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I just saw FM Blues Lessons, WOW!! I will be working on those scales tonight!!
Patience is necessary to learn the violin: But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.-James 1:4
When I get discouraged: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.-Philippians 4:13
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Go for it. The blues scale is a scale of it's own (minor pentatonic + the blue note), but the Dorian scale the Fiddlerman demonstrates as well as the natural minor scale can both be played over any minor blues progression (normally 1-4-5) and sound great. In addition, they can also be put to good use over many Jazz progressions.
The only real difference, which I'm not sure that he covered, is the "blue" note, of the blues scale. A normal minor pentatonic is 1-b3-4-5-b7 and the blues scale adds the b5 (the blue note) making it a six note scale rather than a 5 note scale. When you hear the b5, you'll immediately think of the blues.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright
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Thanks Uzi. For those who may not have understood Uzi's explanation, I created an easy blues scale exercise to demonstrate the scale. Essentially you add that leading tone (flat fifth) to the minor pentatonic.
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but the one who needs the least."
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Uzi said
Go for it. The blues scale is a scale of it's own (minor pentatonic + the blue note),
There is also a type of the blues scale formed from the Major pentatonic scale. it is an inversion of the minor blues scale. It has a Major feel...swingy or for country, just like the difference between minor & major pentatonic scales. here's an example of what I mean
E G A Bb B D E E 'minor' Blues scale
G A Bb B D E G G major 'Blues' Scale
Note: these are the same notes played in a different sequence, but still has the common 'blue note', the Bb. You can slide in and out of the Bb for both. The one that starts on G you could use for a I - IV - V.... G, C, D for a country or folk or blues background. In some situations you can interchange them for tension.
I don't know whether this has been talked about on this forum before?
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blues violin said
.......I don't know whether this has been talked about on this forum before?
Maybe we haven't discussed this but it's definitely worth mentioning. 
Please feel free to share any examples of you or anyone else playing major pentatonic blues.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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bluesviolin said
Uzi said
Go for it. The blues scale is a scale of it's own (minor pentatonic + the blue note),There is also a type of the blues scale formed from the Major pentatonic scale. it is an inversion of the minor blues scale. It has a Major feel...swingy or for country, just like the difference between minor & major pentatonic scales. here's an example of what I mean
E G A Bb B D E E 'minor' Blues scale
G A Bb B D E G G major 'Blues' Scale
Note: these are the same notes played in a different sequence, but still has the common 'blue note', the Bb. You can slide in and out of the Bb for both. The one that starts on G you could use for a I - IV - V.... G, C, D for a country or folk or blues background. In some situations you can interchange them for tension.
I don't know whether this has been talked about on this forum before?
@bluesviolin Absolutely right. A typical blues cliche is to play minor pentatonic over the 1 chord and the major pentatonic over the 4 chord. Experienced players intermingle them seamlessly over the entire progression. I'm speaking from a guitar perspective, since I don't play the fiddle well enough to do that on the fiddle -- yet.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright
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Hello UZI: yes, that's exactly what I do many times, minor blues over the I, and major blues over the IV. Thanks very much for confirmation. and yes, it's great to get a flow going with this over the whole progression.
I play a pretty decent lead guitar (even if I do say so myself!) Started guitar around 8 and violin at 22. I'm now 61. I find that there are more guitar players that know about this than fiddle players. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems that way. I don't bother with guitar much anymore, I'd rather play Violin.
Cheers, bv.
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There's a lot of options when you look at tactics for improvising or composing, even staying within a blues feel.
One of the simplest is to use strictly a minor pentatonic scale with the typical I IV V progression, maybe using dominant 7th chords for either all three chords in that progression or just for the V on the turnaround in a 12 or 8 bar blues progression. Like a C minor pentatonic scale (C, Eb, F, G, Bb) over C, F, G (and optionally using a dominant 7th for the G chord or even all the chords in the progression). Even without the infamous "blue note", you can get a lot of blues sounds from that.
I do major/minor interplay a bit differently sometimes than bluesviolin, with switching to an actual Major pentatonic (C, D, E, G, A, for key of C Major) for a change of mood/feel that is less subtle than a modal shift.
Another thing I like to do is shift from a minor pentatonic for most of the chords to a natural minor over the IV chord to have a little more color options to develop a phrase stated over the I chord.
There's a lot of things one can do when improving or composing blues that will give good sounds to work with, and you can hear all the options mentioned in this thread as well as others used in trad blues.
Scale and mode aren't your only options when trying different feels in blues either. Try something as easy as sometimes starting your phrases on the second beat of the measure instead of the first.
Lots of ways to have fun and get creative.
I started guitar at 15 and I'm 54 now. Blues or blues based rock is what I have always tended to use most for solos. I learned other things and styles, but that has always been "home".
Violin/fiddle, I've only been playing for 3 yrs so far. If I could do even a quarter of what I can do on guitar on violin... Well, maybe someday. LOL I can improv blues well enough on violin to have fun with a blues or rock backing track, and that will do nicely for now.
I still play plenty of guitar, as well as some other instruments, since I like having a variety of musical possibilities. I can certainly understand folks who prefer to focus on just one, but it has never really been my way.
I would agree with bluesviolin that talk like this doesn't seem to happen as much with violinists/fiddlers as guitarists, at least so far as I have seen. So it doesn't get talked about a lot here, but once in a while a thread like this will show up.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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bluesviolin said
Uzi said
Go for it. The blues scale is a scale of it's own (minor pentatonic + the blue note),There is also a type of the blues scale formed from the Major pentatonic scale. it is an inversion of the minor blues scale. It has a Major feel...swingy or for country, just like the difference between minor & major pentatonic scales. here's an example of what I mean
E G A Bb B D E E 'minor' Blues scale
G A Bb B D E G G major 'Blues' Scale
Note: these are the same notes played in a different sequence, but still has the common 'blue note', the Bb. You can slide in and out of the Bb for both. The one that starts on G you could use for a I - IV - V.... G, C, D for a country or folk or blues background. In some situations you can interchange them for tension.
