I started as a bass player about 30 years ago. I played quite a few live gigs and spent many hours jamming in basements. Over the last few years I decided to start playing guitar. I started with electrics and quite a few effects, my favorite was a rack mount effect made by Rocktron called the Voodu Valve. After a few years I realized I wasn’t really getting much better, sure I learned some new things but I wasn’t improving as fast as I wanted. Then I learned something that really changed everything for me.

I got my hands on an old acoustic, I’m talking over 50 years old, a true vintage acoustic just like many of the old blues players used. The tone isn’t sparkling and clean like on a Martin acoustic, it was raw like you hear on old blues records from the pioneers of blues. The action isn’t super low, and it takes some effort to do bends, yet this guitar has improved my playing more than any guitar costing thousands of dollars. The neck is slightly wider than most of my guitars, the action a little higher and the tone much less forgiving. You can’t hide mistakes on this guitar like you can on an electric using effects and distortion. You have to play it right or it sounds like crap. Once you can make it sound good on this guitar you can make it sound incredible on any guitar. I now play this old warhorse at least one hour a day and its made more improvemts in my playing than any other thing I’ve tried.

just picking the two notes can be good, but again, i think the problem in this situation (i really need to respond to this when i have an instrument around) is that the ear likes to hear tension followed by resolution. unresolved tension sometimes sounds "off."

absolutely the b3 is part of the blues scale, in fact you might argue that’s what the blues is all about–that minor 3rd sound against a major (or dominant) chord. what i’m talking about here is context and setup–just because a note is in a scale doesn’t mean it’s going to sound good in the wrong context.

bb’s advice seems to go along with a pretty general rule that doesn’t always work but a lot of the times does:you’re never more than a half step away from a "good note." just about anything can be used as a passing note.

i’d call these groupings of notes you’re playing "related to scales" but containing some outside notes and leaving others out…you can analyze just about any passage as coming from somewhere as far as a scale, but it’s really better just to look at what the relationship of the notes you’re playing is with the chord they’re being played over–that way when you find sounds you like you can grab them anywhere.

as for srv, i don’t know anything about his hybrid scales–i’m far from a fan of his playing, but i have heard him. my guess would be that it’s a combination of pentatonic and minor ideas, perhaps adding in notes from the natural minor as he works up the neck because certain intervals will sound sweeter in different ranges (for example, playing the whole minor scale on the lower strings might clash with something the bassist is doing, but playing them in the upper octaves will give you options a simple pentatonic might not.)

Major and minor pentatonic aren’t the only blues scales, are they? Seems like blues tunes use a lot of other notes, too.

For instance:

1. Here’s one I use in one song, a kind of blues tango - I’ll show it in C (I have no idea what it’s called, but it’s fun): C D Eb G Ab C

2. The minor octave scale also can fit in a blues tune sometimes.

3. And once in a great while I use the four notes of a diminished chord for a blues scale.

mixolydian mode, or as i think of it, major scale with a flat seventh. use it too much and you sound like a vintage hippie band on a bender, so watch it.

the "blues tango" scale is 1, 2, b3, 5, b6. essentially a natural minor scale (or aeolian mode, if you like that mode talk) without a fourth or a (flatted)seventh. I’m going to call it charlie.

try melodic minor over the i chord in a minor blues. hip. you can also use that melodic minor up a half step over an altered dominant chord (b5, #5, b9, #9) we’re getting jazzy and "out" here, but it’s cool. The idea there is you’re really playing the seventh mode of the melodic minor scale, which is also lovingly referred to as the "altered scale." i say that’s as confusing as heck, and i just think "altered dom? melodic minor up a half step."

a diminished chord and a 7b9 chord have a lot in common…so that works.

Try the using lydian flat 7 scale - for a G7 chord it would be G, A, B, C#, D, E, F

You have to be careful with the C#, but it’s a cool jazzy sound. When you switch to the C you have to move the scale so that it starts on C (C,D,E,F#,G,A,B flat). It almost works better over the C.

I also like the diminished whole step/half step scale for the IV chord in a blues.

the mixolydian will work over any 7th chord of the same name. try it out, it could be another good thing to have in your bag of tricks.

natural minor is spelled 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7. it can also be called the aeolian mode.

melodic minor is essentially a major scale with a flat third. it gives you that m/maj7 chord sound which is quite mysterious.

in classical theory, the melodic minor is only played ascending. descending, they’d switch to the natural minor. sometimes, you’ll see the melodic minor played the same ascending and descending referred to as "jazz minor."

as for that lydian flat 7 scale–sure, why not? even if you just use that #4 as a passing note…

Here’s the C major scale: C D E F G A B. The 6th note of that scale is A. If we write a scale starting from A, we get the A natural minor scale: A B C D E F G. Now the trick is to think of these notes as scale degrees 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 starting on A. So, scale degree 6 is F and scale degree 7 is G.

The melodic minor scale is based on the natural minor scale. The difference is that when going up the scale, the 6th and 7th degrees are raised a semitone. When going down, they are not raised a semitone. Thus, when going down, you are playing the natural minor scale. So, here goes:

A B C D E F# G# A G F E D C B A.

In practice, there is no rule about up and down versions. That is something developed by pedagogues. In practice, you will find this in A minor: A B C D E F or F# G or G#. The composer and improvisor have their choice of whether to raise or not raise scale degrees 6 and 7. The composer can build a very rich set of chords, having these options. Thus the chords of A minor are:

A minor = A C E
B diminished = B D F
B minor = B D F#
C major = C E G
C augmented = C E G#
D minor = D F A
D major = D F# A
E minor = E G B
E major = E G# B
F major = F A C
F# diminished = F# A C
G major = G B D
G# diminished = G# B D

When I was starting out, I used to spell the chords for all major keys and all minor keys, as triads, seventh chords, and ninth chords. On the dominant chord, you can keep going and spell the 11th chords and 13th chords.

