The blues scale is the minor pentatonic with one more note, the ♭5, squeezed between the 4 and the 5. In A that is E♭. It is a semitone from each of its neighbors, so it pulls in both directions and never sounds settled.
The blues scale at the fifth fret
Position 2 covers frets 5–9 and holds fifteen notes.
This position covers frets 5 to 9, and every note of A Blues lies under one hand there. Six positions like it cover the whole neck, and this is Position 2.
In the box you already know, the ♭5 adds two frets: the sixth fret of the A string and the eighth fret of the G string. Everything else is where it was.
A note to pass through
Because it never settles, the ♭5 is a note to pass through rather than to stop on. Play the 5, the ♭5 and the 4 in a row, or the other way, and it slides you from one to the next. Stop on it and it sounds unfinished, which is sometimes exactly what you want at the end of a phrase that asks a question.
Through the flat fifth
Through the flat fifth, over A7: 5 E, ♭5 E♭, 4 D, ♭3 C, 1 A.
Five notes over four beats. It starts on the 5, and comes to rest on the root, with vibrato. The dashed lines are the notes of A7, and that last note is one of them.
The phrase falls 5, ♭5, 4, ♭3, 1, from E down to A, with the E♭ slipped in between the first two notes on a swung eighth. It is one of the most common ways the ♭5 is played, and it works over all three chords.
This lesson was drafted with the help of AI, so it may contain a mistake. Its diagrams are drawn by Everyfret’s own software. How Everyfret is made