The Blade Runner Blues lead

Six chords, twelve bars, one note each. Three minor chords, then the pair the key does not own, then the minor fifth to take it back. The line is the arrival on each chord and nothing between.

Come in late on every chord. The entries alternate: a beat after the first chord of each pair, two beats after the second, so the line never lands on the change itself. That is what makes it sound played rather than programmed.

The two entries over the borrowed chords are the major third of the chord beneath them, each a semitone above what the key gives you. That semitone is the whole sound. Play the note the key expects and the turn disappears.

Never play the key’s own third or sixth while these two chords are sounding. A natural third against the raised one is the move collapsing, and it is the one mistake this figure can make.

Hold each entry until the next chord is already sounding, then release. The overlap is where the two chords blur into each other. The one exception is going into the major I: the note over the third chord stops at the bar line, so the raised third arrives on air.

Over the four minor chords the note is a chord tone, held: the fifth of the first chord, the third of the second and of the third, the fifth of the last. The shape is what repeats; only the two over the turn are raised.