Blues Guitar Mastery

1. Course Introduction: I'm Jamie Ellis, and welcome to my Skillshare course on Blues guitar Mastery. I'm a professional guitar player, and in that time, I toured across the globe, played with named artists, and working with some of the country's best studios. Now, in this course, we're going to start right at the beginning. We're going to understand the structure of a blues and what makes a blue song, a blue song. We're then going to cover the harmony and the scales used so you can sound authentic and then take that further and look at how modern musicians approach the blues with some advanced harmony and advanced scales. We're going to discuss how you can improvise in both beginner and an advanced setting to really help you stand out from every other musician. I'll break everything down into a nice and easy to follow step by step guide so I can guide you along your journey. Don't worry if you get stuck. You can always go back and rewatch some of the videos until you master these exercises. I've also included diagrams and support and resources to really guide you through this journey. So whether you're a beginner or you're looking to really hone in on your craft and understand the fundamentals of the blues, this course is for you. So if you're looking to get started, I'll see you in the first lesson. 2. Major 7th Chords: We understand a basic triad using one, three, and five from the major scale. We can add additional notes onto that to add some color to our chords. So we're going to take a look at seven chords. Now obviously, we've got major and minor chords, so we can turn those into major seven and minor seven. I'm going to introduce the dominant chord, and that would come from the fifth degree of our major scale. And that's used a lot in blues music, but we'll come a little bit more to that later. I'm also going to look at three different variations of the same chord. We're going to learn it from the E string. We're going to learn it from the A string, and we're going to learn it from the D string. We've also got inversions which we can touch on later. And again, it's all just basically to understand the fretboard unlocking different voices, fingerings, inversions and variations, allowing us to play chords in a more stylistic manner, or freely move at the fretboard. Let's start by taking a look at a major seven voice in from the E string. You're going to start by taking your first finger and place it on fret three. We're then go to take our ring finger, and that's going to go on fret four of the D string. So we've got our root note, and this note here is going to give us our seventh. We're gonna go one, three, five, seven from the major scale. So I've got my one. I've got my seven. My pinky is going to play the third degree, and that's going to sit on fret four of the G string. And then my middle finger is gonna grab the fifth degree, which is on the third fret of the B string. That's really important with this voice in to mute that a string. That sort of muddies the tone up. So I use my first finger to slightly touch on that a string just to mute it. And there's our G major seven chord. Now, let's take a look at G major seven chord from the A string. We're gonna start that up here at fret ten. There's our G, our root note, and we're going to add our ring finger to fret 12 of the D, and there's our fifth. That gives us our fifth chord that we're already aware of. We're then gonna add the major seventh, which is our middle finger on fret 11 of the G, and in our pinky, grabs our third quartet. And that goes at fret 12 on the B string. Here, our seventh chords have got almost jazzy sort of sound to them. They sound quite pretty, quite sort of Oh, you know, compare that to a normal G chord. It's a bit nicer. It's a bit fancier. It's gonna add a little bit more color and spice to your chord progressions. So we've got a Gj of seven here. We've got a Gj of seven here. On the D string, you can play here. And basically, all of these shapes are building off our cage system. So that D major seven is going to start with a root note here on the D string at fret five. And then we're going to bar with our ring finger all across fret seven of the G, the B, and the E. You could use all three fingers. I personally would like to bar it gives my other finger some freedom for a little bit of extra coloration. B. So we've got G major seven. G Major seven and G major seven. Practice those, and then we'll look at some version later. 