Major Blues

The major blues scale is a nine-tone scale created by combining the straight blues scale with the major tones of the Mixolydian mode (see page 42). Here are the notes, tones, and intervallic structure of this interesting hybrid scale shown based on A.

A major blues, “boxes” 1 – 5

Once again, the patterns of the minor blues scale are not strictly “boxes” (they are more than two notes per string), but we will refer to them this way because this scale can be viewed as a minor pentatonic (or blues) scale with added color tones. Below, the A minor pentatonic boxes are shown in solid dots, with the added tones of A major blues (2nd, 3rd, ♭5th, 6th) shown in grey dots.

Fingering

Box 1 utilizes the fifth and fourth positions (where five notes occur, slide with the first or fourth finger). Box 2 is in seventh position (slide with the fourth finger for the extra note). Boxes 3, 4, and 5 are similar—slide with your fourth finger to catch the extra (fifth) fret.

Here are the five interconnected patterns on the neck. Play up and down each pattern, shifting from one to the next until you can play it from memory. To help keep things straight, use the minor pentatonic shapes that you already know as a “skeletal” framework, upon which the extra notes of the major blues “hang.”

Next try the full neck. Use the A major anchor chords in boxes 1 and 4, below, to help locate positions more easily. Relating the scale to its anchor chords will also help you transpose it into other keys more readily.

Other tonalities

Below, the major blues scale is also shown in E and C. To play the scale in tonalities not shown here, simply shift the entire sequence of boxes up or down the fretboard. (See page 63 for note names on the neck.)