Teach Yourself Guitar

How to play blues guitar scales

Guitar Scales, Music Theory, Pentatonic Scale, Teach yourself guitar No Responses »

Jul 272011

So the dog ran away, your better half left you, you’ve lost your job, and the car broke down. That could bring on a serious case of the blues. It’s best to know how to express those blues in musical form, so we’ll cover the basics of how to play the blues guitar.

As a starting point, it’s good to review the minor pentatonic scale, because the blues guitar scale is just a minor pentatonic scale plus one note (in two octaves). Aptly enough, this note is called the “blue note,” and it is a flat 5th. This configuration is sometimes called the “pentatonic blues scale.” When you’re improvising over a blues progression, these are the notes that will form the backbone of your playing.

So here’s the old familiar minor pentatonic scale, but with our flat fifth added in to create the blues scale:

Couldn’t be easier, right?

Here it is again, this time shown in the root 5th form, with a few more options for where to play the blue note.

Of course, you can add the blue note to any other form of the minor pentatonic scale for guitar, as well. We’ve just given you the two most common examples here.

Click for much more on musical scales and modes.

Motivation is the Key to Progress During Your Guitar Lessons

Music Lessons and Performance, Teach yourself guitar, Uncategorized No Responses »

Jun 232011

When you are learning a new musical instrument there is one key above all others that will put you in the right direction to success. That key is motivation. This applies to learning to play the guitar just as much as it does for just about any other instrument. If you are motivated you can [...]

The notes of the major pentatonic scale.

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Jun 042011

In a series of previous posts, we went over the guitar hand positions for the pentatonic scale. In this installment in our “teaching yourself guitar” series, we’ll talk about what notes you’re actually playing when you use those patterns to play the major pentatonic scale. (Click here to see the notes of the minor pentatonic [...]

The notes of the minor pentatonic scale

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Jun 042011

We went over the hand positions on the guitar neck for the pentatonic scale in a series of prior posts. While we talked about the kinds of songs that used the pentatonic scale in general, and the minor pentatonic scale in particular, we didn’t really tell you much about what the notes actually are. That [...]

The Circle of Fifths

Circle of Fifths, Guitar Scales, Music Theory, Teach yourself guitar No Responses »

May 292011

Music is all about symmetry, order, and patterns. There are so many subtle patterns at play – both from a mathematical and theoretical standpoint as well as from a tonal (or audible) perspective – in any given musical composition that it can take quite a while to really understand a piece of music. We tend [...]

Guitar Chords for Beginners

Guitar Chords for Beginners, Teach yourself guitar No Responses »

May 112011

Learn the most powerful chords first I’m talking, of course, about bar chords (you also sometimes see them spelled “barre” chords). They’re so powerful because they’re so simple. Once you learn the basic hand position, you can just move the hand position around the fretboard to play a different chord. In other words, once you [...]

The Pentatonic Scale - Part 5

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May 102011

The last form of the Pentatonic Scale This is the fifth of our five-part series on the Pentatonic Scale, the most important musical scale for guitar. It’s not that there aren’t more interesting scales you can learn, it’s just that the pentatonic scale is the most versatile and widely employed musical scale for guitar. It’s [...]

The Pentatonic Scale - Part 4

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May 102011

Pentatonic Scale Basics – Form 3 This is the fourth of five common pentatonic scale formations on the guitar fretboard. It’s commonly called “Form 3,” and it fits just to the left of the Root 5th Pentatonic Scale formation on the fretboard. Like all other pentatonic scale forms, use it in a major key for [...]

The Pentatonic Scale Part 3

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May 102011

We’re still on the Pentatonic Scale? We certainly are – this is our third form, and we have two more pentatonic scale forms to go after this one. That’s because there are 5 basic pentatonic scale positions for the guitar. You can use them to play the pentatonic major scale (think country and pop kind [...]

The Pentatonic Scale Part 2

Guitar Scales, Pentatonic Scale, Teach yourself guitar No Responses »

May 062011

The pentatonic scale for guitar is the most important scale you can possibly learn, because it has the widest application across a number of different musical styles and genres. When I first heard people talk about “musical scales” it sounded a lot like homework, so I completely ignored it for a number of years. I [...]

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