You're Failing At The Blues Scale

Unbelievable. 45 years of playing guitar and a piano player gives me the best lesson of my life with three notes. (And I had a pretty good guitar teacher) I sat here with C Bb and G and played for an hour over a back track as you suggested. Never before have I realized that keeping to just a few choice notes relaxes the 'performer' part of of the mind and enables you to endlessly invert and break up phrases - concentrating on the sounds for once - rather than being distracted/ worrying about what your gonna play next - because you already know! Vale Aimee the extraordinaire!! :thanksdoc: chris Melbourne Oz

The problem you describe applies to other scales as well. Scales are good exercises to master technical aspects of an instrument. Scales are not good for learning to improvise. Even great classical composers often make the mistake of using too many scale passages. I think it is partially due to the habit of mainly playing scales every day for a long time. It becomes part of the way you speak musically, which is to be avoided.

Cool video. Made me remember a composition class I took and we could only write with triad tones. Which we thought was so restrictive, but teacher told us about their teacher who studied with one of the classical composers so started him writing with only one note. Really made him dig into rhythm and orchestration to be interesting. He said he was limited to one note for weeks but had to write and write. Then when teacher finally said he could use two notes his mind was blown with the possibilities of two notes and all the rhythms and orchestration sounds they discovered with one note. Restriction is a great way to learn.

Wow. This really opened my eyes. Specifically: 1. I'm over-complicating my LH bass patterns 2. I need to set more limitations for my practice sessions. 3. I need to play with iRealPro more. 4. I need to sing and play at the same time more.

You just made me happy listening to you groove in that final solo. This is what its all about. As a bass player, I love playing those "left hand" grooves, but it just makes me happy hearing those inspiring solos. This just made me want to pick up my sax again...

I've been listening to YouTube videos about music for many years now and I swear you are the only teacher I have ever seen that really conveys some insight about melody. It's like everyone has a mental block about melody but you cracked it <3

What a great idea for an instructional video. Thank you, Aimee.

Wow Aimee, you have really upped the production quality of your videos. Audio, perfect, lighting, perfect, creative two camera shots, editing, picture in a picture, I think you have raised the bar for all other youtubers, thank you, Oh, and the lesson was pretty good too. Thank You.

Ill never forget being in New Orleans and im walking down burban st with my alto sax, I was only playing about six months (had just finished a four year intensive program with Makanda "Ken" Mcintyre and Warren Smith in NY. The band playing is Wallace Davenport (Count Baise Trumpet Player) the drummer sees me walking up with my horn and says, "You want to come up and sit in on a tune" of course im like "hell yeah, thats why I came to NawOrleans.... When I get up on the stage I say to Mr Davenport, "thank you sir..." before I can get it out, he says, "boy, shut up and play your damn horn" he asked me what song I wanted to play, I say, "C Jam Blues" we get to my chorus and I just take a one note solo.... :) he looks over at me and nods in my second chorus I just added the fifth and play a two note solo. We finish and he looks up from his stool and says, "you want to play another tune" :) Big smiles I say humbly "yes sir" I hope people get what your trying to teach because its right on, its not the amount of notes, its the concept and execution.

Aside from the content which is great, I really liked the way the video was done with the front video over the piano keys. Really well done

So good - you're tips are so specific and clear with great examples. Anyone can give general guidance, but only the best teachers can spell it out so that people at all levels can gain from it. The takeaway for me from this lesson is to always have a goal and some plan in mind when improvising - some sort of a structure to decorate and work with, and not be afraid of working within limits. Thanks Amy!

This was incredible Aimee.

I'm Alan, a 57 year old guitar player. But I recently bought a cheap Casio keyboard and I'm applying what I know of scales and modes and chords and etc to this little red piano. Your videos are very helpful. There are some things that I just don't think about anymore. And that's always a mistake. Rethinking these basic things that you teach, and sometimes not so basic, it's helping me on the keyboard, but also refreshing my guitar playing. And a lot of it is really mental. So I really appreciate your videos.

Yes another great guitar lesson. The phrasing, and also the point of silly rules, repeating notes is great way to ear train as well. Thanks Aimee.

Loved this. So simple and fun! This compliments the online “Jazz Piano Beginners” course I am taking with Peter Martin at Open Studio. We are working on improvisations over his PM (C) Blues. Thank you Aimee!

Aimee, I think the most important thing to learning the scale is just listening to how it's played musically. Listening and playing along with other people and paying attention to how they articulate the scale is what's mostly important. That's why your videos are so good for learning music. Just listening to your demonstrations and trying to play along with you gives me a lot of inspiration and good ideas to play.

i love,love,love the way you teach! you are massively talented. thank you for sharing your wonderful gift.

New to your videos, and you’re such an authentic, down to earth, inspiring teacher. A breath of fresh air. The musicality is often lost in how improvisation is taught/practiced.

Great video. Yes! —Aside from just the blues harmonies and scale tones referred to, the rhythmic qualities of the solo used (vibe, feel, swing ) which Aimee here relates as ‘space and rests’ make all the difference between a good, emotional performance and a bland one. Love this video!

Love it Aimee. The silly note game is something I’ve never seen before. Such a good idea.