Using The Blues Hybrid Scale (Guitar Lesson IM-143) How to play IF Stage 4

Justin's Completely Free, Intermediate Guitar Course Lesson IM-143.
Stage 4, Lesson 3.

In this guitar lesson we look at improvising using the blues scale and a blues hybrid scale (a mix of dorian and blues scale) commonly used by the blues masters!

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-143-TheBluesScale.php

This is part of Justin's Intermediate Guitar Method, Foundation. A series of lessons available free online!

http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hi. How are you doing ? Justin here !
Welcome to IM143

in which we're gonna be checking out
the Blues scale, and a blues hybrid scale.

You'll notice that I'm playing
an electric guitar for this,

you don't have to play an electric guitar,

just I think a lot of Blues Lead Guitar
sounds cooler on an electric guitar

but if you're playing an acoustic,
it'll work just as good, so don't worry about it.

The scale that we're gonna be playing,
as I mentioned is the Blues Scale,

which is essentially the same
as the Minor Pentatonic Scale,

but it adds one note which is
the the flattened 5th scale degree,

also referred to as the Blue note.

Funnily enough that's why
it's called the Blues scale.

So let's get to a close up,
and check out this new scale.

We're starting here at the 5th fret
with our first finger,

and we're starting exactly the same as we did
for an A minor pentatonic scale.

So we're playing 1st finger

then 4th finger in the 8th fret,

then 1st finger
in the 5th fret of the 5th string,

but then we add here this extra note
with the 2nd finger,

in the 6th fret of the 5th string,

followed by the 3rd finger
in the 7th fret of the 5th string.

So, whereas the regular minor pentatonic
just went 1, 4, 1, 3

the Blues scale goes
1, 4, 1, 2, 3,

Let's continue, it goes 1, 3,

exactly the same
as the Minor Pentatonic did,

then 1,3, exactly the same
as the Minor Pentatonic did

but then we add little finger
on the 8th fret of the 3rd string.

Then we continue the rest of the Minor Pentatonic,

exactly the same as we always did.

Back down,
those two strings are the same but then

3rd string, 8th fret
with the little finger,

3rd finger, 1st finger, 3,1,
then here we go, 3

there's the Blue note again, 1,4,1.

Let me just play it once up and down for you
to have a listen to,

and then we'll go and play it
real slowly together

. . .

OK let's play it really evenly together,
here we go just one note per beat 3, 4

. . .

You'll find when you improvise with this scale
that this note, the 'Blue' note,

adds an awful lot of tension,
so it tends to sound funny if you stop on it.

If you go

. . .

it tends to sound a little bit strange,
so very often you'll pass through the note.

. . .

This next scale we're gonna check out
is called a 'Hybrid' scale,

and what I mean by that is
it's not really a proper scale.

It's just a group of notes that I discovered
sound really cool together.

When I was transcribing
a lot of the early blues masters

I kept finding that they used
the same notes all the time,

and even though it wasn't actually
a proper scale I could find in any books,

it sounded really good
and I guess those guys weren't schooled,

and they didn't know
if it was a proper scale or not

and what they were after was
what sounded good.

And actually
that's the most important thing.

And it's a really good fun scale
for learning to improvise with.

Especially you can do
some really cool little string bending tricks,

which I'm going to show you
in the next lesson,

so, let's check out this 'Blues Hybrid Scale'.

The Blues Hybrid Scale is
exactly the same as the Blues Scale

only we're adding in two notes
at the 7th fret on the thinnest two strings.

So we're start off exactly the same as before,
I'm gonna be calling the finger numbers.

We know that we're starting in the 5th fret here.
It's going 1st finger, 4th finger

1, 2, 3, 1, 3, then 1, 3, 4,

which was so far exactly the same
as the Blues Scale,

but now we add 1, 3, 4, 1, 3, 4,
on the thinnest two strings.

. . .

Going down now we're gonna have
4, 3, 1, 4, 3, 1, 4, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 2, 1, 4, 1.

Of course this is pretty cool now,

having the same pattern
on the thinnest three strings.

. . .

Lots of cool little phrases that you can get now
with the extra added notes.

You don't even have to use these ones
with the little finger, you could

. . .

Especially in the next lesson we're gonna be learning
these little semitone bends.

. . .

Which suddenly make things sound really cool.

So this is a really fun scale
to have a bit of a play about with.

The most important thing you can do now
is to start using these scales.

As soon as you put them into practice

and actually start hearing
the effect of the cool Flat 5 note,

hearing the spice that it adds
to your blues playing, the better.

There's no substitute for it.

The same with the new Hybrid Blues Scale.

Just start playing it, experiment,
use the Blues backing track,

and try out some of the improvising

you were doing before
with the Minor Pentatonic,

but just try using those additional notes
and see what happens.

In the next lesson, we're going to be
checking out some bending

which you'll find adds a whole new dimension
to your Blues playing as well,

but it's a great idea if, first of all,

you can just get those scales
under your fingers,

so you know what notes you're gonna bend
and what notes you aren't.

So have good fun with that,

and I'll see you for another lesson very soon.

Take care, bye bye.