Blues scale

Blues scale
Note nameCC#DbDD#EbEE#FbFF#GbGG#AbAA#BbBB#Cb
This page shows the structure of the blues scale, containing 6 notes.

The blues scale is made from the 1st, flattened 3rd, 4th, flattened 5th, 5th and flattened 7th notes from the major scale for a given key.

The music theory term flattened means to lower the note by half-tone / semitone / piano key.

The 7th and final note in the diagram is the octave note, named the same as the tonic note, and is the note where the scale starts repeating all the way up the piano keyboard.

For example, in the key of E-flat, below is the Eb blues scale.

Another way to construct the blues scale is to take all notes from the minor pentatonic scale in the same key then add an extra note into the 4th note position - the diminished 5th, which is the blue note.

Both constructions are shown on each blues scale page, including how to calculate the diminished 5th interval for each key.

E-flat blues scale