Scales

[woodys]

I'm pretty new to the mandolin but have about 20 years on the guitar. I'm working on improvising over Bluegrass standards ( nine pound hammer ect). When the chord changes from say A (the I chord) to the D (IV chord), should I try to change scales of just hang on the A scale as the notes are common to both scales. Also, the blues scale doesn't lay out so good on the mando, do most players play out of the blues scale or just kinda throw in the occasional blues note for seasoning?
thanks

[danmills]

You asked "should I try to change scales...", to which I suppose the only true answer is "you should do whatever works for you", but here's a different approach, which seems to be working pretty well for me:

I don't think about scales at all when I'm improvising. My starting point is always the melody or something closely related to it, and in my experience, the melody doesn't have much to do with the scale. It's made of the same notes obviously, but I find if I'm thinking scales when I'm playing, it never sounds musical. I tend to play too many connected notes, i.e. adjacent notes in the scale, or it just sounds generic for some reason. Also, the melody will just as likely include slurs and blue notes, or the song may modulate (however briefly), or do other things that are, to varying degrees, outside the basic scale. I think a good melody (improvised or otherwise) is more closely related to the chord changes than the scale, which is how I approach improvising. The chords will lead you to harmonized variations too.

In particular, I think about where I am in the chord progression, as in "I'm on the 1 chord now, and here comes the 4 chord, etc". Then I visualize the fretboard in terms of double stops, i.e. various 2 note subsets of the 3 tones of whatever is the current chord. (The double stops help me harmonize the melody, and are a big part of the bluegrass style.) The double stops for a given chord will group together into larger patterns, which I can transplant around the fretboard as the chord changes. For example, changing from A to D (1 chord to 4 chord) moves over one string on the fretboard (close to my chin, i.e. toward the lower sounding strings). Changing from A to E would move over one string in the other direction, or it could move to a spot 2 frets higher than the pattern for the D chord, and so on.#To that you can add some concept of where the blue notes are (flatted 3rd and 7th, primarily) and experiment with when and how to use them (e.g. by studying where they show up in melodies). I don't really think of them as separate from everything else. Instead I think of them as variations of everything else.

Now, having shared a little half-baked theoretical drivel with you, I should also say that I try never to forget that music is music first, and things like theory and fretboard logic are just various means to help me reach my goal of playing musically and intuitively. I'm not far away from a beginner, and unfortunately I have more left brain than right brain talent, but this approach, along with a lot of practice and a lot of listening, seems to be helping me make steady progress, which is all I ask.

Dan

[woodys]

Thanks Dan. I've been sort of trying the approach you mentioned, targeting chord notes so emphasise that I'm playing over a new chord. I guess now I just gotta put some time noodling around and getting the fretboard and patterns locked into my brain. Thanks again.

[duuuude]

You'll hear the occasional blue note in bluegrass, no problem throwing them in where they fit. You can approach the scale change either way, since the pentatonic notes of the I-IV-V scales equal the notes in the root major scale ya can't really go wrong with hangin' on the root scale, though many will move their scale with the change. Nile's book on pentatonic mandolin is a must-have for those figuring out penta scales, IMWO, and don't forget his little chordbook, a wealth of info!