The minor pentatonic scale with an added flat fifth, the note usually called the blue note. Six notes. The flat fifth is treated as a passing tone rather than a chord tone, and is normally placed between the fourth and the fifth.
1 = D
b3 = F
4 = G
b5 = Ab
5 = A
b7 = C
Root
D
Scale
Blues scale
Type
pentatonic
Notes
D F G Ab A C
Notes in the scale
6
Degree formula
1 b3 4 b5 5 b7
Semitones from the root
0 3 5 6 7 10
Step pattern
W+H W H H W+H W
Aliases
Minor blues
Key signature of this root
D major / B minor · F# C#
Written use
Named 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7. Standard vocabulary over a twelve-bar blues in the same key.
Notes and degrees
Each degree of the scale, its note name in this key, and its distance from the root in semitones.
Degree
Note
Semitones
Interval from the root
1
D
0
Perfect unison
tonic
b3
F
3
Minor third
4
G
5
Perfect fourth
b5
Ab
6
Tritone
5
A
7
Perfect fifth
b7
C
10
Minor seventh
Positions on the guitar
The five windows below are computed, not copied from a shape chart. The script locates the lowest
occurrence of D on each of the five upper strings within the first twelve frets and takes a
five-fret window centred on it. Because a scale repeats every twelve frets, these five windows cover
the whole neck; the same sequence returns an octave higher. The positions are numbered from the lowest
fret upwards, so position 1 is always the window nearest the nut and position 5 the window nearest the
twelfth fret.
Position 1 — frets 0–2
Root on the 4th string D3 at fret 0. 8 notes of the scale inside this window.
Read the grid as a chord diagram: the top row is the first string. Degrees appear in the
notes and degrees table above; a filled cell is a note of the scale, and the shaded cell is the tonic.