Weekly Newsletter #34

March 31, 2022

Improvising and playing blues licks is one of the main foundations for most guitar players. Almost all of us start out with the minor pentatonic box (usually A minor) and begin noodling around and trying to emulate sounds we hear in popular guitar music. 

Often times, this leads to a bit of stagnation in your playing as you struggle to find the notes that players like Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Buddy Guy use in their solos and riffs. 

However, there is one small secret that will alter your blues playing forever, and it’s something all of these players do in virtually every song they play. 

Use The Sixth! 

A Background on Blues Scales 

The concept we’re discussing today uses the minor pentatonic box as a template and simply changes one note. This small change is very easy to implement; but first, it’s important to understand the scale degrees of the minor pentatonic. 

Your standard A minor pentatonic box contains the notes A-C-D-E-G. These make up the 1-3-4-5-7 of the scale of A minor (A-B-C-D-E-F-G). 

When playing the blues, the more sophisticated approach (used by all the greats) is to hint at the dominant 7 version of the key regardless of whether the song is in a major or minor tonality. A7 or A mixolydian contains the notes A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G. 

Comparing your A minor scale with the A mixolydian you notice that almost all the notes are the same except for two: C# and F#. 

This means that although your A minor pentatonic scale will work; it is not the only scale you can use to play over an A7 blues. For more on this subject please read Newsletter #22. 

What’s the Deal With The 3rd? 

Most blues players still use the minor pentatonic box and simply tweak the minor third - C - into a C# by bending, sliding or hammering on. 

This common blending of the minor 3rd (C) with the major 3rd (C#) is a hallmark sound within the blues. So it is within reason to associate both of these notes as the 3rd of the scale and use them interchangeably. 

Yes, all the theory sticklers will say that the C# means that you can’t possibly be using an A minor scale, and that is correct. However, the blues tends to bend the rules and since we’re thinking of the A minor box as our template, seeing the third as both C and C# allows us to easily achieve that classic blues sound of blending minor and major thirds. 

Knowing this we can then think of our A minor pentatonic scale as: A-C/C#-D-E-G. 

What About the Sixth? 

The “sixth” refers to the 6th degree of the scale you are using to improvise. In the case of A minor pentatonic it would be the 6th degree of A minor, with one small caveat. 

Looking at the A natural minor scale (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), picking out the 6th degree would give you an F. However this is not the 6th we are looking for. 

This F natural occurs within the natural minor scale and since most blues are built on dominant 7 chords, a minor 6 (F in this case) would sound very awkward. Instead we are always looking to play a major 6th. If you converted that minor 6th F to a major 6th you’d get F#. 

Notice how that F# is the remaining note that is different between the A minor scale and the A mixolydian? 

This F# is the key to ramping up your blues sound. 

Taking an A natural minor scale and substituting this major sixth in place of the minor sixth would give us: A-B-C-D-E-F#-G. 

Some of you might recognize this as an A Dorian mode. This is unnecessary for our discussion but a useful thing to recognize if you understand modes. 

Fitting This Into the Pentatonic Box 

So how does this fit into our A minor pentatonic box? 

Well, the trick to improving the sound of your blues playing lies in replacing the 7th of the pentatonic scale with the major 6th. Converting the scale from A-C-D-E-G to A-C-D-E-F# allows you to create a host of dissonant and very tense sounds. 

As you play through your A minor pentatonic box, every time you get to the G, simply replace that note with the F#, which is one fret lower. 

It should look like this: 

Now, you might have to take the licks you already know how to play and rework them a bit to make them fit within this new shape, but I assure you, making this one small change will drastically alter your playing for the better. 

The rule here isn’t a hard and fast rule. In fact, like all things blues, it is flexible. You don’t have to always replace the 7th with the 6th, but rather use the option of the 6th as a viable alternative. 

Many times including the 6th and the 7th together makes for a very useful and addictive sound. 

For a series of licks and further explanation of this concept check out this VIDEO. 

There is so much that can and has been written about the blues. But if I were to crystallize the most important elements for players who are stuck in the minor pentatonic box it would be: 

Think of the 3rd as interchangeable between the minor and major 3rd. 
Experiment with replacing the 7th with the 6th. 

These two concepts are the foundation upon which the greatest blues solos and licks are built. 

Don’t use the force, Use The Sixth! 

-Max Rich