really strange.

Taken from - http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory25.htm#blues

The blues scale is neither a minor nor a major scale but the internal dissonances provide the 'colour' that one associates with blues music - the 'blue' notes are the minor third and the 'flat five'.

You should note the unusual naming of the fourth note of this scale - really an augmented 4th or diminished 5th - called the 'flat five'.

That along with the many, many, other books I've read is why I call it a b5. It's the proper way to name that note when playing blues. I don't have some obscure reason why, only the the fact that I know from experiance the proper nomenclature.

But, I'll play devils advocate.

From wikipedia:

The blues scale is the minor pentatonic with an additional augmented fourth, which is referred to as the "blue note" A, C, D, D#, E, G, A

So there's a point for you. But wait, I searched for "blue note" on wikipedia and it gave me this:

The blue notes correspond approximately to the flatted third, flatted fifth, and flatted seventh scale degrees, although they approximate non-equal tempered pitches found in African work songs; specifically, the flatted seventh may often be a justly tuned minor seventh. Blue notes are the most important notes in the blues scale.

In its earliest manifestations, the flatted third, or mediant, and flatted seventh, or subtonic, were the main blue notes. Emphasis on the flatted fifth, or dominant, was an innovation in bebop in the 1940s.

So now wikipedia is contradicting itself.

You're thinking about the Blues scale in a a jazz setting not a blues setting. In jazz, depending on the harmony and scale used, you may very well call it an augmented 4th but not for blues.
Which brings us to the ultimate question: why are you using Jazz harmony as a means for comparison to the blues? That's the quickest way to confuse the shit out of people including yourself.

[MWR]

Back to improvising.........any suggestions. Common blues progressions other than the common blues riff that everyone learns in their first week of guitar?

Check this site out: http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary ... ssion.html

Covers your basic progressions. I should probably go back and learn these again. Only the 12-bar blues has stuck with me through the years.
If you learn those progressions forwards and backwards, that is being able to instinctively hear what chord your on, whats coming next, and where the cadence is, then you're set.
Then it's just a matter of turning those pentatonics into melody. Learning a handful of riffs that you like is a good way to start out. Those books with 10'000 riffs probably won't though. Try to copy riffs you like by ear and play them in different areas of the fretboard.
In spite of the discussion that zenful and I are having, blues is very simple. It should be 90% feel and 10% thought when you're doing it well.
Oh yeah. Another great thing to practice, especially if you have another person to play with is call and response. Essentially one person poses a "question" and the other an "answer" to that question. In the simplest form the first player would play a phrase and end it on a note other than the tonic so it remains unresolved. Then the second player condludes it, usually by ending the phrase on the tonic. This concept can and should be applied to any genre. You'll be amazed by how much more focused and lyrical your improvisation can be when thinking in this manner.

[zenful]

1. You're right that we aren't altering the 5th we're adding the b5. That was my mixup in terminology.

2. You're also right that you can mix sharps and flats when refering directly to a specific scale in a specific key i.e. G Harmonic minor is G,A,Bb,C,D,Eb,F#. But a specific scale is not what I'm talking about. I'm refering to a scale FORMULA, the intervals that make up the scale and how they relate to the major scale. Scale formulas tell you far more than a key ever would and they are independant from keys. They tell you about the tonality of the scale which is the most important thing when talking about notes that are enharmonic. Save for your more exotic scales, no scale formula mixes sharps and flats. In fact the only mode from the major scale that uses a sharp as an alteration is Lydian. Every other mode is altered by flattening one or more notes. Pentatonics are included in this as they are basically major or minor scales with notes taken away.

3. The blues scale is a minor pentatonic with the b5 added. It would NEVER be refered to as a #4 if you were playing it in a blues setting. I'm absolutely positive about this. Read a book on blues guitar and see if they call it a #4. My bet is you'll feel stupid after doing this.

but it makes more sense to call it a #4 because the b5 refers to chords of diminished quality. another example is the maj9#11 chord: have you ever seen it refered to as maj9b5? if you wrote it with the b5 rather than the #11, it confuses the player because they wouldn't know whether or not they should keep the perfect 5th as well. by calling it a #4, the player has no confusion about the quality of the chord's actual 5th.

This right here I think shows how off you are.
First of all why in the name of Zeus' butthole would a player be confused as to whether he should play a perfect 5th or not? That's a seriously rediculous thing to say. The perfect 5th, particularly in a maj9#11, would do almost nothing to change the tonality of the chord. It's a perfect interval! A player that could play a maj9#11 and locate the perfect fifth surely would be competant enough to decide if he should play it or not. I'm also not understanding why calling that chord a #11 tells you whether or not to play the perfect fifth any more than calling it a b5 does. Explain yourself.