3. Minor 7th Chords: Moving on to minus seven chords. We're gonna do exactly the same as the major seven. We're gonna look at the E shape, A shape, and the D shape. We're gonna keep it in G so you can compare the sounds. So our G minus seven chord and the E string is like so. We're going to bar with our first finger at fret three, and then we're going to add our ring finger to fret five of the A string. We've got a root note. Our fifth, our flat seven is here on the D, our minus third, our fifth, and then our root note again. And that's quite a bulky chord, so you can't simplify it just a bar at fret three, which is what I do most of the time, to be quite honest. Okay, moving on to the A string, shape. Looks like so. So, again, we're going to borrow at our first finger. We're gonna bar at fret ten. We're going to take our ring finger, and that's gonna go at fret 12 of the D. That gives us our root in our fifth. Our minor seventh is right there on the G string. That's fret ten. And our middle finger is gonna play the minor third, and that's gonna be a fret 11 on the B. Our fifth is just on that last string. So our D minus seven shape. Looks like so. So I'm going to take my first finger for our root note, and I'm gonna place it right there, fret five on the D string. I'm going to take my middle and ring fingers, and they're going to go at fret six on the B and the E string. And I'm going to use my pinky to grab my fifth degree right there at fret seven. 4. Dominant 7th Chords: Dominant chords are a new chord. We've not yet touched on in the course. Now they're used a lot in blues music, and they've got a lot of tension to them. As we sort of progress into more advanced stuff, we're going to use more sort of tension and release, and that's where a lot of pros really maximize on advanced scales, advanced harmony and all that to really create that tension resolution. It's what music is all about. It's all about. Where's it going? Where's it going? Where's it going? There it is. It adds a little bit of spice to the music, right? So there will be a dominant chord. It's from the fifth degree of the scale. So in the key of G, it will be a D seven. I'm going to play a G seven here just because we've used that G for our major and our minus seven chords. That would naturally want to resolve to a C. But we'll look at a little bit more of a theory of that in another video. For a dominant seven chord, really easy, all you want you to do is play a normal G bar chord. So, Ann just take your pinky finger off. That's gonna give us that minus seven there from that bar right there. On the A string, I want you to play the G major seven shape that we learned earlier and take your middle finger off. Yeah, really hear that tension in there. That tension comes from a tritone, basically between the third degree and the flat seventh degree. And a triton is like a real jar in sort of sound. You can hear it there. It always, always wants to resolve. Like so. You can hear the pull. And that's resolved. So on the D string, our dominant seven chord looks like that. We're gonna place our first fingers always on the G. There fret five. Our ring finger is gonna get our fifth degree here at fret seven. Our middle finger is gonna play fret six of the B string. And our pinky finger is gonna grab fret seven of the high E. That triton in there again. So we've got a dominant here, predominant here, and a dominant here. 5. 7th Chord Arpeggios: Construction of a major seventh chord is major third, five, and a major seventh from the major scale. So if we arpeggiated that, one major third, five, major seven, then there's your octave again. Just to give you two octaves. One, third, five, major seven Octaive. There's a major seven arpeggio. Taking those notes? That would be root in version. Don't be the shape. You can hear that sort of sound there. One major third, five, major seven. Now, to construct a minus seven chord, we obviously first need a minor triad. One, flat, three, five. We're then going to add a minus seven interval. So in our peggio in G one, flat third, fifth. There's a minus seven interval there. And then we go up to our root note again. So it to give you two octaves. That kind of outlines that minus seven chord shape that we've got there. So one, flat three, five, flat seven. Now, our dominant chord is a major chord. So we've got one major third, five. And then we're going to add a flat seven, not a major seven. And that creates that triton between the flat seven and the third. So to arpeggiate it, we've got one major third, five, flat seven. Back to the fruit. He that dominant sound. So let's just make that arpeggio two octaves. Really hear that tritonanthoug. To resolve. Like so. 6. The Minor Pentatonic Scale: Patonic scale is the guitar player's best friend, and it's used throughout all genres of music for solos and improvisation. It only consists of five notes, hence the name pentatonic, meaning five. And it's a really great blanket scale to improvise over all chore progressions. So let's learn how to play it. We're going to start with the minor pentatonic scale in the key of G. So we're going to start with our first finger on fret three