Griff Hamlin | Using The "Blues Half Step" In Your Soloing - The Altered Dominant Scale (Modern Blues Soloing)

In talking about more Modern Blues Soloing, and getting away from the standard Pentatonic and Blues scales for a bit, one of the things we have to discuss is the way chords influence the sound we play...And notice that I say "sound" and not "scale..." because, to me, scale implies a single correct choice, whereas saying that we are playing a certain "sound" implies that it's a choice we are making. Which is, of course, what Modern Blues Soloing is all about - having the know-how and the freedom to make a variety of sound choices in a variety of settings. Well, in a slow blues (or any blues, really) there's a tendency to use the "blues half step" going into the IV chord (or the V, or the IV) and if you use that "half step away" chord as part of your soloing, you get a pretty cool sound.