The Bluesy Scale

In many styles where you’re using the major pentatonic it’s OK to throw in the extra note from the related blues scale.  In C this means you play the A blues scale,  which adds in the minor third (Eb, shown as d# above) to C major pentatonic.  This generally imparts a little bluesy touch, which may or may not be appropriate.  Here the point is that the main thing to remember is that C pentatonic means C major pentatonic and C blues means C minor pentatonic (which has the same notes as Eb major pentatonic).  (Sometimes when people talk about the pentatonic they mean the minor pentatonic, which can get confusing if you’re not alert.)

A blues means A minor pentatonic with the tritone (Eb) added.  There doesn’t seem to be a name for the scale whose root is C with the same notes, but it’s a useful concept so let’s make one up and call this scale C bluesy: c d Eb e g a.

The bluesy scale is the major pentatonic with the minor third added.  C bluesy is to A blues as C major pentatonic is to A minor pentatonic.  The Eb is the blue note, the minor third in a major context.  

In many (but not all) contexts, you can substitute blues scale for the minor pentatonic, or, equivalently, the bluesy scale for the major pentatonic, to good effect.

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