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The A Blues Scale is the minor pentatonic scale with a note added to it.(b5 or diminish 5th) This scale usually played in every position where you would play the pentatonic scale. The added note (b5) gives the sound a very interesting sound and flavor while playing blues.
It never hurts to practice the scale in all the all six positions. This way you know it all over the fret-board and are not just playing it in one place all the time. Try playing this scale in A starting at the fifth fret shown in the scale fingerings below. The next octave scale fingering position is the same as the first one at fret (17) and starts over again after the last fingering.
Try it in the root E next starting at the open string scale fingering position (0) instead of fret (5) and play all the scale fingering positions up & down. Find a blues song in the same key and experiment jamming along in all the these scale fingering positions to get a feel for it Try it with a slow blues song to make it easier. The song by Stevie Ray Vaughan – Leave My Little Girl Alone is in A and it’s a good one to start with. Try bending notes with the (5) note up a half step to the (b5) note everywhere in all the scale fingering positions.
By Jeff Cox
A lot of famous songs have a guitar solo. The best and simplest place to begin is soloing to the blues. If your learning on your own without a teacher these lessons on beginning guitar solos will give you some basic starting material to work on. Practicing an hour every day will eventually will give you a starting point to become a solo guitar player.
The first two beginner scales to learn is the A minor pentatonic scale (5 note scale) and A Blues Scale (6 Note Scale):
5th Fret A minor Pentatonic
———————5-8—-
—————–5-8——–
————-5-7————
———5-7—————-
—–5-7——————–
-5-8————————
5th Fret A Blues
———————5-8—-
—————–5-8——–
————–5-7-8——–
———5-7—————
—–5-6-7—————–
-5-8————————
If your a right handed player. place your 1st index finger of the left hand on the fifth fret sixth string. Next your 3rd – Ring Finger will be fretting the eighth fret. This will prep you for what the numbers mean in the picture diagram of the upside down guitar fret board. The tablature diagram has six lines the bottom line is the fat six string and the top is the thin 1st string and the number are the frets. The open notes is 0 the first widest fretted note is 1 then next 2 and so on up to the thinnest fret, which the highest note on that string usually 21 on most electric guitars. The square in the picture diagram on the bottom sixth string is the key note of the minor pentatonic scale and the next square is the next second octave note and the next square after that the third octave note.
We are now going to practice both scales playing one note after the other all the way to the last and back down with a pick in the right hand picking up and down. You my be asking yourself is this really playing it seems so laboring and boring to me. There is a lot of dexterity and muscle memory development going on with your left fretting hand and right picking hand. Just like learning to walk you hand to crawl and fall down and get up over and over again until you walk then eventually run
To spare you from this boredom here is a sequence exercise technique to help you develop your fingers even more. You play the first note to the next note and back then the second note to the next note on the next string and back and so forth until you play the highest note. You next can practice your vibrato you vibrate your fretting finger on each note to give it a fluttering vocal quality next you slide from one note up to next and back with the 1st finger by itself then the 3rd finger by itself.
Next pick the first note and hammer from your 1st finger to your 3rd finger to the next note. Then do the opposite going down pick the 3rd finger higher note and pull off to the 1st finger lower note. Bending notes comes next on the third string seventh fret bend with all three finger up a half a step to match the pitch of the next eight fret note.
Know it’s time to jam in real time get a MP3 song by Stevie Ray Vaughan – Leave my little Girl Alone. First make sure your guitar is in tune using a tuner. If you have an electric guitar play through an amp with a mild distortion. if you have an acoustic just play along unplugged. Jam free form along with Stevie and get the feel of the blues phasing.
You now have a good start to get you playing lead guitar.
By Jeff Cox
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