Chords for How to Spice Up Your Blues Riffs Using a Modified Blues Scale

[A] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ [F#m] _ [Am] _ _
[Em] _ _ [C] _ [Cm] _ [Am] _ _ _ [Bm] _
[Am] Hi, Travis here from Wampler Pedals and the Chasing Tone Podcast.
A question I get asked a lot is how to kind of spice up a blues scale or make blues playing
a little bit more interesting.
What I did there in the intro was still just a basic blues, but I played a few notes that
live outside that pentatonic scale that everybody's real familiar with.
So I'll give you an example of what I kind of do.
I'm not going to go real in-depth, like the theory and things like that.
And if you're a fusion player, you're probably going to not get much out of this.
But if you're just wanting to learn how to spice up that basic pentatonic scale, this
might help you a little bit.
So let's start with just an A blues scale.
So I'll go over it real quickly, but I'm going to go over that quickly because I'm assuming
you know the blues scale.
So here it is.
_ [D] _ [D#] _
[Em] _ [Am] _ _ [E] _ [Am] _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ [N] _ So that's just a blues scale.
And then another scale I think is real important to know, and a lot of people actually don't
learn it before they learn their pentatonic scale.
They skip over it.
It's the major scale.
And the reason being is everything is based off of that.
You hear people give numbers 1, 4, 5 and things like that.
That's based off of the major scale.
So let's just run over it really quickly in the key of A.
There's all kinds of different
fingerings for this.
This is the one I will use for the mindset of how I think of my pentatonic scale.
_ [C#] _ [D] _ [E] _
[F#] _ [E] _ [A] _ [C#m] _ [D] _ [E] _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ So that's just your major scale.
But what I do is I assign a number to every note.
So and it's very simple.
It's just 1, 2, 3, 4, [N] 5, 6, 7.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
And so basically it's just two octaves of the exact same thing, just repeated.
And the reason that's important is because I'm going to add some notes to the blues scale
and the first ones I'm going to add are the 3 and the 6th.
And that's what I'm going to focus on for this video.
So here's your blues scale adding the 3 and the [Am] 6th.
_ [C#] _ _ [Em] [D] That would be the 3.
[D#] _ [E] _ _ [F#] That [B] would be the 6.
[G] _ [Am] _ _ [C#m] _ _ [D] 3 again. _
[A] _ _ [E] [F#] That _ [G] would be the 6th.
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ So it sounds kind of odd when you play it that way.
But the reason we're throwing those in there is because those are called chord [A] tones.
So if I'm playing an A chord, an A7 for like a blues chord, _ _ _ the 3 [C#] is in there here. _
_ [Am] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
So the 6 is not in that chord but it works really well in it.
So I'll play, I'll add a 6 to [G#] the 7th chord [A] which _ _ _ _ _ is basically a dominant chord like a
13 but you'll hear that a lot in swing music.
[F#m] _ _ [D] _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ _ So now let's get into some licks.
So if I'm playing over an A chord, I'm going to do things that really, like for instance
I can land on the 3 instead of the 1.
So here's a basic blues lick where you resolve it onto the 1.
And it's kind of a cliche blues lick but it works.
[G] _
[A] _ [Em] _ _ _ [C] _ [A] _ _
So now I'll do the same thing only instead of ending on the 1 or the root, I'll end on the 3.
[D] _ [Am] _ _ [G] _ _ [C] _ _ [C#] _
_ _ [Am] So it adds a little tension and if you're hearing it in context it'll sound like this.
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ [A] _
And the cool thing about that is it can lead into your next chord.
So if we're playing a blues in A, the next chord would be a D chord but I'm going to
play a type of dominant chord.
I'll just do [D] a 9th.
[Am] _ _ [Dm] So now I'll do that exact same lick and then I'll take that into a D chord.
_ [Am] _ [G] _ [Dm] _ [Am] _
[A] _ _ [G] _ [F#] _ [Am] _ _ [Em] So you can hear it walks into it.
It really leads to it and it's going to be a little bit more interesting.
So and if you notice I also ended on a 6th which is the 3 of the D chord but we'll get
into that later.
_ So here's another lick using the 6th but I'll actually bend the 6th up to a 7 which
kind of gives a cool sound.
So it sounds like this. _ _ _
_ _ _ So that's the [Bm] 6th and then this is the next note in [G] that blues scale.
_ _ So let's bend that up to the 7.
_ _ And then you can write it back down to complete the lick.
_ [F#] _ _ [E] _ [C] _ [A] _
_ _ _ [N] So now when you throw that into some blues playing, you know, you don't have to play it smooth.
You can play aggressive and still get those [A] tones.
[Em] _
[Dm] _ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ [F#] _ [Am] _ _
_ [G] _ [A] _ _ _ [Em] _ [D] _ [C] _
[D] _ [Em] _ _ [C#] _ [A] _ _ _ [E] _
So you can hear just by adding the 3 [C#] and _ [Fm]
[F#] the 6th to your blues scale, it really spices things up.
So now I'm going to play around a basic blues but I'm going to utilize the 3 and the 6th
chord and I'm going to play those over every chord.
So here's [A#] starting just a blues so it's [G] going to be A, D, and E.
[A] _ _ _
_ [Em] _ [F#m] _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#] _ _ _ [Bm] _ [Am] _ _ _
[A] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ [F#] _
_ _ [Bm] _ [A] _ [G] _ [Am] _ _ [Bm] _
[F] _ [G] _ [Am] _ [Em] _ [C#] _ _ _ [N] _
_ So hopefully that helps you spice up your blues playing or just give you some ideas
of how to incorporate different notes that aren't in that blues scale, in this case,
the 3 and the 6th.
So hopefully that helps.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.
Thank you so much for watching. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _