You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The King: The Blues Scale

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

It's more scale talk today as Peter and Adam discuss the undisputed king of scales: the blues scale.In light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.There's a brand new course from Open Studio: Jazz Chords for Beginners. Learn from YHI's own Adam Maness as he teaches you the important chords you need to know to play jazz. You can also follow along with Adam thanks to our Guided Practice Sessions™, where he'll teach you exactly how to practice the concepts of each lesson. And as a response to the tough times many of us are going through these days, we've decided to launch this course at several different price points. For more info, follow this link.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The king is in the building. Come on. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. And watching. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Now you're watching because we're on the YouTube's today. Back on the YouTube.

We get excited. We get dressed up. You get your special Waldo hat out. And I get my fancy shirt. Come on. That's how we do it, man. Shout out to Google. Google. Keep on Google. Keep on taking over the world in a very slightly demonic way, I might add.

So we're doing this episode because if you Google blues scale, you get a variety of quality advice. Really? Well, yeah. I mean, by variety, I mean, like, a smattering of different kinds of quality about the blues scale. Okay. Any kind of mental health advice?

I'm thinking it could be, or is it all strictly musical, the blues, like how to combat the blues or something? I wouldn't call all of it musical, but it does deal with music. But we wanted to kind of give our take on the blues scale. We've been doing, like, a series of scale discussions. Right. I don't know if you remember it. Well, I remember what the hell.

The What the Hell series. No, I'm talking about like the altered states scale. Of course. That's one of our award winners. The don't diminish me diminish scale. That's right. And then there was the don't sleep on this, some Ionian thing or something, right? Yeah.

Well, there's the Lydian dominant, which ended up dominating us in the end. Yeah, that's right. So today we thought we talked about the blue scale. So there's a lot to talk about with the blue scale. There is a lot. And the first thing we should probably answer is what the hell is. listen. What the hell is the blue scale? Well, there's a little dispute on that. This can be fun. We've got to have a little controversy. We love bringing the controversy to the YouTube's as it were. There's been some recent blog post by some very famous musicians about the blue scale's origins, where it came from and what exactly it is. Commonly, it's known as this scale. That's where we've all kind of landed with it in the late 20th century to now, right? That's what we consider. When musicians talk amongst themselves about what is the blues scale, that's the first thing that comes up. Yeah. Correct? Would you agree?

One, two, three, four, five, six, no scale. Yeah, so in the key of C, it's C, E, F, F, sharp, G, G, F, F, sharp, G, G, B, flat, and then we're back at C. That's the way I learned. Me too, and it's that sound, right? You get that sound, it's the first way that when you're, like, a middle school musician, you want to sound hip. You learn that blues scale. You just lead into it the whole time. Oh, man.

Not knowing anything about life or phrasing or... Man, ignorance is bliss, for show. You've never had the blues once in your life. No, no. And you just lean into that blue note. I play the suburban blues baby. I like the suburbs baby. It's one step off from like the classical musician, body.

I'm a jazz person. Oh, I'm going to love you like nobody loves you. Yeah. Yeah, but when done right, the blues skill can be such an effective tool. Of course. And it doesn't have to be, it's one of those things that like, it's like rhythm or anything else that it doesn't have to, You don't have to complicate the blue scale.

The blue scale just exists with its own set of functions and sounds, and it just is a beautiful thing when done right. That's right. You don't have to complicate it, but let's get into the complexities. I'm ready. I'm ready to try. It's my best. Yeah.

Okay. So is it too early in the episode for me to bring out the secret blue scale? No. I love the secret blue scale. I think this is the first step. A lot of you probably, if you've been Googling the blue scale, you know that first one we talked about them. But there is what we've called the secret scale.

Blue Scale, which is really not a secret. It's not a secret. We've done videos on it before. So, yeah, it's just adding the major third to the aforementioned blue scale. So we're going, one minor three, major three, is that even legal? Fourth, flatted fifth, fifth, dominant seventh, root. Okay. So may I add one more secret note to this secret scale?

We've already... Don't get that. The next note you can add. So you just added that E natural in, which I think is the first note you should add into what everybody considers the blue scale. But I would also argue that between the B flat and the C, you can add that... You can't... You know what?

Let me add a couple notes. Wait, so you're saying that... That's the chromatic scale. Okay. So you're saying that B, you wouldn't lean into that like you could lean into the... I got the blues... Baby, baby, baby, baby. I don't know.

You've changed my mind. That is a fair point. No, I mean, that's a fair point. No, you could put it in, of course. And we do put it in. But it really, I feel like it doesn't have the quality in terms of leaning in that the major third matter. You know what? I'm going to, you've changed me on this.

Yeah, I mean, if you hop along to anything, of course. Look at the way your hips are moving. Of course it's going to sound lame. Yeah, yeah. No, okay. So we won't add that second secret in. that E natural is a great note to lean on in almost any situation. Maybe not like

because you could use the blues scale we'll get into this. Where can you use it? You could use it over a dominant chord. You could use it over a minor seven chord. You could use it over a major seven chord. Yeah. You get in the right context. It kind of has that blues connotation.

You can use it over just about anything. There's nothing you can't use it over if you are doing it the right way. Well, though let's get into an area you shouldn't. Maybe yeah, you can use it, but let's talk about some areas you shouldn't use it. Okay, good for some scale. So we're doing C blues, and then we go to F7.

Should we use an F blues scale? That's a big hell no. Hell no. Although, you know what, I've been such a big proponent of not doing this. I actually did this the other day, and quite to my delight, it sounded I ate. Okay, so. But it was an exception to the rule. We're going to get into this later because I have a whole system for this,

but you go ahead with your. Yeah, so We go to the four chord. Am I getting ahead of myself? No, no, no. So we stay on that C blues scale. We stay on the C blues scale because it's a really, it's a sound. It's a vibe that's so closely related to the tonic of the blues.

And that's really what the blues is about. Like we kind of get so far away from a musical standpoint, you know, from the blue sound over this dominant and the brilliance of the blues and what it's done to the world of music. It's about that, it's about a kind of a tonic sound, I mean, a dominant sound over the one, over the tonic. Which normally you wouldn't think is it supposed to lead somewhere. And it does lead somewhere. It does. But we're still on that blues.

It's both major and minor. It's both the dark and the light. It's an amazing tool. It's always darkest before dawn, baby. It's incredible. And that's why actually, you know, with your secret note there, that major third, even if you're playing a minor. Yeah. It's bluesy.

It's bluesy a. That's an E natural over minor chord. Not just as a passing tone either. No. And it sounds dope. So don't sleep on that secret note of the blue scale. Definitely don't do the B natural. No, the B natural's fine.

I just... Can we talk about some fingering issues that may be pianists? But I don't even think this is a piano issue. We get asked a lot about piano fingerings for scales and things. And people are dying for the fingering. for the blue scale in all 12 keys. But I always come back to, I haven't really, I haven't really sussed this completely out

because I'm still evolving on this, but this is not, the blue scale is not a scale to be played in a linear fashion. No, and I think because you've got, even with putting in some of the E, or even the B, you've got these big breaks where like thirds are already built into it. So like normally when we're talking about fingering

even of like, you know, like a diminished scale. It's a linear scale. It's all whole steps are half steps. If you play thirds, you break it up. You'd have a different kind of fingering pattern going. But with the blues scale, it starts out there. Yeah, you wouldn't skip notes with the blue scale. You wouldn't build chords necessarily off the blues scale.

It's my blues chord, baby. I mean, the closest you get is bluesy double stops. Hashtag bluesy double stops. Check out our episode on that. But it's not treated. Like you said, the diminus scale where you can practice in thirds or broken fifths. You know, this is not like that. is more, I think of this, and I've been teaching this now with our students, to think about this, not in a linear fashion of like, what's the right fingering to do this in every key? Because how often do you do that? You know, really what you're talking about is little zones, right? Yeah. So think about it with your thumb rooted to the C, with your thumb on the F, with your thumb on the G. Then go through the keys like that. So how does that work in E flat? Like, you know, for the piano, E flat is tricky. You've got to kind of anchor your thumb on the E flat.

Yep. And there's zones, again, you can anchor your thumb on the G flat. On the D flat. Yep. Like, you need to get comfortable with where your hand fits on this scale. It's probably more crucial with the blue scale than any other scale. How does the shape of your hand in your physiology line up with how this sounds? And what are the sounds that when you transcribe people playing the blue scale can you get,

thinking about how your thumb is anchored to, if you're on piano, how your thumb is anchored to one of, those notes. Yep. And then I would say when you're doing, when you're using the major third with the secret blue scale, you can think about from a fingering standpoint, it's a chromatic scale is what happens. Because you've got the minor third, major third, fourth.

And that's why, you know, having a good fingering on your instrument over the chromatic scale becomes one of the most important assets, technically, that you can apply to these sounds. All right, so we know that we can use the blue scale, just the one C blue scale over a C blues, right? Yeah.

Stay in there, stay there, baby. Even on the five. But what are our other options? Now, we're going to go into some territory, which I like to call things that Peter plays that he doesn't even know he's playing. But this is also something that I kind of picked up from our buddy Warren Wolf,

who did a course for us and talked about what he called the major blues scale, which I'd never heard of before. And he was acting like it was like scientific facts. Yeah, like what they teach at Berkeley or something, you know? This was a signed treaty in Boston. But this is something that I recognize, and you're playing,

this is definitely something that I use all the time. And it's using notes from the blue scale that's in the relative minor. So if we're in C, you know, that has that E flat in it and, of course, has more of a minor sound. Warren was talking about using the A blue scale. And it gets you that sound. That's what he meant by the major blue scale. Yeah. So the foundation of the scale is A.

It's an A blue scale without the secret. Without that secret, yeah. And you can use that again. on that F. Now, something I've heard some St. Louis blues guitars do is when they get to that five chord, they use the G major blues scale. Yeah. And then back to what they really do is...

And then... Back to the... Yeah, yeah. Back to that C regular blues scale. So that major blue scale, which is the blue scale based off of the relative minor in C, it's A. Warren was talking about how he... and you could hear this in a lot of players, interchanges these together.

Those are using those two in the same way. Now, I think you probably, probably think of the major blue scale more in a pentatonic way. That's how I hear you using it. But I think it's interesting to have those two different thoughts of like, oh, these are relative blue scales, the C and the A. Because you get some of those same shapes. Like, you know what I mean?

Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think my thing with the pentatonic, it almost becomes like the blue scale or you know you're taking parts of it to to apply the blue sound say to the end of a phrase that's coming out of a pentatonic situation you know so it's like so you know

so there's just like a little hint at it at the end to keep it from being I am all angular and pentatonic well and you can also use it because so many of the notes are the same and this is kind of like we've heard that that we overuse this when we when we play on these podcasts, but I have no apologies for overusing the blue scale at all, because I think it's great. But even if you're playing like a great American song, Songberg standard, Oh, come on. You know, throwing that blues scale.

Exactly. Throwing that blues scale in as your final phrase of a chorus or a solo, that brings that audience in a way that is impossible to do in any other way. You know what I mean? Like that's so solid and is like, my people. Come with me. Yeah, exactly. It's a real, it's like a welcome man. Come on into the blues. It's warm and fuzzy. And it can be, there's so many different levels that you can do it.

Like that was pretty overt, but it could also just be, I mean, just the minor third to major third. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then imagine like, all I can hear is like Sean Joneson being like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, something like that.

I think it could be a really effective tool. You don't like anything. You can overuse it for sure. Oh, yeah, we've been told that. I mean... If we have one fault, it's that we overuse the blue scale. No.

We're too funny. We love our audience too much. So, okay, I got another one for you. What do you know about blue scale layered in to the tapestry we call Bebop? Well, I know it's an important part of Bebop. Exactly.

