[Strategy #2] Elevating a Minor Blues with Chord Tones and Scales

Learn Jazz Standards Podcast - A podcast by Brent Vaartstra: Jazz Musician, Author, and Entrepreneur

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Welcome to episode 240 where today we are diving into Strategy #2 of Minor Blues Month! In the last episode, we composed a 12-bar minor blues using the minor pentatonic and blues scale almost exclusively. This time we build on that etude by incorporating chord tones and a few scales to level up the jazz in our minor blues.This is our second episode for Minor Blues Month here where we are going over 3 strategies for improvising over a minor blues, as well as the last 4th episode being my practice plan for really mastering and diving deep into a minor blues. In the last episode, we talked about strategy #1 which was using minor pentatonics and the blues scale to improvise. And on that episode, I basically composed on the spot an etude over a 12-bar minor blues using almost exclusively just those two tools. Now, in today's episode, we are going to take that exact same etude and add strategy number 2 to it, and start doing a little bit of recomposition. And strategy #2 is all about using chord tones and modes and scales to start adding some more color and dimension to this important song form. In this episode:1. A review of last episode's etudes 2. Adding some chords to the minor blues form 3. Chord tones and scales to use over a minor blues 4. I re-compose the etude while implementing the new strategy Important Links:1. Minor Blues Accelerator course2. LJS Inner Circle Membership3. Free Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month! Want to get your jazz question answered on the podcast? Click here.