E Blues Scale — Notes, Chords & Free MIDI

The minor pentatonic with a flattened fifth wedged between the fourth and the fifth — the "blue note" that gives the scale its ache when it is bent or passed through rather than sat on. In E Blues the notes are E, G, A, Bb, B, D, written with 1 sharp (F#), plus Bb written in. Its parent scale is E Minor. The interval that gives it its sound is the b5 passing tone. This page presets the scale tool to E Blues — play it, or download it as MIDI with or without the chords.

The notes of the E Blues scale

Related keys

• E Minor — parent scale — the seven notes this one is carved out of
• E Major — parallel major — the same tonic, a different third

Where the Blues scale is used

blues, rock and roll, soul, funk and jazz solos; the default vocabulary of guitar lead playing.

How it works

Choose a root note and a scale, and this tool builds a MIDI file containing the scale played ascending and descending in quarter notes. Enable diatonic chords to also include the triad built on every degree of the scale — a quick way to hear which chords belong to a key. Press play preview to hear the exact notes before downloading. This page arrives preset to E Blues, so the preview and the download both start on E4 and climb through the scale from there.

What can you do with a scale MIDI file?

• Drag it into your DAW as a reference lane while writing melodies.
• Learn unfamiliar scales — modes, pentatonics, harmonic minor — by seeing them on a piano roll.
• Feed it to arpeggiators or samplers that expect incoming MIDI.

A E Blues reference lane earns its keep fast: with E, G, A, Bb, B, D laid out on the piano roll, one glance tells you whether a note in your melody belongs to the scale or is a deliberate colour tone.

Want full generated tracks instead of raw scales? Open the MIDI Maker studio and let the generator write melodies in E Blues for you.

The blues scale in every key

• C Blues
• Db Blues
• D Blues
• Eb Blues
• F Blues
• Gb Blues
• G Blues
• Ab Blues
• A Blues
• Bb Blues
• B Blues

More scales starting on E

• E Major
• E Dorian
• E Phrygian
• E Lydian
• E Mixolydian
• E Minor
• E Locrian
• E Major Pentatonic
• E Minor Pentatonic
• E Harmonic Minor
• E Melodic Minor

Or head back to the scale to MIDI tool to build any combination yourself.

Keep building: chords, drums and more

• I–V–vi–IV in E Major
• vi–IV–I–V in E Major
• I–IV–V–IV in E Major
• I–vi–IV–V in E Major
• ii–V–I in E Major
• I–vi–ii–V in E Major
• Drum MIDI generator
• Audio to MIDI converter

Frequently asked questions

What notes are in the E Blues scale?

The E Blues scale contains 6 notes: E, G, A, Bb, B, D. Measured against the major scale that is 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7, and the step pattern is W+H W H H W+H W. The MIDI file plays them ascending and descending in quarter notes starting from E4.

Why does the E Blues scale have no chord for every degree?

E Blues has only 6 notes, so stacking thirds on each one does not produce a triad on every degree the way a seven-note scale does. Players treat it as a melodic vocabulary over chords borrowed from its parent scale instead.

Is this E Blues MIDI file free to use?

Yes — the download is free, requires no sign-up, and the generated MIDI is royalty-free for personal and commercial projects. A scale is not copyrightable in any case.

How do I use the scale MIDI in my DAW?

Drag the downloaded .mid file onto an instrument track in any DAW (Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, Cubase, Reaper, Bitwig, Studio One). It appears on the piano roll as regular notes you can edit, transpose, or feed into an arpeggiator.