indeed, M. Ted,

I used a scale discussion to give form to what I had to say about key and tonality. I rarely, if ever when blowing blues, think in terms of scales....because of the many accidentals I commonly employ my blues playing is inclusive of about 10 notes chromatic....I tend to think more in terms of "key" and "interval" as points of reference. the scales discussed were mostly a matter of using a tool for illustrative purposes. when playing straight blues, key is more of a guidepost than scale.... then I'm concentrating on emotion and letting my fingers explore figures and tonalities that are expressive of a feeling I wish to illuminate....I'm not explaining this well at all.

though I must admit that often my work is more in the genre of an acoustic blue jazz where scales DO become important tools for rapidly comping chord extensions on the fly, as it were.... and attempting to develop melody using voicings based on sound harmonic principles.... that form of music is quite cerebral and scales (and all other tools for describing harmonic development) become quite important items in my musician's tool kit. I guess it's all a matter of what is appropriate to the context within which one is creating ....or something like that.

bird