Dwight,

Nobody answered you question about blues scales, and it has scrolled off the bottom of the page, so I'm starting a new thread.

First off, I am not so sure that thinking in terms of "blues scales" is necessarily the best approach. When I learned guitar and bass, I spent a lot of time learning to play scales inside out and backwards and upside down. It is important to know and understand scales.

But on accordion, instead of learning a bunch of scales I had songs I wanted to play and then found where the notes were. I did sit down and write out a keyboard chart, but I never really spent a huge amount of time on scales.

Having said that, here are some thoughts I have on the topic of blues scales on the triple row.

What is a blues scale anyway? In essence, a blues scale is a modified major or minor scale. What are the modifications? Here they are, in order of importance:

1) Flat 7th. The flat 7th is why we play in the second position (e.g., G on a C accordion).

2) Flat 3rd. This is almost as important as the flat 7th, and is arguably the most compelling reason to put down your single row, and pick up a triple row. Really.

3) Augmented 4th. This one comes in at a distant third place, but it is worth knowing about. On a triple row, it is hard to play, because it is found on one of those hard to reach weird buttons at the top of each row.

Those are the most important altered tones for modifying a major scale into a blues scale.

What do you get if you take the root, the 4th, the 5th, and then add in the flat 3rd and 7th? You get the minor pentatonic scale. If you add the augmented 4th, some people call that "the blues scale". I am not sure how helpful that is, but there you have it.

I will try to put up a video that demonstrates some of these things.

Thanks David. "Blues Scales" was just an attempt to narrow it down so someone might answer with something.

Really, what I'm looking for is usable scales, maybe with a bluesy flavor, or whatever. I could sit here and try to map scales to the keyboard, but in the process I'll get swamped with trying to figure out if:

A) is this the most ergonomic way to play this?

B) How usable is this?

Mostly I'm looking to free up my hands on the accordion for a bit more improvisational stuff, or to flesh out a song better, rather than following note per note what someone else is doing. There's some songs I want to convert to the triple row, for which I have no models to copy from, and the basic note pattern I can pick out is too simple and monotonous.

So, I'm looking for ways to make my hands have more reflexes to follow on the keyboard. If that makes sense.

I agree about the flat 3rd being almost as important as the flat 7th if you want a 'proper' blues scale. On a single row C box when you play in G the F note (flat 7th) gives somewhat a blues feel, but try as hard as you like ain't no way to get that B flat note, not on a single row anyhow! If anyone has figured a way around this please let the rest of us know!

Play in the key of "D" on a "C" accordion?

(Well, it will get you the flatted 3rd )

--bn

well
if you pull it hard enough, the b will flatten out
though it will be so loud you can;t stand it
and each of the 4 reeds will probably end up flat by a different amount
but it would be noticed at any rate!
wle

and if you pull it even harder...

Dwight, once you got it all down in your system, here's how to put the icing on the cake and get yourself a proper Blues related Artist Showtime Handle:



- Nout

shut up.

Cool! I am Old Bones Davis!

Me Fat Fingers McGee, but i ain't related to Ole Denus alas - Nout

I don't like mine, so I'll just select what I want. Call me Sticky Liver Lee.

Or Sleepy Pickles Green. Then I'll do like Roy Carrier and sing about Viagra in a bunch of songs.