say you're looking at sheet music and there are four sharps, the key of E major, does this mean to play the blues or minor pentatonic scale you would have to play C# as the root note?

on a different note, say you're playing a I IV V progression with the 12 bar blues, in the key of E, would it be correct to play in C# with the minor pentatonic scale?

asked 26 Feb '11, 00:37

MATT's gravatar image

MATT
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For your first question, yes. If you look at the circle of fifths, you'll see that C# minor is the relative minor of E major. So you could play either a C# minor pentatonic or a C# blues scale.

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For your next question, you are also correct. For any key you can play in either that key or its relative major/minor key. So in your case, the key of E major, it would be appropriate to play either E major or C# minor.

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answered 26 Feb '11, 03:38

APShredder's gravatar image

APShredder
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If you want to play the blues and have them sound really bluesy; you might want to try playing the minor blues scale from E over E major. That minor over major is where the blues are.

The next step is to find the minor third and bend, or slide up to the major third. So then you're kind of mixing the E minor blues scale with the C# minor blues scale.

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answered 10 May '11, 11:20

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James 1
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Asked: 26 Feb '11, 00:37

Seen: 1,389 times

Last updated: 10 May '11, 11:20