Saxophone Blues Scales - If You desire To Play Blues, Rock or Jazz you want to begin here

If you're a saxophonist concerned in playing any kind of blues based music with rock & roll and even jazz then you require using the blues level as your figure one tool to create things sound true.

Teaching Jazz and Blues History

If you desire to explore back to the beginnings of the blues as it come about in America now start with W.C. Handy, who was a black creator active in the untimely 1900's when the blues form begin to get popularized in large part because of his instrumental composition "Memphis Blues" (1912) &  "St. Louis Blues" (1914). Of course the blues oral custom can be traced back to the mean 1800's.

The blues scale

Because our western music has its roots in European classical melody the music theorists wanted to notate the blues level as it was logically played & sung into an comprehensible notation which might be analyzed & played by western taught musicians.
The simplest method to clarify its assumption is this:

Simply take the customary major scale; C D E F G A B C & flatten the 3rd, 5th, and 7th. Currently it looks like this: C D Be E F Gb G A Bb C.

(Please seem at the instance on my website for the occupied musical notation). Notice the E, G, and B have been compressed, they are the 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of the C major scale & flattening them make the scale sound minor thus charitable it the "blues" or sad sound as contrasting to the "major" or pleased sound.

For us sax dramatis personae these flat comments are ideal to slot in a "growl" sound to more highlight that "bluesy" look or make it a bit nastier. Two other belongings to notice; the 3rd and 5th can be play as a flat or not but the 7th usually is only play as a flat & not the major 7th in this kind of scale or melodic genre. (For some audio examples please submit to the website report of this item).

So currently our essential main scale of 8 notes is currently a blues scale of 10 notes. Even calculation a flat 9th (D flat) was a pet thing Charlie Parker did a lot & is a good method to jazz up your phrase.

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