As mentioned in the last section, staying completely within the chord will make you play something that is 100% musically appropriate, but it may not always have that excitement we're looking for. It can also feel a bit limiting. To fix this, we can add passing tones and blue notes. A passing tone is usually a tone from the scale that is not a chord tone. We use it to give ourselves more options as we move between our chord tones. Blue notes are notes that are a little bit in disharmony with a chord being played, and therefore it creates some tension in the music.

Introducing this tension and then releasing it by going to more stable core tone is part of what introduces emotion. excitement in the music. It can be tempting to play too many blue notes. And if you do, you will sound like you're kind of playing in the wrong key. Too much tension equals no excitement. The best way is to use mostly chord tones, introduce a few passing notes, and just a few blue nodes to spice things up.

Next, we'll look at what options we have for the different chords.