of the low E string. You're then going to stretch with your pinky finger to fret six of the E string. Now, for the next few strings, we're going to go between frets three and frets five. So use your first finger and your ring finger. So on the A string, three, five, D string three, five, G string three, five. And now on the B string, we're going to go back to the 36 stretch. And the same again on the g E. So from the top. And it backwards. The minor pentatonic scale allows you to improvise across all keys. It's like a blanket scale that works over all chords. So you can now improvise with your friend in little jam sessions. This scale is so important. So take the time to get it under your fingers, memorize it and practice it in different keys until you're really comfortable playing it. 7. The Major Pentatonic Scale: Also got a major pentatonic scale, again, consisting of five notes. We're going to learn this again in G. So we're going to start with our middle finger this time, just to keep our fingers in the correct position. So middle finger on fret three of the Lo E, and then use your pinky finger to play fret five of the E string. So it's three and five. Now, on the A string, we're going to use our first finger to play fret two, and in our pinky finger, let's play fret five. Repeat that on the D string. On the G string, we're going to play 24. And then on the B and E string, we're going to play three, five. So from the top? Like the minor pentatonic scale, the major pentatonic can be used to improvise over all chord progressions. 8. The Five Pentatonic Shapes: As we've already mentioned, the pentatonic scale consists of five nodes. Now we can build this out into five different pentatonic shapes that allow us to improvise across the fretboard. We've already learned two, and we'll use the minor pentatonic as shape one. We'll then use the major pentatonic as shape two. So let's put those two together to start with. We'll do this in the KG. We're then going to slide up two frets and come back down on the major pentatonic. When linking the pentatonic scales together, you always start the next shape from the second note of the previous scale. So if I was to play up the minor pentatonic and then up the major, it would look like this. And then I'd start the major pentatonic from the second note, fret six. Like so. Let's now take a look at shape three. Now on the E string, we have got for eight and fret ten. We're gonna repeat that on the A and the D string. On the G string, we're gonna move to fret seven and stretch to fret ten. Now we're gonna adjust that slightly starting off for eight of the B string, reaching up to fret 11. And then we're going to finish that shape off with 810 on the E. All of these shapes are also written down below in a little tab that you can help play along to. Moving on to shape four. We're gonna start on fret ten, and we're gonna stretch up to fret 13. I'm gonna repeat that on the A string. Now on the D string, we're gonna play 1012, and we're gonna play 1012 again on the G string. On the B string, we're gonna play 11 13. And on the height E, we're going to play 1013. Now, for our final shape, we're going to start on fret 13, and we're gonna reach to fret 15. Repeat this on the A string. And on the D and the G string, we're gonna play 12 15. And now go back to our 13 15. For the last two strings. It's really important to learn these five shapes both individually and in a long sequence that allow you to play through the fretboard. Take a look at the catagm module to learn how to best practice these scales. 9. The Blues Scale: Look at the blue scale, which is an extension of our already known pentatonic. Now, this is a great way to add some color to your solos, and it's used in not only blues music, but in a lot of rock licks, as well. So let's review our pentatonic scale, and then we'll add the flat five degree, which is what gives us that blue sound. So our G minor pentatonic. And now here's the G blue scale. So all I've done is added that flat five degree. It gives that real bluesy sound. So we've got our normal pentatonic on the E string, 36. And then on the A string, we've got fret three, and then we've got fret four. That's our flat five. That's the blue note. And then we've got fret five, which is our fifth degree. On the D string, we've got three, five. And in the G string, we've got three, five, and then six. That again is our blue note. And then we just finish of the pentatonic scale like normal. You could add some really great licks into your pentatonic scale here. Like so. Now, that blues note can be found in the other five shapes of the pentatonic scale. So it's worth spending some time getting comfortable with the blue note in each shape. We've got tabs for all of that down below. Spend a little time working out and see what blues is you