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Learn The Blues Scale

 
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Now let's talk about how to use this scale for improvisation.

Improvisation is one of those things that a lot of people end up completely overthinking. They assume there's some magical formula they're not understanding, when the only thing you really have to do is try some stuff and see what happens. Of course that would not be a gratifying process if you were just fumbling around blindly on the fretboard as you would most likely hit 10 bad notes for every good one.

And that's where our blues scale pattern comes in so incredibly handy, because all these notes tend to sound good when you improvise.

If I strum an A minor chord and keep it ringing, you can play any of the notes from the A minor blues scale and it'll sound good. All the pentatonic notes sound very pretty and fitting and then you'll notice that our new blues notes sound incredibly tense, but in a cool and bluesy way.

I hope you are trying out some notes right now, and maybe you're full of ideas and already having fun. It's also very likely that you're unsure if you're doing it right, but you are if you're playing the notes from the blues scale pattern. Try and pick only a few at a time and get creative with them. Don't overthink it. Just play!

Now let's try this out together over an A minor chord that just keeps ringing with no rhythm like a drone. I'll play for a bit at first, and again, I have nothing planned I'm just gonna play some notes from the blues scale pattern and see what happens. Then at some point I'll gesture to the camera and you can try.

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Learn The Blues Scale