Blues Scale
Blues scales also come in major and minor varieties. The C minor blues scale is C E♭ F F♯ G B♭ C ascending or C B♭ G G♭ F E♭ C descending. The difference in the up and down versions is only in its enharmonic spelling, i.e. G♭ vs F♯.
The C major blues scale is C D D♯ E G A C ascending or C A G E E♭ D C descending.
Guitarists often mix the major and minor pentatonics together along with the blues scale. The dorian and mixolydian modes are similar to this combination and they can also be used in the same context.
Winthrop Sargeant describes the jazz scale as the above scale, defined as, "a definite series of tones within an octave used as the basis of a musical composition," compiled instead from multiple compositions and improvisations (according to Stearns: "a great many jazz records") and is hypothesized as displaying the influence of African music. The E♭ and B♭ are blue notes.
Read more about this topic: Jazz Scale
Famous quotes containing the words blues and/or scale:
“Holly Golightly: You know those days when you’ve got the mean reds?
Paul: The mean reds? You mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No, the blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.”
—George Axelrod (b. 1922)
“The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)