can come up with. 10. Take 7th Chords Further: Expand it on our basic major and minor chords to create seventh. But we can expand those further and add extra extensions. We can add ninth, 11th, and 13th. Now, what does that mean? If we take our major scale, we usually count 1-8. But if we go above that in the octave, we take two octaves. We go 12, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight is one, again, right? It's the octave. And then note two will become nine. Note three will become ten, four would be 11, and so on. So anything above an eight, so nine, 11 and 13 is just an added extension, an octave higher than the root, if that makes sense. So let me explain. We've got a normal seven chord. I'll take a C major seven. Turn that into a C major nine. So within that core con structurally, we'll have one major third, fifth, major seventh, and also a ninth, which is technically to the second degree, but an octave above that root note. So a major nine Looks like so. Now, I'll get into sort of playing those shapes in things in a second, but before I do, we've only got four fingers. So at some point, we're going to run out of fingers to be able to play all of these notes. So this is where you start omitting notes. You start removing them from your cord shapes so you can get the upper structures in. Now, the fifth in a cord is usually the first to go, although it's one of those essential chord tones of a triad, it has the least impact on the tonality of the cord. The root tells us what the cord is. The third tells us whether it's major or minor. The seventh dictates whether it's dominant or minor still. In the ninth adds all this color, the fifth doesn't really add much difference until you get into altar chords, which we'll talk about later. So sometimes we will remove the fifth from these shapes. Now, let's take a look at nine cords. We'll start with major nine. And we'll start on the A string because for me personally, I just find there as an easier finger than some of the E string shapes. So it's play a major nine in C. We're gonna take our middle finger, place it on fret three of the A string. And we're then going to take our first finger, and that's going to go on fret two of the D string. That'd be our third. We've got a root in our third. We're then going to use our pinky finger to grab fret four of the G string, and that there will be our major seventh interval. And then my ring finger is going to grab fret three of the B string, and that's our ninth or our second. Next, we've removed the fifth from the voice because it's not really necessary. So to make that a dominant chord, all we have to do is flatten. That's seven, one, major third, five, flat seven, nine. So that voicing would become this. So I've got exactly the same finger in pretty much, and I've just moved my last two fingers around. So I've got fret three, fret two, fret three, and fret three. Be a dominant nine. Now we've got a dominant nine. We can make it minor because a minor construction would be one, minor third, five, flat seven. We've already got the flat seven from our dominant, and then we have the nine on top. So here's our dominant chord. We just need to lower the third. There's our third. We'll lower that down. Our minor nine chord. Now, this is where understanding the fret board and understanding your scale degrees in your chord shapes is really important because as we get into upper structures, we want to start alternating things. You know, we want to start raising lower in thirds. We want to raise and lower sevenths. So being able to recognize, Oh, this fingers the seventh, this fingers the third just speeds that process up. And it also helps with improv when you want to hit a quarnes. Now let's take a look at those ninth chords from the E string. Now, our major nine looks It looks like the same shape from our A string. We're gonna start with our middle finger and place that on fret three of the E. We're gonna do this in G, by the way. And then we're going to take our ring finger pinky finger, sorry, and place that on fret four of the D string. That gives us our major seventh. We've got our root, our major seventh. We're then go to take our first finger, and we're going to place that on fret two of the G string as nine. And then my ring finger is going to go on fret three of the B string. Is my fifth. Like with some other chords we've looked at, we don't want that a string, so you want to try and mute it with that middle finger. And there will be a major nine chord. Now, you'll notice with this voice in that we don't actually have a third, so it could be a little bit ambiguous as to whether it's major or minor. So we could also voice it this way to make it nice and clear. Now you'll notice that's basically our G major seven shape there. I've just re fingered it. So my pinky fingers