Our song of the evening was Mustang Sally, written by Mack Rice recorded by a whole bunch of folks in the last 51 years, like the late great Wilson Pickett.
We did Mustang Sally in the key of C this week. Since Mustang Sally is a blues, we decided to do a C blues scale. We've heard this scale used in so many songs in the past, it is immediately familiar to us, and it contains some important differences between it and the C major scale.
A scale is a sequence of musical notes. There are many scales out there to try, but when you're first starting out we usually start with the C major scale because there are no pesky sharps or flats getting in our way.
C Major Scale: C (root), D (whole step), E (whole step), F (half step), G (whole step), A (whole step), B (whole step), C (half step)
In a C major scale, starting from the root note C, we go a whole step up to D, a whole step up to E, a half step up to F, a whole step up to G, a whole step up to A, a whole step up to B, and a half step up to C, an octave up from where we started. In a major scale there is always a half step between steps 3 and 4, and a half step between steps 7 and 8. All the other steps are whole steps.
C Blues Scale: C (root), D# (three half steps), F (whole step), F# (half step), G (half step), A# (three half steps), C (whole step)
In a C blues scale, we start with our same root note C, then go up three half steps to D#, a whole step up to F, a half step up to F#, a half step up to G, three half steps to A#, and a whole step up to C, the octave.
At the links are C scales to try on guitar and banjo. All of the notes in the scale are fretted, which is also called a moveable scale. As the name implies, you can move up or down the fretboard, keep the same sequence of notes, and viola! You will have learned another scale. Now you can play blues in any key!
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