E Major Blues Scale: Notes and How to Play It
The E major blues scale is the sound of the blues smiling. It takes the bright, open feel of a major scale and adds one gritty, bluesy note that gives every lick a little swagger. If you love the cheerful bounce of country picking, Southern rock solos or jump blues, this is the scale behind a lot of it. E is also one of the friendliest keys on guitar, because your open low E string is the root. You can start sounding good with this scale today.
The Notes of E Major Blues
The E major blues scale has six notes:
E, F#, G, G#, B, C#
Each note has a number that describes its distance from the root. The root is the home note, here E. The scale's formula is:
- 1: E, the root
- 2: F#, the major 2nd
- b3: G, the minor 3rd
- 3: G#, the major 3rd
- 5: B, the perfect 5th
- 6: C#, the major 6th
Take away the G and you're left with E, F#, G#, B, C#. That's the E major pentatonic scale, a five-note scale that sounds sweet and open. The major blues scale is simply that pentatonic with one extra note added. If you already know the major pentatonic, you're almost there.
How the Step Pattern Builds the Scale
Scales are built from steps. A half step is the distance of one fret. A whole step is two frets. The major blues pattern is:
W - H - H - W+H - W - W+H
W+H means a whole step plus a half step, which is three frets. You can try this on your low E string:
- Start on the open string: E
- Whole step (2 frets) to fret 2: F#
- Half step (1 fret) to fret 3: G
- Half step to fret 4: G#
- Whole plus half (3 frets) to fret 7: B
- Whole step to fret 9: C#
- Whole plus half to fret 12: E again, one octave higher
Playing up one string like this is a great way to hear the shape of the scale. Notice the three notes in a row at frets 2, 3 and 4. That little chromatic cluster is where the blues lives.
A Friendly Note on Spelling
You might notice two kinds of G in this scale: G and G#. Normally a scale uses each letter name only once, so this can look like a mistake. It isn't. The blues scale deliberately contains both a minor 3rd and a major 3rd. In the key of E, both of those are a kind of G, so both get the letter G. Writing the G as some other name would hide what it's really doing. So when you see G and G# side by side, read it as "the bluesy third and the happy third."
What Gives It That Sound
The magic note here is G, the flat 3rd. Blues players call it a blue note. Over an E major chord, a G sounds a little sour and tense, but not in a bad way. The trick is what you do with it.
Most of the time, players don't sit on the G. They slide or bend it up into G#, the major 3rd. On the low E string, put your finger on fret 3 and slide up to fret 4. Hear that little "whine" settling into a happy, resolved sound? That's the whole personality of this scale in one move. It's tension melting into sunshine.
Listen for that as you play: the G is the moment of attitude, the G# is the moment of relief.
Chords and a Progression to Jam Over
A few chords are built entirely from this scale's notes:
- E (E, G#, B), your home chord
- E6 (E, G#, B, C#), a jazzy, swinging version of E
- C#m (C#, E, G#), the minor chord that shares these notes
Speaking of shared notes, the C# blues scale uses exactly the same notes as E major blues. Same notes, different home note, so it sounds darker when C# is the centre.
The classic place to use E major blues is a 12-bar blues in E, using the chords E7, A7 and B7. Here's the pattern, one chord per bar:
E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 | A7 | A7 | E7 | E7 | B7 | A7 | E7 | B7
Have a friend or a backing track play this. The scale fits most naturally over the E7 bars, so start there. Aim to end your phrases on E or G#, and you'll sound settled and sure of yourself.
Finding E on the Neck
On a standard-tuned guitar, you'll find the root E here:
- Low E (6th) string: open (fret 0), fret 12 and fret 24 if your guitar has that many
- A (5th) string: fret 7 and fret 19
For a comfortable start, try this open-position shape, low string to high:
- 6th string: frets 0, 2, 3, 4
- 5th string: frets 2, 4
- 4th string: frets 2, 4, 5, 6
- 3rd string: frets 0, 1, 4
- 2nd string: frets 0, 2
- 1st string: frets 0, 2, 3, 4
Then move up to fret 12, where the same notes repeat an octave higher, and explore around the A-string root at fret 7.
Your Practice Plan
Spend five minutes just on the slide from G to G#: fret 3 to fret 4 on the low E string, then on the high E string. Make it smooth and confident. Then put on a 12-bar in E and play only four notes, E, G, G# and B, until each phrase feels like it's talking. Add the others once that feels natural. Keep it relaxed, keep it bouncy, and let that blue note grin through.
For the bigger picture, read The Major Blues Scale.