I don't know whether this has been talked about on this forum before?
....more on this.... I discovered this statement on this site under the blues scale category:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.....inor_scale
"Note well that the C major blues scale and its relative minor the A minor blues scale, both comprise the same notes. They differ only in which note is nominated as the root."
...and further to this, I recently got a tip that a b5 can be added to a Major blues scale to give it a jazzy spin. for C this would be C, D, Eb, E, Gb G.
the Gb, same as F#, is a raised fourth in C. This is the Lydian note, and makes this Maj blues scale (with the added F#/Gb) take on a distinct Lydian flavor, which I like very much.
...all fascinating and very practical stuff for the aspiring blues/jazz player imo, but I kinda get the impression that there's not a whole lot of interest in this kind of thing here at fiddle talk?
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Fiddlerman said
blues violin said
.......I don't know whether this has been talked about on this forum before?
Maybe we haven't discussed this but it's definitely worth mentioning.
Please feel free to share any examples of you or anyone else playing major pentatonic blues.
@Fiddlerman well, I'm hiring a friend to teach me how to make a video and post it. I've got a borrowed video cam, and this guy is gonna load me up with some free video soft ware, teach me how to operate the vid cam, and how to get it from the camera into my computer and then to the World :-). One of the first things I hope to do is demo this major blues scale against it's relative minor.
Set up to have my first 'how to make a video' lesson this Saturday, and we're planning for regular Saturdays. Not sure how long it will take.
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Is this in the category of bluesy?
I am trying to figure out the notes for this one but only have this one video for it. Music starts around 1:33 I know it iuses a G blues scale.
Violinist start date - May 2013
Fiddler start date - May 2014
FIDDLE- Gift from a dear friend. A 1930-40 german copy, of a french copy of a Stradivarius. BOW - $50 carbon fiber. Strings - Dominants with E Pirastro Gold string.
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Yup, if I was playing along with this (which I did for a bit) I'd be using the G maj blues scale. G, A, Bb, B, D, E, (G) I almost always slide in and out and around the Bb/B over 4 strings there is a lot you can do by mixing up the notes of this scale. there are 3 Bb's in G... on the G string, the A string, and the E string.
The F note would be another 'blue note' you could use also. eg. lick F, E, D ....that would put a mixolydian flavor to it. I would recommend just experimenting and getting the feel of it.
These are all excellent musicians, and they are doing much more than the basic G blues scale, I'm hearing some Gmin blues licks in there which also works, but imho the Major would be a solid foundation.
on the 4 chord (C) you could switch it up to a Cmaj blues scale. C, D, Eb, E, G, A, (C) try this riff in C if you like, C note, 3rd finger G string C D Eb E G A C D Eb down D C.
could do exactly the same riff in G.... start G note 3rd finger D string.
This stuff needs a swingy feel, but you'd get the hang of it if you fooled around with it for a bit. if you put a few hours into it, you'd be surprised. Let me know how you're doing.
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bluesviolin said
The F note would be another 'blue note' you could use also. eg. lick F, E, D ....that would put a mixolydian flavor to it.
....to take this a bit further...another foundational way of approaching this tune would be to use the G mixolydian scale, which is the same as a Cmaj scale. the F note in the Cmaj scale is what turns it into G mixo.
on the FM blues lesson, Fiddlerman demo'd the E dorian scale for E minor blues. in the same way you could use the G mixo scale for Gmaj blues.
G mixolydian scale would be G A B C D E F (G).... these are the same notes as a Cmaj scale. Some people think it out as a Gmaj scale with a b7. I prefer to think it out as a Cmaj scale with a G resting tone.
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Look forward to seeing the videos.
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but the one who needs the least."
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Uzi said
Go for it. The blues scale is a scale of it's own (minor pentatonic + the blue note), but the Dorian scale the Fiddlerman demonstrates as well as the natural minor scale can both be played over any minor blues progression (normally 1-4-5) and sound great. In addition, they can also be put to good use over many Jazz progressions.The only real difference, which I'm not sure that he covered, is the "blue" note, of the blues scale. A normal minor pentatonic is 1-b3-4-5-b7 and the blues scale adds the b5 (the blue note) making it a six note scale rather than a 5 note scale. When you hear the b5, you'll immediately think of the blues.
but you don't hear much about the Major blues scale. I use it extensively, can be played over a Dom7 1-4-5 or a Cowboy chord 1-4-5 with major chords. it turns blues into swing. it is simply an inversion of the minor blues scale, just like E min = G maj. or Amin=Cmaj. an E min pent is the same scale notes as Gmaj pent etc.
1-2-b3-3-5-6 with the maj blues scale the 'blue' note is the b3....I like to call it the green note. it's a b3 added to a major pent instead of a b5 added to a minor pent. you can slide in and out of the b5 for the minor bues scale and slide in and out of the b3 for the major blues scale. you can do the major over the I chord and go into the minor over the IV chord etc.
http://paulmaine.com/tag/major.....s-scale/
woops! looking back this was already thoroughly discussed.....oh well
umm...can I have my 15 minutes back...plus the time it took me to go back into edit and type in 'can I have my 15 minutes back'
"Striving to attain Mediocrity"
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