I can see you're new here and obviously trying to flex your theory muscles but you're only traveling deeper into "I'm full of shit" territory. You know what you're talking about to a certain extent, I'll give you that, but you're wrong in this case.
Oh well, proceed with your fruitless efforts to prove me wrong, if you must.

that's funny, because every book i've ever read on blues guitar refers to it as a #4...

and a perfect 5th might not tell you anything about the tonality of a chord, but a diminished 5th certainly will. you cant possibly tell me that you think a blues scale sounds anything like a diminished scale, so why use an interval name that is associated with a diminished quality?

and as you said in #1, its just a mix up in terminology. it doesn't really matter what you call it, all im trying to get across is that its less confusing to call it #4. besides, you just keeping saying that its definitely b5 without giving any reasoning for it. at least im giving some explanation as to why i think #4 is a better term. you've done nothing of the sort in your attempt to prove your point

really it makes more sense and is less confusing to call it a b5 because there is already the b3 and b7. So why switch from flats to sharps. the key of D isnt written as a F# and a Db. Its F# and C#, so why say b3 #4 b7 when you could easily and less confusingly say b3 b5 b7.

You say that the blues scale isnt of diminished quality, but it isnt of augmented either. So either way, using your reasoning, it doesnt make sense.

Besides jazz and blues use more 7th and dimished chords than other types of music, so saying b5 would make more sense.

THAT doesn't make any sense, just because its not diminished doesn't mean it has to be augmented.

[zenful]

That is interesting that in every book you've read on guitar refers to it as a #4 and every book I've read calls it a b5. Really strange.

Taken from - http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory25.htm#blues

The blues scale is neither a minor nor a major scale but the internal dissonances provide the 'colour' that one associates with blues music - the 'blue' notes are the minor third and the 'flat five'.

You should note the unusual naming of the fourth note of this scale - really an augmented 4th or diminished 5th - called the 'flat five'.

That along with the many, many, other books I've read is why I call it a b5. It's the proper way to name that note when playing blues. I don't have some obscure reason why, only the the fact that I know from experiance the proper nomenclature.

But, I'll play devils advocate.

From wikipedia:

The blues scale is the minor pentatonic with an additional augmented fourth, which is referred to as the "blue note" A, C, D, D#, E, G, A

So there's a point for you. But wait, I searched for "blue note" on wikipedia and it gave me this:

The blue notes correspond approximately to the flatted third, flatted fifth, and flatted seventh scale degrees, although they approximate non-equal tempered pitches found in African work songs; specifically, the flatted seventh may often be a justly tuned minor seventh. Blue notes are the most important notes in the blues scale.

In its earliest manifestations, the flatted third, or mediant, and flatted seventh, or subtonic, were the main blue notes. Emphasis on the flatted fifth, or dominant, was an innovation in bebop in the 1940s.

So now wikipedia is contradicting itself.

You're thinking about the Blues scale in a a jazz setting not a blues setting. In jazz, depending on the harmony and scale used, you may very well call it an augmented 4th but not for blues.
Which brings us to the ultimate question: why are you using Jazz harmony as a means for comparison to the blues? That's the quickest way to confuse the shit out of people including yourself.

even if you are using it to try to play devil's advocate, you should never use wikipedia as a reliable source for ANY information. any idiot can go in there and put whatever they want

why not look at it from a contextual standpoint? in what context of blues licks are you most likely to hear a #4? probably when bending upwards from the perfect 4th. if not, then as a passing tone between the perfect 4th and 5th. if you are familiar with music notation, and im guessing that you are, then in both of those cases you would notate it as a raised scale degree 4 and not as a lowered scale degree 5.

and whether you look at it in the context of a jazz blues or a straight ahead blues, its still the same scale. i never brought the difference between the two up, so i dont see how i would be confusing myself or anyone else. and looking at the "proof" that you brought up yourself, you'll notice that the tritone (regardless of what you label it) wasn't even in standard usage until the adoption of the scale by bebop players. so why even bring it up, since its scary jazz theory and not "traditional blues?" which leads me to point out again: same scale regardless of its context.

i've been teaching for several years, and every time i introduce the student to the blues scale they always come back to me saying that they've read from other sources that the tritone is called the b5 in the blues scale and then proceed to ask me if its a diminished scale. SO, in my experience, its always been easier to refer to it as a #4 in order to avoid this confusion.

its obvious that you can argue for either name, but the point is that its the same note regardless. if people can avoid confusion by calling the b5, then so be it; i was just trying to put in my standpoint to offer a different perspective in case it did cause confusion. so this pointless argument is over with.

