Learn How to Improvise:
Beyond the Blues Scale
The Blues Scale, most often thought of as scale degrees 1 - b3 - 4 - b5 - 5 - b7 - 8(1) is one of the most common tools utilized when teaching beginning jazz improvisation. While this scale is a quick way to pinpoint sonorities that young musicians may find appealing when soloing, it is important to continue to find ways to move “beyond the blues scale” so that students can understand how different chords and musical moments within the blues have their own unique sound and opportunity within them.
In this lesson, Danny Bauer explains one way to move beyond the blues scale - using arpeggios to outline the harmonic progression found within the 12-bar blues form. Watch how Danny demonstrates what he calls a “1-3-5 solo”, where students pinpoint the root, third and fifth of each chord as it appears in the chord progression. Review the attached “Blues Chords” sheet to familiarize yourself with the arpeggios of the 12-bar blues chord progression in B-flat, C and F.
As we have stated in previous lessons, applying numbers to chord/scale degrees is an incredibly useful teaching tool that will help you teach this concept to your students. If your students are new to chords, start by teaching them that each chord has a unique sound and the foundation of that sound begins with its ROOT. Teach these roots through the blues progression and ask your ensemble to play them in real time during the song using a basic rhythm such as the “Charleston” rhythm or two eighth notes on beat one.
The goal of this exercise is to begin to attune your students’ awareness to the unique sound of each chord and arm them with the theoretical knowledge of how to play the notes of the chords as they happen during a song. Students can start with the blues scale and transition to playing the notes of the arpeggio during specific chords throughout their solo, as Danny demonstrates at the 2:50 mark during the video.
Performing the blues in this way - with a combination of “bluesy” ideas and harmonic ideas based on the chords - is very common in the jazz language. Listen to the following recordings and notice how each soloists makes unique use of both approaches.
Want to send this video to your students? Use this link: https://youtu.be/frjXVqKE-Xc