if you are like me the first thing you wanted to learn was that crunchy blues scale witth the bite
then you learned it and could play it on shouts
and uptempo backing up a preacher and even some devotionals
but on most hymns it sounded out of place and almost all praise and worship music
and even a lot of contemporary music cant really suppot this scale
so you put it away and only bring it out when you are doing a fast song that lends it self to that style of crucnch and bite
but how many of you know that the blues scale could sound pretty without sounding gritty
lets take the Key of Ab
the musicians key
and lets take a 6 2 5 1 progression
so the chords are
Abmaj7
Fmin7
Bbmin7
and Eb7
first play the blues scale over this progression
remember blues cale is 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7
so your notes are
Ab B db D Eb Gb
the their are a few notes that dont really fit and although you can make it work it just isnt pretty it is gritty
well take the blues scale and transpose it to F
the relative minor of Ab
now your notes are
F Ab Bb B C Eb
the B natural is now a passing tone
and now all of the other notes fit the key
play around with this scale emphasizing chord tones of each chord that you are on
so when you are playing Ab emphasize the Ab the Eb and the c and even the F
on the F same notes
on the Bb emphasize the Bb and the F and even the B for some bite
on the Eb7 emphasize the Eb the C and the Ab for that sus sound
okay if you like that now lets go a little further out the box
lets take the blues scale built on the Eb
Eb Gb Ab A Bb Db
we have two notes that go outside the key
A and Gb
A is a passing tone so that is fine
th Gb will need to be handled carefully
but again emphasize the notes of the chord
the other notes will become tension tones which can be released
the A natural will make the fmin 7 an f7 # 9
it will make the Ab an Ab 7b9
and the Eb chord aan Eb7#11
anothe scale that doesent sound too bad is
the Bb blues scale
Bb Db Eb E F Ab
as you can see all the notes except one is in the key of Ab
so you if you remember to focus on target chord tones will allow you to stay in the pocket
finally another scale that could work is the Db scale
the notes are Db E Gb G Ab B
this is a tricky scale to use because there are more non chord notes
but if you remember to use more
I hope you get some good mileage from these
