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One of the most common scale resource guitarrists use is minor petatonic, and this is not a surprise, when using a minor pentatoic scale, your chances of a tragic ending are very little. Petatonic is a very safe place to be, you can still screw it up but it�s a little bit harder! The reason behind all this is the structure of a minor penta scale and a minor chord. Check out the formulae of penta and minor 7 chord: penta = 1 b3 4 5 b7 ; minor 7 chord = 1 b3 5 b7. The difference betwee them is a single note, you are practically spelling the chord!
(Fig 1) Shows a minor pentatonic in A minor (A C D E G).
To add a little more edge we can throw a minor blues scale to the mix. This is the next logical step since the blues scale is the same as the pentatonic scale but with the addition of a flat 5 (blues) tone. The blues scale (1 b3 4 b5 5 b7) in a minor: A C D Eb E G (Fig 2). By adding the 5b we are including a minor7(b5) chord (1 b3 b5 b7) and it produces a rather sad feel and it gives us more to draw upon.
The dorian mode is a very helpful resource when improvising over a minor chord. The dorian mode (1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7), in A minor (A B C D E F# G), is just like mior (Aeolian) scale but with a major 6, or if you want, in A minor, is like playing (starting on A) a G major scale over a A minor chord.
One of my personal favorites to add to the mix is the chromatic scale. It contins all the 12 posible notes in western music, so here you have plenty to choose! Word of advise, this lesson started with a very safe "anti-screwing things up"scale (pentatonic), then adding more notes and making it more easy to screw it up. Don�t get me wrong, every note is very useful because it has its own "flavor", but beware of putting too much garlic in you mix!
Fig 1 Am penta = (1 b3 4
5 b7) a c d e g
|---------------------5-8--|
|-----------------5-8------|
|-------------5-7----------|
|---------5-7--------------|
|-----5-7------------------|
|-5-8----------------------|
Fig 2 Am Blues 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7
|---------------------5-8--|
|------------------5-8-----|
|-------------5-7-8--------|
|----------5-7-------------|
|-----5-6-7----------------|
|-5-8----------------------|