Because you, I mean, think about your innovators in Bebop and really the originators of the developers of the vernacular of Bebop. A gentleman out of Kansas City. Is Kansas City a Blues Town? What? It might be.

They know a little. something about blues. Charles Parker. So, you know, the idea is like, you know, you can sneak it in in ways. So this is like over A-flat, even though I'm going to the D-flat. Same thing, like you're thinking kind of tonic because the tune, you know, is A-flat.

It's hard to find a bebop solo from Charlie Parker that doesn't have the blues come. Oh, yeah, very bluesy. Bird with strings, all those beautiful ballads. A lot of blues vernacular. It just fits well. And then you think about like, you know, Ornett Coleman, a lot of like very interesting applications within kind of, you know,

less tonal center stuff, but very blues-based. He's a blues musician. He knows the blues scale. Andy, I'm starting to think he might have known the secret blues scale. Coltrane, too. He didn't think about it as corny as I do, but, you know. So that's that. So the blues scale.

That's that. That's that. We told you. And that's it. All right, Google. Do your magic, Google. Don't do any more, don't do any less. No, remember the secret note using that major third.

Remember the relative minor blue scale and how you can use both of those interchanged. Remember how it's used in bebop. And those are kind of the key points to it, I think. I think we've covered some good ground here. I think we've fought the good fight for this blue scale. We have. Yeah, we'll see if Google picks up on it, but maybe in a week we'll come back and search. What did you search?

The Blue Scale or The Blue Scale. Yeah, the Blue Scale. Oh, also remember, it's not a linear scale. Don't treat it like a major scale or a diminished scale. Let's talk about a few ways. Let's look at some what not to do's. Because we want to go out on a negative note. So I have heard this done once in a great way.

And it was Benny Green and he just like, he basically stared down the audience and was like, I'm Benny Green and I can play this and you're going to love it. And we all did. That's right. And just play the blue scale straight down. But that's not going to be the way that is most effective. Yeah. Well, I'm thinking too. I've definitely heard some Oscar Peters in email.

might have got that from where he just flies through it so fast. For sure. But it's like there's so much happening there you don't even quite notice it. For sure. So those are ways you can get away with doing it. But let's talk about another way that you should not do it. Like with the skippy, scappy, sing songy. Again, skippy, scappy, linear

playing with it. Treat it as little zones that you can create melodies out of and it's going to be way more handy. But even if you were to mix it up in a zone. But that still sounds... Oh yeah, that doesn't sound good. Oh, you like that? You like that big guy? I don't. Again, if I watch your hips it doesn't help. Oh, so if I just do...

It's a little better. I'll be honest. A little bit better. Come play at my blues house. Yeah, baby. No, okay, but yeah, if you take that little skippity scop, I can stay in one zone and just be fine. Yeah, because you're playing, you're not doing what I did. I'm talking about things not to do.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay, so play hip rhythms, obviously. Drop down and give me ten ways not to play the blues scale, son. That's right. Okay. something maybe not to do is to change the blues scale

depending on the chord whatever key you're in I mean we talked about some options about the major blues scale yeah and then on the blues itself that five you can use that major blue scale

like a G major blue scale on the five chord sounds good but it's hard if you go to the four and use the four that doesn't work very well and so almost a no bueno situation yeah you kind of have to have

an advanced level of dealing with this for a while to get to that point difficulty 11 if you're just starting out the blues scale. Keep it simple, stupid. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're talking about? Talking to me? Always. But just keep it on that

one blue scale, maybe throw in that major blue scale experiment, but don't try to, as you said, when the blues goes from C7 to the four chord, don't go to the F7 blue scale. It doesn't really work. One last negative thing I want to, not negative, but just things not to do. No, let's go negative.

Look, and these are things that when you're learning, you kind of do them, and then you're like, well, I don't sound good. That's fine. You know, we're always trying to develop. But this, And definitely not this. Can you stop, please? Am I driving you crazy? I don't know something about that. I mean, can you do like...

And then jump on, yeah, maybe, but I don't know something. No, Bueno. No, boy, no. Well, until tomorrow. You'll hear it.