Using melodic substitutions to break free from blues cliches
One great way to escape the so-called limitations of blues and pentatonic scales is to blend your existing vocabulary of blues clichés
Using melodic substitutions to break free from blues cliches
One great way to escape the so-called limitations of blues and pentatonic scales is to blend your existing vocabulary of blues clichés with new ideas, derived from melodic substitutions. Take, for example, a 12-bar blues progression in the key of G. You’re probably already aware that its inherent I, IV and V chords (G7, C7 and D7, or G9, C9 and D9 extensions) can be navigated using licks built from combinations of the G minor pentatonic, major pentatonic and blues scales.
Granted, there are countless ways to utilize these scales to produce both clichéd and non-clichéd licks. (It’s always interesting when someone claims to be “stuck in a rut” with pentatonic and blues scales!) However, substituting melodic lines drawn from other scales can open up endless new avenues for musical exploration and exploitation. To that end, we’re going to look at how to treat each chord individually by approaching it with a relative minor mode.
MIX IN MIXOLYDIAN
Here’s the theory behind the concept: Any harmonized major scale produces only one dominant seven chord built from its fifth scale step — G7 in the key of C, C7 in the key of F, D7 in the key of G and so forth — which also provides the root of its corresponding Mixolydian mode (think major scale with a b7). So, theoretically, a 12-bar blues in G is actually in three different major keys — C for the I chord, F for the IV chord and G for the V chord. Now we could stop here and simply use each chord’s Mixolydian mode as a melodic source — G Mixolydian for G7 or G9, C Mixolydian for C7 or C9 and D Mixolydian for D7 or D9 — but let’s take it