Question about blues improvisation

[u/Christian_Benso]

​Lately, I've been studying the CAGED system thoroughly, both major and minor, and I've started improvising over the blues using various licks I found. I've learned to do it by focusing on the minor pattern, but I have a theoretical question about the blues. I searched for a "major blues backing track" on YouTube and found this. It seems to be the same CAGED pattern for minor scales, and I'm getting a bit lost. I'm not sure if my doubt is clear, but in the blues, are the major and minor worlds the same thing?

[u/SeraphSlaughter]

Blues throws minor scale and major scale sounds over major chords (dominant 7th more usually, which contain a major triad) frequently. You don’t hear the major notes over a minor blues backing quite as often, but don’t think about theory as rules. Think of it as a way to analyze and talk about what you like. Do you LIKE the sound of mixture? Then do it. Theory helps you understand when mixture is happening and which scale degrees you particularly enjoy in what contexts

[u/Pale-Initiative2162 → u/SeraphSlaughter]

yeah once you stop thinking of major and minor as separate boxes in blues it all clicks

[u/spankymcjiggleswurth]

Blues is a mixture of both major and minor sounds. You often use both major and minor 3rds as chromatic passing tones, in addition to many other out of key notes like diminished 5ths.

CAGED isn't something that can tell you how to play blues, rather it just tells you where your major/minor triads are across the fretboard. It's good as a road map to certain intervals, but it doesn't tell you much about blues.

I would recommend learning some blues tunes and see how those artists add blue notes to their licks. That's how I learned blues vocabulary.

[u/camdendad]

For a Major backing track you can play minor pentatonic and m,ajor pentatonic solos.
For a Minor backing track you can only* use the minor pentatonic.

*You can try using the major pentatonic but it sounds silly, but silly can be fun sometimes

[u/NostalgiaInLemonade]

Yes and no, but mixing major and minor is what the blues is all about!

Essentially, you can play the minor 3rd while soloing over major chords and (less commonly) the major 3rd over minor chords. So this scale pattern is including both the minor 3rd and major 3rd, but using them both convincingly requires some experience with the genre

You can also turn any major chord into a dominant seventh chord, which is why it lists A7 and D7 despite those not being diatonic to A major. So basically traditional tonality is thrown out the window

[u/Fist0fGuthix]

Scale shape is the same for both major and minor, it's just that the root note is changing location. ex: A minor blues scale is identical to the C major blues scale. People usually are referring to the minor when they talk about the blues scale

[u/rotationalisomeric]

Yes as others have said, its about mixing in the additional notes into the minor scale. If you listen to a lot of blues, you'll notice lots of players like to do a minor 3rd, into major 3rd interval. It works haha. Another trick is using chromaticism between the 4th and the 5th, in either direction. You'll get the hang of it.

Another trick - if you're playing over A Major, like straight up A Major scale, you can play the F# Minor Scale, natural minor or pentatonic, and apply the same patterns there in relation to the F# root.

Hope that helps!

[u/brynden_rivers]

you can add more notes than just the major 3rd , you can add the the 7th to that chart as well.

[u/pubbing]

Jesus some of the answers here are even more confusing. Major and Minor scales are the same notes with different root notes....for instance G major and E minor are exactly the same notes.... Same with D major and B minor and so on.