Re: Blues scale: is this accurate?

"BestStudentViolins.com" <SunMusicStrings@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:ac92f971-6a70-43da-bc62-9eb7b7b4bb61@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>I have an online friend, a working jazz pianist, who wrote me the
> following:
>
> This blues scale is entirely inaccurate because there's really no such
> thing as a blues scale. At best, certain cheap book authors have
> touted the minor pentatonic as a blues scale, possibly adding the
> diminished fifth or augmented fourth. But, actual blues music rarely
> uses this combination of notes in a recognizably scalar fa****on.

And he's right.

The "most common" version of a Blues Scale is 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7.

HOWEVER, just try and play a "blues scale" along with a T-Bone Walker (who
I 
believe is considered by most to be a blues musician) and you'll find that

he rarely sticks to just these notes.

More accurately, the thing we are seeing called a Blues Scale nowadays is 
really a Minor Pentatonic with a Blue Note - something that's been much 
touted in the guitar community for those wi****ng to learn pentatonic-based

blues influenced rock.

But most blues uses a scale more like:

1 2 b3 3 4 b5 5 6 b7

This is more like a Mixolydian Mode with an added b3 and b5 - two more
blue 
notes (the b7 being considered a blue note too).

I've seen this called "Major Blues Scale" or just "Blues Scale" as well.

Far too many blues tunes use Scale Degree 6 to ignore it. 2 (sometimes 
considered as 9) is also extremely im****tant (from T-Bone Walker to Stevie

Ray Vaughn).

But, this is not a "blues scale" either per se. I think it's better to say

there are blues scales (plural) of which some of the most common types are

X, Y, and Z. And of course, if you want to go there, you can discuss the 
living, breathing nature of those scales and tones interchangeability and
so 
forth.

Best,
Steve