LESSON TWELVE

The Note E Flat (Eb)

This 12 Bar Blues solo makes extensive use of the note Eb.

The Blues Scale

A common sound used for improvising in Blues, Rock and Jazz is the Blues scale. It sounds great when played on the trumpet or cornet. Written below is the C Blues scale.

C Blues scale

Here is an example of the type of musical line that can be created from the Blues scale.

Enharmonic Notes

There is often more than one way of writing a particular note. For example, the note F sharp can also be called G flat. These two notes have exactly the same sound and the same fingering.

Therefore, either spelling of the note may occur in the written music. This is called enharmonic spelling of the same note. The C Blues scale is often written using a Gb note instead of an F# note. The following example uses both versions of this note.

Combining Scales

It is worth comparing the notes of the Blues scale with those of the major scale. Here are the notes of both scales. The numbers written under the note names are the scale degrees which indicate the position of each note in the scale.

Notice that the Blues scale contains both the b5 and the @5. It does not contain the degrees 2 or 6. Altogether, the Blues scale contains six different notes, whereas the major scale contains seven different notes. The major scale used by itself does not sound very bluesy. However, in Blues, Rock and Jazz, melodies often contain notes from both of these scales as shown in the following 12 Bar Blues.