Rhythms and the Blues Scale

What makes jazz and blues such a great genre of music is its' rhythms. There are some easy rhythm patterns and some very hard ones. The pules of a song is usually broken up into triplets. The emphasis of the song can be put on any one, two or three of these triples. Putting the emphasis on a triplet can give a song a brilliant feel.


Jazz and blues often also use syncopation. This is where the emphasis is put on the off beat. So if there are 4 beats in a bar, the emphasis is put on beat 2 and 4.


The blues scale is basically just a bluesy sounding series of notes. You can use these notes to improvise or write songs. The major blues scale is arranged like this starting on the note of whatever key you are in;

Intervals

Interval: 1 - b3 - 4 - b5 - 5 - b7

The minor blues scale is arranged like this;

Interval: 1- 2 - b3 - 3 - 5 - 6

The blues scale can be fun to improvise around. You can use it to improvise over a 12 bar blues. 12 bar blues are very common in blues music. They are basically 12 bars with notes arranged in a certain  pattern.