available to grab the ninth degree right there. There will be a major seven. Let's stay with this because we've got a third in the cord. And we'll turn it into a dominant chord. Now, dominant chord, we need one major third, five, flat seven and nine. So we need to flat on our seven. Now our seven is on this finger here, so I made a finger. We're gonna lower that. Let's give that sort of shape. So I've got on the D string, I've got fret three. I've got fret four of the G, fret three of the B, and fret five of the height E. And we can also just simplify that shape slightly by changing our fingering like so. So I've just got from there to there. We my pinkie. Whatever's comfortable for you. Now, to make that a minor nine, we just need to flatten a third, which's my middle finger here. I've already got a bar here, so I'll just take that off. It looks like so. So, as you can see there, I've gone from this shape here, which had no third. So just slightly revoicing it. So I've got a major nine, dominant nine. We can play it that way. And a minor nine. 11. Altered Chords: Now we understand how to add upper extensions to our chords. We can also alter the chords. Now, this is mainly going to be seen in jazz music. They're a little bit out there these chords, so stay with me. They definitely take a while to get used to, you know, with some of these outside sounds, they're a little bit jarring at first, but you need to sort of familiarize yourself with the sound. And the more you do that, the more you'll be able to hear the best where they can be best applied. And some of that goes with some of the scales as well that we're going to talk about later on. So to alter a chord, we're either going to change the fifth degree or commonly the ninth degree. And we can also do this with the 13th and 11. But when you start altering the 13th, 13th to six. So if you flatten a 13th, it's going to become just a sharp five. So you get into sort of similar territory with just the same different titles. So we're going to focus on the fifth and ninth. Now, we alter a chord by either raising or lowering these degrees. So we've got a sharp five or a flat five, and we've got a sharp nine or a flat nine. Now, if you're already familiar with where your chord tones are within your chord shapes, this is going to be really, really easy. Take a dominant chord because they're mainly sort of seen on that. You can sort of occur on minor chords as well, but I think dominant would be most prevalent I've seen. So if we take a G seven chord, let's alter it. Let's make it a G seven sharp five, right? So I want my first, my root note. I've got my seven. I've got my third. Now my fifth would usually be right here at fret three. Can that be like a, a dominant chord. Look so. I want to raise that fifth, make it a sharp five. Sort voice it looks so. I've got three of the A three of the E string, sorry. Three of the D, four of the G, and four of the B. You can hear the tension in that, right? That wants to resolve like a dominant chord to that C. But that extra extension that alteration to the chord just adds that extra tension, that's gonna open us up to add some wacky scales over that and really go outside of conventional harmony to add as much tension as possible to the release back to the root. So there's a sharp five. I'm sure you've probably already worked out how to make it a G seven flat five. I'm just going to revoice it. Like so. So I've taken my fifth and I've just lowered it down Monfrat Same goes for ninth, our ninth is usually up here. So if I take a dominant nine chord, I want to sharpen the nine, I just raise my pinky finger. And I want to flatten the nine. So. Now, you can also add fifths to this, so we can have a sharp five sharp nine or a flat five, sharp nine, flat five, flat nine. There's all these different combinations, right? So let's just try that. I've got a G seven sharp five sharp nine. G seven sharp five flat nine. G seven flat five sharp nine. G seven flat five, flat nine. You can see the fingerings get a little bit awkward there. But you can see the finger ends get a little bit awkward there, but, you know, just sort of take your time with them. Your fingers will sort of slowly move into shapes. There's some very peculiar shapes. You don't always have to hit those notes. We talked about before the fifth can be admitted. You could just have the flat nine. It becomes optional, and no one's gonna call you out on a gig, especially when you hit this level. No one's gonna go, Oh, I'm sorry, you're fired. You missed your flat five at that G seven flat five sharp nine. No one's gonna do that cause no one's gonna know. You're not going to hear it. Just adds extra spice. That's all it's for Extra decoration. So that's it from those E shapes. Let's take a look at the A shapes. So I've got my C seven. And we