Blues
This scale is also known by other names: Minor Blues.
3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 3 - 2About Blues
The E blues scale is the first thing most electric guitarists ever improvise with. Six notes — E, G, A, B♭, B, D — starting from the open low string, in the position where the instrument is loudest and where every note can be bent or left ringing.
The notes
E G A B♭ B D, then E. Five of the six form the E minor pentatonic; the B♭ is the blue note between A and B, and it is meant to be passed through rather than held.
The scale contains G against an E7 chord that contains G♯. That deliberate collision is what makes the blues sound like blues, and playing the scale over a plain E major shows it immediately.
On the fretboard
Open position uses the low E as the root and lets four strings ring. The twelfth-fret box repeats it an octave higher, and the two together cover the whole neck for a player who knows nothing else.
Because the tonic is an open string it cannot be bent, which shapes phrasing: blues in E tends to resolve downward onto the open string rather than bending up to it.
Where it is used
Blues and rock in E, which is to say a very large proportion of guitar music ever recorded. The key exists because the instrument sits there, not because the music demanded it.
It is also the scale behind most beginner rock riffs: the open low E plus two fretted notes is enough for a recognisable figure, and thousands of songs are built from exactly that.
Related Scales from Blues
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