Jazz Scales - Blues & Bebop
- Chris
- Jun 9
- 2 min read
Jazz is a genre of music that's based heavily around improvisation. But if you've ever tried improvising yourself, you'll know it's important to have a structure on which to base your improvisation.
That's why it's important to know some jazz scales - but jazz is too cool to just use any old scale! Let's see what kind of scales are most commonly used in jazz improvisation...
Blues Scales
There are several different kinds of scales that are used for jazz improvisation.
First we have the major and minor 'blues scales'. These are based on pentatonic (a.k.a. five-note) scales, our blog post about which you can read here if you'd like to learn more. To make a pentatonic scale into a blues scale, all you have to do is add a 'blue note', in other words a semitone passing note, between notes 4 and 5 in a minor blues scale, and notes 2 and 3 in a major blues scale.
Sound complicated? Don't worry, have a look and a listen and it'll make more sense.
Here's a minor pentatonic scale followed by a minor blues scale - arguably the more common of the two:
And here's the minor blues scale written out:
Here's a major pentatonic followed by a major blues scale:
And here's the major blues scale written out:
Can you hear the difference when the 'blue note' is added in for the blues versions?
Bebop scales
Now you might be wondering why you can't always hear these blues scales when you're listening to bebop or any other sorts of fast jazz.
The reason is that many, more 'traditional' jazz genres will use what are called 'Bebop scales'. Bebop is a sort of faster jazz that became very popular in the 1950s.
Bebop scales, like blues scales, also add a blue note to a standard scale, but instead of using a pentatonic scales, bebop scales are based on normal major and minor scales or modal scales, adding an extra blue note so that an entire run of the scale will fit rhythmically into a bar while emphasising the important notes of the scale (usually 1, 3 and 5).
Let's hear a major scale, followed by a major bebop scale:
Can you hear how the bebop scale sounds more rhythmic? And how it emphasises the important 1, 3 and 5 notes?
So there we have it! Those are some of the most basic music note shapes you'll come across throughout Western music.
Want an easy-reference resource to remember which is which? Sign up to our mailing list to download our Cheat Sheet below!
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