chord changes and scales

Hi
I have been playing the guitar for many years mainly for my own pleasure. When improvising a solo I have allways been confused as to whether I should change to a different scale at the chord change. Example 12 bar blues in A; should I stick with an A scale for the entire 12 bars or should I move to a D scale when the chord changes to a D, and an E scale at the change to E.
I have been playing this way (changing scale to match the chord) for a long time and I've found it does not allways seem to sound right and also sounds predictable, as I tend to start each change with the note of the chord, any thoughts would be appreciated

:confused:

You have the right idea, it is ok to change the 'scale', but what you are doing is not quite correct. You need to stay in the A Major scale, but when you change the underlying chord, you can start the scale on the root of the chord.

Example, when playing an A Major chord, you want to start on the A. When you change to a D, you still play the A Major scale, but start on D instead. This is the Lydian Mode. When you change to E, it is the Mixolydian Mode.

The reason that it doesn't quite sound right when you play is because you are effectively changing the key by changing the scale you use. An E Major scale played over an A Major progression will not sound quite right because some of the notes in the E Major scale clash with the A Major key that you are playing in.

A Major scale - Ionian Mode - A B C# D E F# G# A
- Lydian Mode - D E F# G# A B C# D
- Mixolydian Mode - E F# G# A B C# D E
D Major scale D E F# G A B C#
E Major scale E F# G# A B C# D# E

By comparing the three major scales, you can see where the notes don't add up. However, by changing the Mode, you stay within the same scale, you just change the starting point.

I would recommend you read up on Modes to get a firm grasp on what you are trying to accomplish. I think that you will find your playing will sound awesome if you can understand the Modes.

I hope this helps.

Thanks very much highinfidel, I'd given up hope that someone was going to reply to this post.
I understand what you are saying, haven't tried it yet, but since I first posted this thread I've had a look at a tutorial on this site about modes and what you've written makes a lot of sense.
It's something I've wondered about for a long time and when I found this page I finally found a place to put the question to many people.
I'll give it a try and see how I go, It might be just the thing I need to take my playing to a new level,
Thanks again
NITRO

From your question it is not clear what scale your using on the blues in A, but I guess you mean a pentatonic scale. What highinfidel says is correct in itself, but you usually don't use a major scale in a blues, so I wouldn't play an A-major scale on the A-chord. Blues is has some 'untheoretical' elements (from a classic point of view), which make highinfidel's answer not very much to the point (sorry, highinfidel), but a practical answer to your question:

If your blues uses A7, D7, E7, or just A, D, E (standard major chords), you can play an A pentatonic bluesscale (A, C, D, D# -the blue note-, E, G) on all chords, but you can also 'follow' the chords and play a D pentatonic bluesscale (D, F, G, G#, A, C) on D7, and E pentatonic blues (E, G, A, A#, B, D) on E7. This will also work on a minor blues (Am, Dm, Em or Am7, Dm7, Em7)and will sound 'right', although taste is everything, ofcourse.

If your blues consists of dominant chords (in A: A7, D7, E7), a jazz-aproach is to use an A-mixolydian scale on A7, D-mixo on D7 and E-mixo on E7. Look up what notes these scale have and what patterns they have on the fretboard, if you don't know. If you've never used these scales before, they will take some getting used to and it will take -a lot of- training before you smoothly 'follow' the chords.

To avoid sounding predictable you shouldn't start -as you said- on the chord note when the chord changes. You can train yourself in a million ways, but with the pentatonic scales, for example try starting on the minor third when the chord changes, so C on A, F on D and G on E, and then train all the other notes as a starting point (fourth, raised fourth, fifth etc.) and just let your ear decide what you're going to play after the first note. Starting on the third (or fourth, fifth, etc.) each time can in itself become predictable, so when you've got this down, mix them up. A good training to avoid predictability is starting on different (up- and down) beats in the bar as well.

This has become a very long answer.... Hope you can use it.

Thanks for your reply IvarT,I certainly will make use of your suggestions. If you do read this, I have a question: If I use three scales in the one tune ie a twelve bar using 7th chords A7,D7,E7 , that in effect gives me lot 's of different notes. Can I then use the D pentatonic scale to solo with over the a7 and the e7 aswell as the d7, or the E pentatonic over a7 and d7 as well as e7 ?. I know the best way to figure this out is to jam along with someone, but as that is not possible in my situation I'll have to find or record some backing tracks for the purpose.
looks like I have a lot of practice !

