Licks for embellishing/ expanding on basic melody?

[Billy R.]

I have been playing for a few months now and have made slow steady progress. I spent most of my time playing along with basic bluegrass style gospel songs. My chop chords continue to get cleaner and I have found that figuring out the basic melody to most of these songs is relatively easy. My problem comes when trying to add something to the straight melody to make it sound interesting and more "bluegrassy". I have been amazed by the ease of figuring out a melody vs. the difficulty of adding in nice sounding embellishments. Does anyone have some commonly used licks (little 4 to 8 note runs) that can be peppered into breaks or at least give me a jumping off point for better breaks?

[EarlG]

Billy, are you playing a note by note melody? In other words, just a straight melody line like you find in a fake book or the treble clef in a hymnal?

If that's what you are doing you might look at several other things than runs like you are asking for:
Play chords along with the melody. This will fill in "holes" nicely.
If you know theory, figure out double stops that have the melody note in them. The easiest way is to use a drone string.
Search around the chords for the melody notes and play both at the same time (easier to play than to explain). You can do this by ear or by using scales or both.

Listen to the song of the week social group for some examples.

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57649

Also, look at how Farmerjones does it. Last easy suggestion, play eighth notes instead of quarter notes sometimes. Notice how farmerjones keeps his arm moving

Good luck to you.

[Pete Martin]

Does anyone have some commonly used licks (little 4 to 8 note runs) that can be peppered into breaks or at least give me a jumping off point for better breaks?




I have a .pdf book on my web site called

"Mandolin and Fiddle Improvisation Using The Chord Tone Scale"

It breaks down how scales are commoly used by non Jazz improvisors. Also listed on pages 9 and 10 are 4 common licks that I have heard a lot on recordings over many years by mandolin and fiddle players. These licks are 4 note patterns that can be used in as few as 4 notes, or as long as the improvisor wants to use them at any time.

The book shows how to practice to get these licks into your hands and, over the course of the book, how these can be practiced to make improvisations in many keys through major, minor and dominant seventh chords.

Sorry for the blatent commercial nature of this post, but you may find some things that help you here. The book can be downloaded no charge at my web sire below.

[Daijoki]

Thanks, Pete (and Billy). I logged on to post a similar question (music theory for mandolin that would help me understand how to harmonize a melody line), found this, and am psyched to get started with your material (and have a PayPal account!).

[Alex Orr]

Traditionally (from what I can tell) the way one plays mandolin in bluegrass gospel songs is to stick close to the melody for brings, and add a few runs in at selected spots, such as the end of a verse. Monroe did this a lot, and one of the ways to learn some of those runs is to learn what Big Mon was doing on a few of those Gospel songs. One way to do that is to pick up Todd Collins book of Monroe lead break transcriptions:

http://www.elderly.com/books/names/classic-bluegrass-solos-for-mandolin--02-20551.htm

I've learned three breaks out of there and mean to get to work on a gospel tune in the near future.

[Pete Hicks]

Get 16 Gems, the album of Bill Monroe, and 16 gems,the book by Butch Baldassarri. After learning a few of Bill's solos and backup licks note for note, you will get the idea.