Based on the literature of music, the proportion of music that freely uses the notes of the minor scale with altered 6 and 7s is much greater than music that runs up the scale with raised 6 and 7s, then runs back down with the natural scale degrees. For this reason, I regard the melodic minor scale as a convenient way of showing that 6 and 7 can be raised or not raised.

When going up the scale, the reason for the raised 7 is to have it function as a leading tone that resolves on the tonic. However, this raised 7 creates a gap of 1 and 1/2 semitones, which is hard to hear as a step. The solution is to raise the 6. Doing this creates a whole step between 6 and 7 and a while step between 5 and 6.

When going down the scale, the idea is to fall away from the tonic, which is done by lower G# to G. That let’s you use F, which is a whole step lower.

Now, in practice there are other combinations:

A B C D E F G# (this is called the harmonic minor scale)
A B C D E F# G (this is the dorian mode)

If we list all the versions of minor that are created by raising and lowering 6 and 7, we get:

natural minor (6 and 7 not raised)
harmonic minor (7 is raised)
dorian mode (6 is raised)
melodic minor (6 and 7 are both raised when ascending and 6 and 7 are both not raised when descending).

My brain does better thinking of 6 and 7 in their respective forms than trying to distinguish between the pedagogical terms or natural minor, harmonic minor, dorian mode, and melodic minor.

Here’s a challenge: go through a piano sonata of Beethoven or a transcription of a blues solo and see how much fun it is (or isn’t) labeling the various forms of the minor scale. Then go through and circle all the 6ths and 7ths and how their raised or not raised form relates to the melodic and harmonic ideas of the music. That, to me, is where the action is, not in the labeling of scales by name.

Again, it is excellent practice to go through the major and minor keys and spell the chords. You’ve got to know them sooner or later and time’s a wasting.

Anything’s cool as long as the Blues Police have met their monthly citation quota.

A common way to spice up the blues scale is to substitute the major 6th for the b7, which sweetens the sound a bit. Robben Ford likes this.

A good way to get into playing over blues changes is to learn the various inversions of tritones (3rds and b7ths) across I, IV, and V (dominant) chords. These notes will speak to the listener, as long as chicken grease is applied. Flat five sub understanding would be the next logical step.

Another approach is not so much harmonically inclined as it is stylistically:

* Set up the first chorus as if you were playing Gospel music in an old school southern baptist church. Base your ideas on sweet sounding 3rd and 6th intervals, and be sparing with b7ths. Set up the second chorus with mean sounding minor pentatonics, complete with minor 3rds over chords that contain major 3rds. For the third chorus, take one riff or lick and develop it over the entire progression, changes be damned.

* Set up a chorus with whatever fake pedal steel bends that you know, or play Wes Montgomery style thumb octaves, or with whatever other little tricks that your sonic toolbox offers.

I guess I think harmonically a lot like jazz tele. Here are the three main ways I use melodic minor scales:

I minor over I minor chord (root = root). This is great for Kenny Burrell type 12/8 minor blues. If the tune is a bit more funky and groovy - listen to the voicing of the I minor chord - if it’s 1 -b7 -b3, there’s a reason that the b3 is not included lower in the voicing - it can imply a 7#9, and therefore invite a sort of ambiguity, meaning that the I chord could be improvised over as a minor or a dominant chord. In this case, I like standard blues box with some color tones, not full on melodic minor. Another indicator of this (at least for me) is if the IV chord is a dominant chord as opposed to a minor chord, meaning that I’m going to treat the I minor in a more gutbucket (bluesbox) way, usually. If both the I and IV chords are minor, I’m inclined to color a bit more outside the lines (altered tensions). I sometimes dig playing IV minor as IV harmonic minor, which is a scale I treat with kid gloves.

Melodic minor up a fifth from the root of a dominant 7th chord. There’s various ways to see it - major scale with #4/11 and b7; mixolydian mode with #4/11. It’s called lydian dominant, usually. If I play the I7 chord with a #11, I’ll do something else over the IV7 chord, or vice versa. It sounds a bit trite to include this color tone over both the I and IV chords. I like having a melody to relate sounds to - the melody that I suggest to students is the Simpson’s theme, which is textbook lydian dominant.

Melodic minor up a half step from altered dominant chords. For me, this only really works on V7 altered chords. Sometimes a blues or blues rock tune will have an altered I7 chord. I hear fusion guitarists implying these sounds over I7 and IV7 chords all the time. To each his or her own. To me, it sounds rather stupid and forced over other than V7alt., but then there’s no accounting for taste. When it comes to playing "outside", my tastes are decidedly old school.

Screwing with melodic minor scales over time starts to yield some very cool revelations. For instance, augmented arpeggios and whole tone patterns start to present themselves. As an example: play an A melodic minor scale over an A minor chord, or an A melodic minor scale over a D9 chord (melodic minor up a fifth from the root of a dominant chord, as noted above), and watch for augmented chords and arps (the most familiar shape here will likely be recognizable as an ‘E’ augmented chord - not surprisingly which would serve as V chord to the A minor’s ‘I’ and/or the D9’s ‘IV’).

Try playing minor7b5 arpeggios up a 3rd and a 6th from dominant chords. Lots of sweet and sour tones here, and this is one of my personal fave pets. Try ascending with the m7b5 arp, descending with wholetone, diminished, or chromatic ideas.

What I’ve found about these sounds is that contradictions are abundant. Music ain’t math, although numbers are useful, and I hear differently than the next guy or gal.