Improvising: double stop combinations ?

[bagpipe]

When I improvise a solo, I like to try and throw in some double stops. I think they sound great and are one of they components of the mandolin sound. However, I struggle to remember the various 2 string combinations in time to play them as part of a solo. How do experienced mandolinists handle this? Do you try to remember all of the possible 2 string combinations and where to find them on the fingerboard for each key? Or do you have a couple of favourite combinations that you rely on for each key? I'm thinking especially of faster tempo bluegrass tunes where you don't really have much time to think.

[KEB]

Okay, so I'm not a great player and I struggle with actually using them, but google Pickloser's Guide to Double Stops-- it's fantastic and one of the first resources that got me really starting to understand the way the fretboard repeats.

[UsuallyPickin]

OK .... practice double stop scales. Use the double stops as musical punctuation in your breaks or instrumentals, exclamation points periods and commas if you will. Listen to some classic Monroe stuff. The musical emphasis of a double stop is often tied directly to the chord change. Any two note piece of a chord is useful. Starting with the mandolin being tuned in fifths. In understanding the degrees of a scale a 1/3 1/5 3/5 2/5 3/d7 combinations of notes are useful double stops. In letters in the key of C ..... C/E C/G E/G D/G a 9th E/ Bd a Dom 7th ...... And you just need to start throwing them around to learn how to use them ....... there is inevitably a certain amount of crash and burn in that process .... So it goes , ... Luck R/

[Pete Martin]

Practicing double stops in 3rds and 6ths will give you the most useable combinations.

As with anything else, work out some solos using DS. Eventually you will be able to improvise these.

[bayAreaDude]

Once you understand where intervals are on the fretboard, which is really very easy, this becomes simple. Since the instrument is symmetrical, these relationships are the same for any string pairing. Key doesn't matter. Take your single melody note, then use your knowledge of where intervals are on the fretboard to choose a possible doublestop note to go with it. You could get a lot of bang for your buck just by with memorizing major and minor 3rds, P5(you already know this one), and M6 and go pretty far.

[Phil Goodson]

KEB nailed it.
Read Pickloser's double stop paper in detail from start to finish. Then do it again.

Here it is.

Then work on always thinking of chord changes in terms of I, IV, V, etc.

[Phil Goodson]

Practicing double stops in 3rds and 6ths will give you the most useable combinations.
...

Pete,
What the heck does that mean???

Are you saying that, for example, in the key of C, you want to concentrate on doublestops of the E and A chords???? Or something else?

What are you saying?? I'm not seeing it.

[bayAreaDude]

Pete,
What the heck does that mean???

Are you saying that, for example, in the key of C, you want to concentrate on doublestops of the E and A chords???? Or something else?

What are you saying?? I'm not seeing it.

My interpretation is when you improvise over a c major chord, you can pretty safely play the third or sixth with your root c note for your double stop. Key is irrelevant to that choice but the type of the chord does matter. If you're playing a song in c and you're playing over the Em, playing it's minor third (g) with the root e would the best choice to highlight the minor flavor with a doublestop. A sixth doesn't point much toward major or minor so you can use that double stop about anywhere, same with a P5.

[JeffD]

Picklosers guide is gigantic. It really is a wonderful starting place.

I noodle a lot and find a lot of cool stuff, and practice it. After a while things come to me while playing a tune and I try it and it works. Yeeee haaaa! Or I try it and oops. You can develop an intuition and get more yeee haaa and less oops.

If it works, I might, later on, try and figure out why it works and once I know why I see if I can apply that somewhere else and find something else that is cool.

There is so much symmetry on the mandolin fret board that what works one place usually works many many other places.

Very often there are some choices. Exact same note, and exact same interval (fifth or fourth or what ever), but one can chose to play the note with the double stop on the string above or below, say. Well if the tune goes up to the note, I might try the double on the string above, and if the tune is going down, I might try the double on the string below.

Or maybe another choice is a double stop for that note down a string way up the neck. Well it can be cool to slide up there and grab it, for dramatic effect.

Its soooo much fun to play around with, that I deliberately avoid being too over analytical and over planned. The moment when you spontaneously try something cool and pull it off, its a high like no other. Not nearly as much fun as working out all the math and figuring out it should work and trying it and it does.

I am emphatically NOT saying the theory and why it works is unimportant - its just that to me theory and why it works is the vegetables, unquestioningly good for me, but I try and eat dessert first.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Here's a PDF file that i've posted a couple of times on here that another Cafe member sent me a while back. It's got chords / double stops/arpegios etc. & it's worth keeping. As with all things,it's down to practice in using them. I'm exactly like the OP. Unless i really work at them, i easily get mixed up,but isn't 'working at it' the real fun in all this,that's what makes us become better players (in time !).I've found the more i have to work at something,the more it sticks in the 'ole grey matter',
Ivan
- Left click on the image & 'save file' to your PC.

[Toni Schula]

+1 for pickloser's guide.

Annother way to think the same thought is:
When you come to one note which is a candidate for a DS it will very likely be one tone of the accompanying chord. Simply try to play a second tone of this chord. For example if the line ends in V7 (e.g. G7 for a tune in C) and the melody wants the second tone of the V7 (a B in my example), you can throw in the root or fifth or even the flatted 7 of the V7 (G, D or F in my example).

This sounds rather complicated, but it isn't!

Simply fret that chord (the G7 in my example), find the note you want to play (B) and play one of the adjacent strings along with it and omit the rest of that chord. Experiment with different frettings of the chord to find what you prefer.

This is useful to throw in a single DS. But for sure it is not the top of the mountain...

[Iron]

I haven't a clue about how to improvise but what I try and do is practice scales and ffcp chords, try and improvise using the scale notes and switch to the ffcp for double stops.
I play any two string in the ffcp chord that is being played, not sure that will get you much mileage as I'm on the hunt myself to learn improv.

[Bertram Henze]

Many have described here how to find double stops that work, but I have understood the OP's problem to be able to have them under your fingers while playing, when there is no time for theory.
My own experience says when you have practised your typical licks with double stops long enough, there will come a time when those double stops come by themselves, and it will be hard to deliberately play single notes instead. For instance, I have problems fretting the 3rd fret on one course without doing the second fret on the adjacent lower course along with it. I can't fret the 5th fret without the open course below etc.

[Ivan Kelsall]

One of the things that i've used to practice double stops,is to use the DS's as 'chords' when chopping.Instead of fingering the full chord shape of say the "G" chord,finger the 2 strings that would be a DS & so on for the C & D chords.Of course the can't 'chop' all the strings doing that,it's just a hard pick stroke on the DS strings,
Ivan