hey everyone! i play in a blues/rock/jam band and we usually jam out songs for like 15-20 minutes. now i usually throw fills in over the head using the minor blues pentatonic scales (mostly). sometime i'll use the major pentatonic as well. it sounds good but i am becoming a bit bored with it. i am a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE jack bruce/cream fan and i have always been impressed with the fills that he throws in. anyone have any idea? i usually listen to the records to get an idea but more help is appreciated!!

MAJOR + MINOR scales.


throw in major/minor runs too.
i find minor more applicable cos im in the EXACT same kinda band as you.

mix the major and minor together with 5tonic for starters.

=]

Sounds like a good situation to mess with modes - lots of repetition with not a lot of chord changes.

hey everyone! i play in a blues/rock/jam band and we usually jam out songs for like 15-20 minutes. now i usually throw fills in over the head using the minor blues pentatonic scales (mostly). sometime i'll use the major pentatonic as well. it sounds good but i am becoming a bit bored with it. i am a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE jack bruce/cream fan and i have always been impressed with the fills that he throws in. anyone have any idea? i usually listen to the records to get an idea but more help is appreciated!!

Not to nitpick, but the blues scale is actually a 6 tone scale. It is enharmonic to the minor pentatonic with an added b5, [1,b3,4,b5,5,b7].

The best answer I can give you is to learn more about scales and so on, especially about how scales modulate. In the meantime you might try extending the scales once you get to the octave. Play the 9th, 10th, 11th and so on and then extend the scale downwards as well past the tonic.

I often find myself in the same situation described by the o.p., locked into the minor blues scale (or just the pentatonic w/o the b5) and looking for something different to mix it up. I'm really interested in hearing other folks' suggestions.

I've been trying to incorporate into my playing, especially in one- or two-chord jams, a couple of ideas passed on to me by a guy whose playing I really dig. One is to play for periods -- maybe just a bar or two, maybe longer -- without using the root. It's surprisingly hard to make yourself do, but it's extremely effective for building tension that, once you crash-land back on the root (on a big ONE), gets released and can propel the jam off in a new direction. (I especially like to do little triplet runs up or down between the 4 and 5 with the tritone in the middle.) The idea of leaving out the root is related to the suggestion of using different modes -- i.e., in which the root tone is in the scale but not so much a go-to note -- but doesn't require thinking about modes if that doesn't come easily or naturally to you.

The second idea is to use chromatic runs, especially in fours to or from the root. For example, do a little four-note walk from the b3 down to the root, or from the b7 down to the 5. This idea is used to great effect in the instrumental section of Pink Floyd's Money, in two different flavors: The walkdown over the tonic Bm chord starts on the root, then jumps to the b3 and walks back down toward the root, via 2 and b2, anticipating the next Bm. (There's actually a quick leading A tone to the first beat too, which adds a little extra rhythmic spice -- baDUM DUM DUM DUM, baDUM DUM DUM DUM). When the progression goes to the fifth (Em) chord, the chromatic walkdown starts on the root and walks straight down to the 6 (i.e., root-7-b7-6). Sometimes I'll use these exact riffs in a jam, if the groove and tempo are right, to explicitly quote this song for a few bars just for fun, but you can use different variations of the idea in almost any minor-key jam.

Don't know if that helps, but I hope others will chime in with more ideas.

What about learning also the modes (dorian and mixolydian mainly) and learning how to use chromatic passages? When you're done with that, "forget" everything and just play what you hear in your head. It takes some time, but most (or perhaps all?) pro musicians I know seldom think of scales, they think of what notes fit the music. Knowing the scales help in selecting the right notes and avoiding the bad ones, and you should learn as many scales as possible, but in the end they're only tools...

The major pentonic fits in places when chord isn't a dominant. If your bored it mean you haven't practiced it enough. To add spice add the Blue notes to the major pentatonic as passing tones. So add the b3's and b5's to the major pent'.

Just remember if the chord isn't a 7th then minor pent' can clash with the harmony. That is when you want your major pent with Blue notes.