Originally Posted by: dswa1320

First of all ive made so many gains here. Im much better than when I started. In fundementals I spent two weeks and learned all the major scales and the two minor scale till I could play them in my sleep. I wanted to have that down. Now Im in Blues 1 and was so excited to get to begining lead and come to find out were using scales I was never taught. The scales are blues scales and blues pentonic or something. It seems wrong. Im here ready to play lead but I have no idea on the pattern. ugg

The so-called 'Blues Scale' is simply a variation on the Pentatonic scale:

---I----O----I----------I----------I----O----I--- 1

---I----O----I----------I----------I----O----I--- 2

---I----O----I----------I----O----I---(O)----I--- 3

---I----O----I----------I----O----I----------I--- 4

---I----O----I---(O)----I----O----I----------I--- 5

---I----O----I----------I-----------I----O----I--- 6

In the simplest terms, you're just adding a flat 5th to the pentatonic scale you already know (in bold). That is to say that you're adding an extra note to the scale. The 'blue' note.

Don't let scales scare you. Sure, there is an enormous amount of theory about which scales works with what type of progression with whatever type of style of music. But in the end, the fretboard is just a bunch of notes the repeat across the strings. Nothing more.

If an 'A' note is in key on a scale in one spot on the neck, an 'A' note will be in key somewhere else. An 'A' is an 'A'. All that scales represent is a map of the fretboard to keep you in key as you navigate the fretboard. The have funky names like mixolydian and so on but they're really just positions (groups of notes) keeping you in key