SØLO
Cleverly designed by fusion guitarists Tom Quayle and David Beebee, this app helps you visualize how to navigate chord and scale tones all over the neck. It comes loaded with tons of progressions and challenges you to snake through by hitting the correct notes.
$14.99
IREAL PRO
This modern, tablet-friendly version of the famed "illegal" Real Book that sprouted up in the '70s is a treasure trove of changes to thousands of jazz, pop, rock, and country tunes. The app also allows you to choose style, tempo, key, and more to create customized play-alongs.
$14.99
1CHART
You don't have to be a session cat in Nashville to get the most out of this sleek app that aims to make your charts clean and easy to read. Using simple Nashville-style notation, you can create charts with either numbers or chord symbols, rhythmic figures, and much more.
$15.99
1chartapp.com
GUITAR NOTE ATLAS
Imagine this app is your handy travel guide to nearly every possible scale, chord, and arpeggio around. It features a bass mode, left-handed mode, and the ability to view both a single position and the entire fretboard at the same time.
$4.99
guitarnoteatlas.com
AMAZING SLOW DOWNER
If you're trying to get inside the licks of Vai, Satriani, Yngwie, or EVH, there will likely come a time when the notes are simply going by too fast. This app can tap into your streaming service and create customized loops, adjust the tempo, or even raise and lower the pitch of a tune.
$14.99
FENDER PLAY
The focus of Fender's instructional app is to get your favorite songs under your fingers quickly, while teaching the fundamentals of good technique. The extensive song library covers everyone from the Beatles to Billie Eilish, in addition to courses on bass and ukulele.
$44.99/year
GIBSON APP
Inside this all-in-one app is a deep collection of instructional materials, song tutorials, a tuner, and a progressive learning path that uses augmented reality to help you better recognize what you're doing right and wrong.
$14.99/month
ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS
This app serves as an extension of the largest collection of user-sourced guitar tab on the internet. Nearly every style of guitar is represented here, and the app also includes backing tracks, transposable chord charts, and much more.
$5.99/month
ultimateguitar.com
GUITAR PRO
One of the more popular guitar notation programs is available in a mobile version that will let you view pro-looking tab on the go. There are 19 available sounds, support for 4- to 8-stringed instruments, a mySongBook portal to learn your favorite songs, a metronome, and extensive looping controls.
$6.99
guitar-pro.com
HUMANOME
Only the mind of Wayne Krantz could come up with this twisted take on a metronome. It's designed to not only improve your internal clock, but help you adapt quickly to sudden changes in tempo. If you're feeling adventurous, then make sure to check out inhumanome mode.
waynekrantz.com
Intermediate
Beginner
- Understand the basics of the blues scale.
- Create angular lines by taking an intervallic approach.
- Toss out all those B.B., Freddie, and Albert licks.
The blues scale is usually one of the first scales a guitarist learns and is arguably used in almost every genre of guitar playing. Just for review, look at Ex. 1, which lays out the notes of the A blues scale (A–C–D–Eb–E–G). If you've already worked on the blues scale, ask yourself if you can identify each scale tone on every string. That knowledge is important! You'll have a deeper understanding of what you're playing, and it will keep you away from the "this-looks-like-it-sounds-cool" approach.
The most common fingering for the A blues scale is found in 5th position, and the second most common pattern is in 12th position. Ex. 2 shows all positions of the A blues scale. Base your fingerings to these patterns on the minor pentatonic modes but notice that adding the blue note creates some new shifting that you'll have to keep an eye on.
So, now you know the scale and you know how to play it everywhere on the neck. But here's the thing: Think of the scale as a six-note (hexatonic) scale rather than simply a minor pentatonic with an added note. Doing so will enable you to conceive of new and different things to play. One common way to reorganize the notes in a hexatonic scale is to pair the notes in thirds, or every other note. Look at Ex. 3 where these pairs are mapped out in 5th position and shows the intervals they create.
If you did this with a minor pentatonic, you would get four perfect fourths (P4) and one major third (M3) for a total of five intervals. With the blues scale, you get a perfect fourth, minor third (m3), major second (M2), major third, and then two perfect fourths for a grand total of six intervals. The b5 in the middle of the scale is the reason for the variety and squirrelly nature of the results and gives you different tools to add a new dimension to your blues playing.
To get these under your fingers and give you something to play, listen to Ex. 4 where these pairs are played ascending through the scale pattern in fifth position.
Ex. 4
Naturally, anytime you work on a sequential pattern it's helpful to twist those around into different permutations. In Ex. 5 I descend each interval pair while ascending the scale.
Ex. 5
Let's mix it up! In Ex. 6 and Ex. 7 I alternate through the intervals—first I go up then down before reversing the pattern. The fingerings will be pretty logical and common, but, some latitude and creativeness will be needed at some point. Work out something that makes sense to you but doesn't stray too far from the typical scale fingering. Apply the same method to the other four scale patterns and maintain them in position. Fun times.
Ex. 6
Ex. 7
Now for some meat and potatoes. Ex. 8 uses the scale patterns we've been working on. The first two measures use the descending interval concept leading to the rotating major and minor intervals played in triplets in measure 3. Measure 4 is a "two-up, one-down" combination of intervals that lead to a couple of ascending intervals to end the line.
Ex. 8
Ex. 9 is designed to travel up the neck a little more, using scale patterns through several positions. The original idea in measure 1 is played in 5th position and uses rotating intervals. It's played again in measures 2 and 3 an octave up in 7th position, then is answered by the descending intervals in 10th position going into measure 4. As with any new concept, the challenge is to make music and not sound like you're playing an exercise. In these examples, I added some rhythmic variety, space, and musical range to create something that sounds more like a line, not like an exercise.
Ex. 9
This interval sequence can also be played on adjacent strings. Whether together or broken up, you can use them to move along the neck to switch positions while soloing, create a vamp, or add another note to get some funky bluesy three-note chords. See Ex. 10 for the mapping of these intervals on all adjacent string sets.
Ex. 11 adds the intervals on the 4th and 3rd strings to a traditional sounding blues-rock riff. Measures 1 and 3 are identical, and the notes of the intervals are held out to get a little more grit. Measure 2 has a descending run of the intervals to get to the bar line, finishing with another descending run of eighth-notes while switching string sets.
Ex. 11
In Ex.12, I was going for more of a triplet feel that traveled the length of the neck. Mission accomplished. But remember this pro tip: What looks great on paper can be a real pain to play. In measure 1, the intervals are not played in order, but skipping over one of them and then backtracking. After that I'm trying to exploit the b5–5 combination to get from the top two strings to the shapes on the 3rd and 2nd strings. The fingerings are pretty shape-oriented until you get to measure 4. My advice there is to be resourceful.
Ex. 12
Keep in mind, this is only one potential way to group the notes of the blues scale. Explore other possible two-note groupings, either in position or lengthwise up and down the neck. Create a three-note chord shape and run it through the scale just to see what you get. Play all of this with a backing track to really hear what it sounds like. Keep the good stuff and don't worry about the other stuff. There's always another way to look at a scale.