[MWR]

which leads me to point out again: same scale regardless of its context.

And you teach people?

I'm afraid this pointless argument isn't over when you declare it so, particularly when you say something so ignorant.
Of course it's not the same scale regardless of it's context. It's the context that determines what funtion the notes have. The same scale played over two different progressions takes on a different tonality.
Basically, I keep providing valid points and you keep pontificating about shit that's completely off topic while spreading misinformation that you created to suit your own needs. You should start an online campaign:

"Zenful declares that a b5, from this point on, should be called a #4 so as to suit the needs of HIS students, who were unfortunately led astray by his sub-standard teachings."

why not look at it from a contextual standpoint? in what context of blues licks are you most likely to hear a #4? probably when bending upwards from the perfect 4th. if not, then as a passing tone between the perfect 4th and 5th. if you are familiar with music notation, and im guessing that you are, then in both of those cases you would notate it as a raised scale degree 4 and not as a lowered scale degree 5.

Did you forget the argument we've been having? So now that we're talking about standard notation it all of a sudden proves your point that it would be notated as a #4? Why have I seen it written as a b5 countless times in standard notation then?

You're officially on my "that guy is full of shit" list. Congrats.

I'm sounding more and more like Fatjack with every post. I don't really feel like being loathed just yet so let's squash this beef. We can agree that I won this argument hands down and you put up a valiant but futile effort.

Thank you for for playing: Pointless Music Theory Debate. Sorry, no parting gifts for losers.

[skoal]

Just a few tips...

1) learn blues rhythm inside and out: the shuffle, 12/8, triplets, etc.

2) steal licks from the greats (Buddy Guy, SRV, Clapton etc)

3) diminished arpeggios

4) Practice

http://www.12bar.de/ is a great site, a very thorough breakdown of Clapton's blues style and a good tutorial on blues rhythm and lead playing. Wholenote.com also has a ton of great information. Go to Lessons > Blues

[skoal]

Damn MWR you really cut into this guy. In his last post he apologized for the confusion and said it was a pointless argument over semantics, which I think everyone can agree with. I had agreed with you the whole time, but then you belittle him as a teacher and tell him he's full of shit shearly out of spite. You ridiculed him for trying to flex his music theory muscles, as you put it, then in the end you do the exact same thing. Except when he did it, he was trying to prove a point. You were just trying to convey authority on an obscure online message board. I'm sorry, but it was out of line.

[colorado5117]

1. You're right that we aren't altering the 5th we're adding the b5. That was my mixup in terminology.

2. You're also right that you can mix sharps and flats when refering directly to a specific scale in a specific key i.e. G Harmonic minor is G,A,Bb,C,D,Eb,F#. But a specific scale is not what I'm talking about. I'm refering to a scale FORMULA, the intervals that make up the scale and how they relate to the major scale. Scale formulas tell you far more than a key ever would and they are independant from keys. They tell you about the tonality of the scale which is the most important thing when talking about notes that are enharmonic. Save for your more exotic scales, no scale formula mixes sharps and flats. In fact the only mode from the major scale that uses a sharp as an alteration is Lydian. Every other mode is altered by flattening one or more notes. Pentatonics are included in this as they are basically major or minor scales with notes taken away.

3. The blues scale is a minor pentatonic with the b5 added. It would NEVER be refered to as a #4 if you were playing it in a blues setting. I'm absolutely positive about this. Read a book on blues guitar and see if they call it a #4. My bet is you'll feel stupid after doing this.

but it makes more sense to call it a #4 because the b5 refers to chords of diminished quality. another example is the maj9#11 chord: have you ever seen it refered to as maj9b5? if you wrote it with the b5 rather than the #11, it confuses the player because they wouldn't know whether or not they should keep the perfect 5th as well. by calling it a #4, the player has no confusion about the quality of the chord's actual 5th.

This right here I think shows how off you are.
First of all why in the name of Zeus' butthole would a player be confused as to whether he should play a perfect 5th or not? That's a seriously rediculous thing to say. The perfect 5th, particularly in a maj9#11, would do almost nothing to change the tonality of the chord. It's a perfect interval! A player that could play a maj9#11 and locate the perfect fifth surely would be competant enough to decide if he should play it or not. I'm also not understanding why calling that chord a #11 tells you whether or not to play the perfect fifth any more than calling it a b5 does. Explain yourself.

I can see you're new here and obviously trying to flex your theory muscles but you're only traveling deeper into "I'm full of shit" territory. You know what you're talking about to a certain extent, I'll give you that, but you're wrong in this case.
Oh well, proceed with your fruitless efforts to prove me wrong, if you must.