Whats the point of learning a ‘Blues scale’ if I can just build it out of a major scale?
I don’t think I could construct chords from a blues scale like a major scale (at least I haven’t tried).
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@Dk360 can’t build a blue scale out of a major scale. You can compare it to a major scale, but it is a fundamentally different scale (5 notes vs 7, blues scale has b3, b5, b7, and no 2 or 6.)
As you noted, you can’t build chords out of the blue scale. Well, you can, but not traditional chords.
I think the point of the blue scale is that there are countless blues licks that the masters is played over century which fit into the scale.
Having a way to contextualized them, can make it easier to master and memorize their vocabulary quickly.
The for improvisation, especially at the beginning it’s a very helpful way to have a pallet of notes that you can just kind of play “willy-nilly” across an entire 12 bar blues and sound pretty good.
I’d love to hear @Hogie.Harmonica 's perspective on this subject.
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Sure.
The purpose of all scales is to build fluency with common musical patterns.
You can build any scale off of any note. That’s how you build fluency for musical phrases that would tend to use that note as home base.
When it comes to the blues scale, it is poorly named. But the point is that it is similar to a minor pentatonic, with the b3 a little sharp, and with the addition of a #4. These work well against a backdrop of I7, IV7, and V7 chords, as well as i7, iv7, and v7 chords. Majority of basic blues songs are built on these chords.
So if you want a fast path to being able to blend with blues chords, the blues scale is a good place to start.
All that said, the true approach for major key blues is the major scale, but you have to add a number of chromatic and microtonal notes, or it won’t sound like blues. Blues is build on the chords mentioned above, grooves, and Melody based on what I described.
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Thanks! I recently got into taking a deep dive in music theory on how scales and chords are built, and how they relate to harmonica. Its really interesting!
Before I was mostly a tab/play by ear player with some random scales here and there.
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Cool cool.
I think the easiest way to get acquainted with that stuff is to learn it on piano and then spend time with the piano and harp to map it out.
Someday Imll publish a “music theory for harp” book but as it stands that’s probably a 2026-27 thing.
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