| You can start improvising with the help of the blues | | | | with a raised fourth added. |
| scale today. You will learn three easy left hand chords | | | | Here are the notes you can play and improvise upon |
| and how to use them in your improvisations. | | | | as you hold the G13 chord with the left hand: |
| We will use the key of G-major. The first chord to | | | | G4 Bb4 C5 C#5 D5 F5 G5 |
| learn is a three finger chord for your left hand that is | | | | We will now take a look at the C9 chord. It is a fitting |
| usually called G13. If we should stick to music theory | | | | chord to change to from G13 and also easy to find: |
| too literally such a chord would consist of the following | | | | C9: E3 Bb3 D4 |
| scale steps: | | | | It's time to construct a chord progression: |
| 1 3 5 7b 9 11 13 | | | | G13 / / / C9 / / / |
| In G-major this would be the notes: | | | | The advantage of using the blues scale is that it can |
| G B D F A C E | | | | be used over many chords. We will now try to play a |
| That's theory, but the chord doesn't sound very nice | | | | blues progression in G-major with this blues scale. We |
| actually! Normally you can keep the F, B and E. The | | | | will need one more chord to construct a three chord |
| root G will probably be played on a bass guitar or can | | | | blues. Here is the D9 chord: |
| just be omitted. Anyway, here is the G13 chord in a | | | | D9: F#3 C4 D4 |
| very common form: | | | | Now it's time to play the blues: |
| G13: F3 B3 E4 | | | | G13 / / / C9 / / / G13 / / / G13 / / / |
| The numbers indicate in which octave the notes are to | | | | C9 / / / C9 / / / G13 / / / G13 / / / |
| be played. C4 is the so called middle C in the fourth | | | | D9 / / / C9 / / / G13 / / / D9 / / / |
| octave. | | | | Of course you can use notes in the blues scale higher |
| I will now give you the blues scale. First only with the | | | | up on the piano keyboard. However, an effective blues |
| scale steps so you can apply the scale in any key: | | | | solo doesn't need a lot of notes. Try to use only a few |
| 1 3b 4 4# 5 7b | | | | notes and focus your energy on creating music. |
| It can also be considered a G-minor pentatonic scale | | | | |