The Blue Note

The blues scale is the minor pentatonic with one extra note squeezed in: the flattened fifth, sitting between the fourth and fifth degrees. In A that added note is E flat.

It is called the blue note for a reason. It is unstable and slightly sour, and it only works when you treat it as a passing note — you move through it on your way somewhere, you do not stop on it.

Slide into it, bend up to it, or run past it on the way from D to E. Hold it for a whole bar and it sounds like a mistake, because it is.

A Minor Blues

A blues scale. The one note that is new to you is the flat 5 — find it in the shape and mark it in your mind.

Here is a drill worth ten minutes. Play the same short phrase twice: once from the plain pentatonic, once passing through the blue note. Listen to the difference. That is the entire lesson, and it is worth more than learning another scale shape.

This backing track has more attitude than the slow ones you have used so far, which suits the blue note.

A groovin' blues in A with a bit more push than the slow tracks you have used so far. Use the blue note sparingly — once or twice a chorus is plenty.