want a C seven flat five. Let's lower my fifth. Or C seven sharp five. Let's third 'cause my fifth will be here on the G. For a ninth chord, let's sharpen and flatten the nine. Got a C nine, my nine pinky finger. So let's do a C seven sharp nine. Raise it. There's that chord there. And that's also actually nicknamed the Hendrick chord, the dominant seven sharp nine. The Hendrick use all the time. So you might be familiar with that voice already. I've also then got flat nine. So I'm just gonna bar that second fret there to give him my flat five, just so. Now, our fifth would usually be on the E string right here. So I could also add my E string. I could do a flat five flat nine. Or I could do a sharp nine sharp five. I just bar them with that pinky finger. The combinations are not endless, but, you know, there's a fair few that you can work out here. So spend a little bit of time altering your chords, and then we'll talk a little bit about theory with the whiteboard and how to improvise with them in some other videos. All the chord shapes are down below in case you get stuck. 12. Advancing Your Blues Comp: As a rhythm player, it's really important to learn how to properly comp. Now, comping is essentially some fancy rhythmic playing underneath other players, and it really adds a little bit of spice and variation to what could be a basic chord progression. Now, we can vary our comp depending on what sort of style of music we're playing. So, for example, a standard blues progression in C, It's fine. But it's a bit basic. We can make this better. We can add small little embellishments like adding the minor third to the major third with maybe a fourth in as well. It's more things like sliding up into the cord. Oh spices up your rhythm a little bit more, makes it a little bit more interesting and makes you sound a little bit more professional. 13. Diminished Scales: Let's take a look at diminished scales. Now, it can be a little bit confusing as their symmetrical scale, meaning like our symmetrical diminished chord, it's built up of the same interval, so it's going to go semitone tone, semitone tone, semitone tone recurring. And that gives us our half whole scale, half, meaning semitone whole meaning whole tone, tone, half hole diminished scale. You've also got tone, semitone tone, semitone, which you're probably already thinking that's exactly the same, but starting from a different scale degree, and it kind of is. So you've got the half hole and the whole half. I know. Hole half diminished is mainly used over diminished chords, because when you compare that to the root note, it gives you that double flat seven which outlines that diminished chord. Whereas the half whole diminished scale, when used over the root note, gives you more of a dominant sound with a flat seven, not double flat. And it also gives you a lot of those altered sort of chord tones. So you have to be really careful about which scale you use over which chord. And what makes it even more confusing is on the guitar, it's the same shape. It just depends on where you start the scale from. So let's take a look at this in seeds to keep things nice and easy. I'm going to start with the half hole, which means I'm going to start from D flat, not from C. And that's basically going to outline a C dominant seven chord. We're gonna start from D flat, and I'll explain why in a minute. We're going to start here at D flat on a fret nine, and then we're going to play for 11 and fret 12. And then on the A string, we're going to play nine, ten, 12. And that shape sort of basically repeats itself throughout the scale. We just need to move it now down one semitone. So we're gonna move to eight, and we're gonna play eight, ten, 11, on the net scale, eight, nine, 11, on the B string, eight, ten, 11. And on the E string, eight, nine, 11. So you can see it's basically the same pattern recurring. So if we take a look at that scale in comparison to our dominant seven, we've got not only our flat seven interval there outlining the dominant chord, but we've also got a few extensions. We've got 13. We've got a flat nine and so on. So it's great for using over dominant chords, especially in a blues when transitioning from chord one to four. So me and Ben are gonna have a quick jam now and explain that with a little bit more context. Oh. Now, that was the half hole. We're now going to move on to the whole half. Exactly the same shape in terms of how we play the scale, but we're just gonna move it down one semitone. So we're actually going to start this one from C, and this is going to outline a C diminished cord, not a C dominant cord, because it's got that double flat. So exactly the same shape as before, this time down a semi tone. We're gonna start here at eight, and that's ten, 11, eight, 911, and then we're going to shift that bit then