Re: The blues on mandolin?
Originally Posted by
ald
So you have the magic bullet Don Julin's blues scale and Marc Woodward's one and then you get the Andy Statman blue's scale, which, if I remember rights is: g, bflat,b,c, c sharp, f, e.
Which one to choose, or mix all three!
It's beginning to look like there may be as many blues scales as there are players. That can't be, of course - statistics and probability prove otherwise. But I have my own, which I'll get to in a minute. First I have to say this is probably not remembered right. A blues scale has to include the V note, which in G is D. And that Bb, B, C, C# section is suspect. IMO, natch. YMMV.
What I generally play is a modified pentatonic scale, with a couple of flatted tones thrown in. These are sometimes called the blue notes. The minor scale in G is G A B D E G - five notes, hence the name. (The IV and VII tones (C and F#) are omitted from the standard scale to produce this.) To these I add Bb and F, for G Bb B D E F G. (Note: Though C should be there, I don't usually play it, except of course when the song goes to the IV chord. Also, A gets passed over most of the time, in favor of Bb, at the IIIm spot - except, again, during the IV chord, of which it is the V tone.) This is what these look like on the strings:
Pentatonic:
o--x-x-x
o-x--x-x
o-x--x-x
o-x-x--x
My scale:
ox-x--xx
0xx--x-x
o-xx-x-x
o--xx--x
Note: o = open string ; 0 = unplayed open string
You see what a box pattern looks like there. These patterns repeatr up and down the neck and exist in all keys. I'm using G because there are open strings, and G is a pretty commone key for the mandolin. Not the blues, so much - that would be E and A - but for the mandolin. Once you get familiar with this you can transpose this to other keys. My favorite key for blues is probably A. You get that low G to A hammer-on, among other things.
My standard blues run goes something like: G BbB D E | G FE D BbB | G where separate notes are quarter notes and the notes pushed together are two eighth notes - sort of. Since a lot of blues tunes are in 6/8 or 12/8 shuffle rhythms, these are played to correspond with that; I'm just trying to figure out some way to indicate longer and shorter notes.
Hmmm. This got a lot more involved than I had intended. I know it looks like a lot, but once you get the hang of it it'll be pretty easy. There's a lot to learn, but the best approach is bit by bit. The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, the 15 minute solo begins with a single note, all that. Well, rinse and repeat, and repeat, take two whatevers, and call the Rock 'n" Roll Doctor in the morning, in a couple of weeks. Um, better make that in the afternoon.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
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