Hybrid Blues Scales and Passing Tone Notes

Hybrid Blues Scales and Passing Tone Notes

This guitar lesson is Hybrid Blues Scales and Passing Tone Notes. Here are some Hybrid scale examples that you can explore with the Guitar Analyzer Software. These scales can be created by adding notes or moving notes to the Minor Pentatonic Scale. I’ll start with the adding a note scale examples. The first Blues Scale example is a very common scale used in Blues and Rock, the A Blues Scales. This scale is created by adding a passing tone Diminished 5th (b5) note to the A Minor Pentatonic Scale. The passing tone is the note not related to the notes of the Major Scale Key. Usually passing tones sound a little off in most soloing situations but sounds great inside the Pentatonic Scale.

The next Hybrid Blues Scale is the Blues Chromatic Scale that is created by adding two notes Minor Pentatonic Scale. It not only has the diminished 5th added but also the Major 3rd which is not always a passing tone. The unnatural thing about this scale it has four chromatic half steps in a row. A lot of country style guitar players use this scale and they apply a lot of unique chromatic lick variation to these half step notes in their solos.

The next hybrid blues scale is created by moving Minor 3rd (b3) of the Minor Pentatonic scale up half step to the Major 3rd Interval. This gives a little bit of a Middle Eastern or Gothic sound.  This scale is used in solos by some Rock and Metal Guitar Players Kirk Hammett, George Lynch and Neal Schon.

The last hybrid blues scale shown is also another scale from moving a note. This scale is called the Major 6 Pentatonic Scale created by moving the Minor 7th (b7) of the Minor Pentatonic Scale down a half step to the Major 6th. This scale is used by some jazz and jazz fusion guitar players by artists like Allen Holdsworth, Robin Ford and Frank Gambale.

The four diagrams at the bottom shows how these hybrid scales relate to modes in modern western diatonic scales. First A Major 6 Pentatonic bordered notes fit inside the A Dorian Mode 2nd mode degree of the G Major Scale. Second A Major 6 Pentatonic bordered notes fit inside the 2nd degree of A Melodic Minor Scale. Third A Major 3 Pentatonic bordered notes fit inside the A Mixolydian Mode 5th degree of the D Major Scale. Fourth A Major 3 Pentatonic bordered notes fit inside the A Phrygian Major 5th degree of the D Harmonic Minor Scale.

All the diagrams below can easily be explored in much greater depth within the Guitar Analyzer Software.

A Blues Scale (BL1)
A Blues Chromatic Scale
A Dorian / Major 6 Pentatonic
A Major3 Pentatonic Scale
A Mixolydian Mode / Major 3 Pentatonic
A Major 6 Pentatonic Scale
A Harmonic Minor (HM5) / Major 3 Pentatonict