down a semitone. We're gonna go seven, nine, ten, seven, eight, ten. Like so. So as you can see, it's exactly the same shape, and that's where this gets confusing. To keep it really easy, if it's a diminished cord, you want the whole half, it's whole. It's all diminished. It's all in. B poker. You're all in. So if it's diminished cord, play from the root. If it's a dominant cord, play one semitone up. Be the whole half over C. To be the half hole over sea. 14. Applying The Diminished Scale In A Blues: Okay, so let's take a look at that diminished scale and how we can use it in a blues context. So it's really great for adding some tension, especially over a 51 sort of cadence. So I'm going to get Ben playing a seven leading to a D seven, like you'd seen in blues, and I'm gonna play the diminished scale over that so you can see how it leads into the D. Here we go. So you can see there's some real funny notes in there. When played in quick succession, it's going to really, really pour nicely to that D. So let's speed it up a little bit and try with a few licks. 15. The Altered Scale: We've looked at altered chords, and let's now look at the altered scale. Now, there's a lot of confusion around this because it's got a few different names like the Superocrian, and there's a diminished one that I can't remember, and that just shows how obsolete those other names are. It all comes down to just theory and labeling the same thing in different ways. Forget about it. Altered scale, easy, done. Now, the altered scale outlines a lot of those funny chord tones in the altered chords. So your sharp five, your flat five, sharp nine, you flat nine, et cetera. And then you've got your dominant seven note in there as well. You flat seven. It's the seventh mode of the melodic minor scale, and we'll look at melodic minor later. But let's first learn how to use this mode on its own because it can be so useful when improvising. I like to visualize this as a melodic minor scale because I just how my brain works, I find it easier. The melodic minor is a major scale, but with a flat three. So it's got one, two, flat three, four, five, six, and seven in terms of scale degrees. So if I wanted to play an A altered scale over an A altered chord, I'd basically be playing B flat melodic minor. Over the altered seven chord. So, as I've already explained, it's a major scale with a flat third. So let's just work that out quickly. Let's use a familiar shape and alter it to keep it as easy for as possible. So I'm going to play a B flat melodic minor or an A altered scale. I'm going to start at fret six on the E string, and I'm going to play six, eight, nine, on the A string, I'm going to play six, eight. On the D string, I'm going to play five, seven, eight, on the G string, five, six, eight, on the B, six, eight, and then I'm going to play on the high E string, five, six, eight. So hopefully, you can see the major scale in there. Basically, as we've already talked about, a major scale with a flat throat. Now, that over an A altered chord is gonna give us all of those little cartons. 16. Applying The Altered Scale In A Blues: So now let's take a look at the altered scale. Now, like the diminished scale, we can use this over a 51 progression to add loads of tension as we resolve to chord one. So I'm going to get Ben to play standard 251 progression, and I'm going to try and outline all of those chord tones as well as use the altered scale over the a seven to really lead us nicely into that D. 17. How To Improvise and Comp Over A Blues: Okay, so just demonstrated a stereotypical blues jam. So A, D, and E chords in a 12 bar fashion. Over the A seven. I'm mainly focusing on the A major pentatonic, and occasionally touching into A mixed lidian. Or I sort of blend between those two scales, occasionally also thrown in a minor pentatonic to give me three different sort of flavors that I can play with. And using all of those, I can come up with licks like so. Bit of blues note in there. As off the blue scale. And then I actually used the diminished scale to take us into the D seven chord there just to add a little bit of tension and release. Resolving on a char tone on a third of the D, which leads us quite nicely into that D. And then over that D, I use occasionally a D McildonOr I also use an A minor pentatonic. Again, trying to land all of my phrases on a chord tone. Then moving it over to the E. This is where I can add some sort of spice with some altered or whole tone scale, or I can sort of just hit some quartnes that we've not yet heard, just to sound like I'm following the chord progression. Resolve them back to that A. So now let's switch rolls. I will comp and show how using the cage system and different inversions could be a great way to spice up the comp, and Ben will have a little jam over the top. One, two.