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:
“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)
“There is something in us, somehow, that, in the most degraded condition, we snatch at a chance to deceive ourselves into a fancied superiority to others, whom we suppose lower in the scale than ourselves.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)