Thanks in advance
nitro :)

Well when you have a chord progression like A7 D7 E7, you are changing the key on every chord. A7 is not in the key of A major, it's in the key of D. If you learn the modes, you will then understand that it's much easier to just play the A mixolydian scale over an A7 chord. The mixolydian mode is the scale to use over the dominant chord since it's the 5th mode of a major scale. The dominant 7 chord is the 5th note in a major scale. See how they are equal.

Now when it comes to blues, the blues minor scale is used instead of the mixolydian mode. So A minor blues scale is played over an A7 chord and so on. The A minor blues scale can be used over the entire progression of A7 D7 E7 and still sound fine. The only problem in my experience is that the solo then becomes "boxed in". You are limited to using only 6 notes for an entire solo. Expanding to using a different root scale over each chord opens up many more possibilities. The key behind this thinking is understanding what notes are in each chord. So as you play over an A7 chord, you know that the chord is made up of the notes A, C#, E, and G. So when you play these notes over an A7 chord, they will sound consonant. Every other note will sound dissonant. Musical melody is a constant balance of dissonance and consonance. You can't have all consonant notes because then the music will sound boring and predictable. Dissonance is what gives the music personality. The b5 or Eb in the case of an A7 chord is an example of dissonance, or better yet the dissonance associated with the "blues" sound.

So when you jamming over chords, think of what notes are in each chord as you solo over each. Those are your goal notes. Throughout your solo over a chord, you goal is to eventually get to one of the notes in that chord. If it's the chord progression A7 D7 E7, use the A minor pent as a guideline.

And to complete the answer: only the A bluesscale can be used over all the chords. The D and E bluesscale normally don't 'work' over the entire progression, just on their own chord. Sort of in addition to what noticingthemistake is saying though: the best players can start on any note on any chord, no matter how 'wrong', and make it sound good by resolving it to a note that does 'work'.

Once you've got the mixolydian and bluesscales under your fingers (give it time), you'll see that -although very difficult to perform- even from a 'theoretical' point of view this is not as strange as it looks. We've figured out that on A7 you can play both an A-mixolydian scale, which is: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G, A and an A-bluesscale, which is: A, C, D, D#/Eb, E, G (transpose this to D and E yourself). These scales obviously have different and common notes. Combining the 2 gives you, for example, a 9-note A-scale that runs like this: A, B, C, C#, D, Eb/D#, E, F#, G, A. The only notes, we've only got 12, that haven't been used are A#, F, and G#. These are ' resolvable' though, you can play an A# and a G# and let it resolve down or up to A. You can play an F and resolve it to E, or even take it to A, via F#, G, G#, A, for example. Some jazz-players use other scales that do contain these notes, by the way. So the final conclusion can be: as long as you resolve it, there are no 'wrong' notes on a blues and all this theory is only a tool. So why learn scales in the first place, you could say?

Learning scales is good, beacuse every scale creates its own atmosphere, which is because you're confining yourself to using a specific set of notes. A blues is ideal practical material to start learning this. Learn the mixolydian and blues scales, as well as the arpeggio's of the chords separately, as a very good start. Just remember that you can switch scales even within a bar, and that it is allowed to play notes outside the scale, as long as you resolve them. Scales are a very practical tool to learn how all the different notes in the scale sound against the chord, or better what tension they have towards the chord. Playing the scales, you will hear that some notes create a lot of tension/ dissonance, like the Eb on A7, others will have less (A on A7 as the most obvious example, but also the other chord notes: C#, E, and G). The resolving 'thing' is taking a note with a lot of tension, like the Eb, to a -the easiest is: nearby- note with less tension, like the E.

I'm sure this will give you enough practice material for the coming years, just as I'm still practicing all this.

As I wrote in an earlier post this is something I've been tryin to figure out for years,..... how the good blues guys get those solos that really make you sit up and take notice, like BB King, his playing shows its not all about the speed of your fingers but where you put them, I saw a video of BB giving a lesson and he pretty much said what you guys have, but not in so much detail. He also talked about using the notes of the chord.

Thanks guys

nitro :)