When soloing over a blues progression it is important to know which blues guitar scales will work and sound good. Essentially a blues progression is based on a I, IV, V chord progression and the most common is the 12 bar blues. In blues,these chords tend to be the same type of chords, ie ; major, minor or seventh chords. For example the most common 12 bar blues will be entirely seventh  chords, a minor blues may contain only minor chords, and a major blues only major chords.

Now if we examine a typical blues composed of seventh chords we will find that there isn’t one particular scale that contains all of the notes within these chords perfectly. The best match might be to play the mixolydian mode over each corresponding chord. This would mean mixolydian mode in the key of the I chord, played only over the I chord, mixolydian mode in the key of the IV chord, played only over the IV chord, mixolydian mode in the key of the V chord, played only over the V chord. This is one way to do it, your solo will certainly sound good over the chord changes and bright with the major 3rd.

A blues progression can also be constructed around entirely major or minor chords in the I, IV, V pattern. In this instance if it is a major progression, use the I major scale. If it is entirely minor chords use the natural minor scale, in the key of the I chord. These scales will fit perfectly over these progressions, because the chords contain the exact same notes as the corresponding scales.

Ok, so now we have discovered various blues guitar scales that will work over different blues progressions. Still a bit confused about all of the choices? Well I don’t blame you! What I would like to do now is explain the most common blues guitar scale and when it is best suited. This scale is simply called the blues scale and it is the minor pentatonic scale with a flat 5 added to it – R, flat 3, 4, flat 5, 5 and flat 7. Now remember I mentioned that the most common blues progression is constructed entirely with seventh chords(R,3, 5,flat7). This is the scale of choice to play over this type of progression. So you might be wondering why this scale has a flat 3 or minor 3rd in it – it doesn’t make musical sense using a minor 3rd over a major 3rd!  Well, put simply this is what gives the blues such a distinctive sound – the flat 5 also gives this “bluesy” sound.

So there you have it, to find the correct scale to play over a blues progression, typically a I, IV, V chord progression, firstly look at the I chord. If it is a seventh chord you could use the mixolydain mode as described previously, or just use the blues scale. Using the key of A - you would use the A blues scale. If it is a A major or A minor as the I chord you would use the A major and the A minor scale respectively. You could also just use the A blues scale over these two progressions as well, or a combination. You have plenty of options available, so have some fun and experiment with these various blues guitar scales.

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