blues!

Hi there!

When I play blues, can I then just use the diatonic major scale, or is it better to use some kind of minor scale, e.g. blues scale, and do I need to swich between those scales, when the chord changes?

pentatonic minor is usually what blues play with. but yes learning the major and minor of pentatonics is a good idea.

its more important that you keep with the I-VI-V structure..(C-F-G , A-D-E)

and no.. the blues are pretty simple, you dont need to change the scale every chord change.. you can play maybe 3 variations of one riff in the same key, and call it a great blues piece.. but, it may sound quite a bit more intersting if you were changin scales with each chords changing (assuming the chords are doing the old I-IV-V vamp)

it depends on how complicated/interesting for yourself you want to make it. for a 12 bar blues progression, it does sound good if you change the key of what ever scale/mode your soloing in to the key of the 7th chord your gonna be working over.

personally i'd recomend using the minor pent, and throwing the major pent notes in for some interesting licks, also try adding the extra 2 aeolian notes in, or using the mixolydian mode, although its a major scale, it will work better over the bluesy 7th chords in the 12 bar progression than the major scale.

Quick question. While playing 12-bar blues or just playing blues in a major key, is it okay to solo with the penatonic minor scale? Say you're playing in the scale of B and you want to solo is it okay to use the B minor penatonic scale? Just wondering..

if it sounds good to you..

its ok.

Murdock, try using the blues-scale, it has one extra note in addition to the pentatonic minor-scale, also see CostacheCaragi's post above, concerning other scales,

Okeh! Thanks.