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Chapter 8: Playing Lead: Soaring Melodies and Searing Solos
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leave some of those chord tones out because the notes clash (albeit in a good
way!) with tones in the I, IV, and V chords.
By adding just a couple of notes, you can choose to either clash with the
tones (as usual) or reinforce the chord tones with the added notes. And,
more than just supporting the chords, you can give your playing a different
character, one that evokes jazzier, sweet, and Texas-style flavors. And music
can never have too much Texas in it (at least as far as I’m concerned)!
Clashing bitterly
The chords that make up the 12-bar blues are triads — three-note chords with
the intervals one, three, and five. Here’s the breakdown:
The E chord consists of E (one, or the root), G# (three, or the major
third), and B (five, or the fifth).
The major third of the E chord, G#, is a half step away from its closest
note in the blues scale (E, G, A, B%, B, D), which is G.
The other two notes of the chord, E and B, are already in the scale.
When you play a G lead note (part of the E blues scale), it clashes with the G#
in the E chord playing underneath you. That interplay creates the tension with
the lead voice, pitting a blue note within the harmonic framework that’s supporting
a major-scale note (in this case, G#). It’s that tension, or clash, that
gives the blues its uniquely expressive and sometimes troubled character.
If you know your blues progressions, you can also substitute dominant seven
chords for the triads. But the added notes in E7, A7, and B7 — the sevenths
D, G, and A — are all already contained in the blues scale. So for our purposes,
they don’t affect the issue of clashing versus supporting tones.
A dash of sweetness
Playing a chord tone is never a bad thing in blues, rock, and jazz because
there are times when you want to support the harmony and times when you
want to go against the grain. In the case of the major third of a chord, it’s a
very defining sound in swing and Texas blues and is often nicknamed the
sweet note.
Figure 8-10 shows a passage using blues-scale notes along with the occasional
G#. In this figure, G immediately precedes the G# and is a classic blues move
that’s encouraged!
TEAM LinG