fingering melody notes vs chord position

[RickPick]

I can pick out the melody on an OT or BG tune, or I can chop my way through the chords. But I don't seem to think of the chords as I'm picking the melody (or vice versa, I suppose). Yet as I understand it, much of the melody notes played during any stretch of a chord will be a PART of the notes that make up that chord. (Maybe I'm wrong here?) But here's my issue. When I play a melody and want to resolve a phrase with the relevant chord, it seems a far away mental step to go from the melody note to the chord. Does that make sense? When better players play the melody or breaks, it appears they keep their fingers more or less in the same position they would use to play the relevant chord. Obviously this involves lifting a finger from the string or playing another note with another finger, but their fingers stay more or less "chord shaped". Should I be thinking "chord fingering shape" more as I pick out the melody, which would make it smoother and more obvious to play a whole chord (or at least a double-stop) at points along the melody? This is not so much a "what do you do?" question as a "How do you think of it?" question. Guidance appreciated. Old dog here, new trick....

[Bill McCall]

Well, if you know your scale tones well starting on the ring finger going up and the middle finger going down, you’re good to go. And yes, dbl stops appear more easily than if you only use the index finger for the root chord tone. So, yes, thinking chord shapes is good, but not the only way. I work on both because you don’t always know what you need and I try to minimize hand movement.

[JeffD]

My "technique" such as it is, is to reach for known harmony notes within reach of where I am playing the melody anyway. It takes one finger to finger a melody note in one place. All those other fingers, strings, and frets could be roped into service doing double stops or chords.

So I more or less keep to the melody position and find what chord positions and double stops are in the neighborhood.

[Mark Gunter]

When better players play the melody or breaks, it appears they keep their fingers more or less in the same position they would use to play the relevant chord. Obviously this involves lifting a finger from the string or playing another note with another finger, but their fingers stay more or less "chord shaped". Should I be thinking "chord fingering shape" more as I pick out the melody, which would make it smoother and more obvious to play a whole chord (or at least a double-stop) at points along the melody? This is not so much a "what do you do?" question as a "How do you think of it?"

I'm not one of those "better players", but when I think about your question, I think maybe there's an aspect you may not be considering, which is that rather than deliberately thinking about "chord fingering shape" it might pay to think about the notes that make up a particular chord, and find a new fingering for the chord you want that is most accessible from where you are.

This means a couple things; one is understanding the building blocks of chords, another is learning as many inversions of each particular chord that you most often encounter. If you do these things, there are more benefits than being able to more easily reach the chord you want from a given position - for instance, the benefit of hearing and offering to your listeners different voicings of chords.

Anyway, that's the way I try to approach it. Usually beginning by finding a double stop, then finding the other notes that go with the double stop, and experimenting. I can highly recommend experimenting - nothing beats it, really.

A little music theory to help you understand how to make chords wouldn't hurt either. I know some don't like music theory, and I confess it's not necessary, but it can help with understanding chord building.

"The difference between theory and practice is, that in theory there is no difference, but in practice, there is." ~ Yogi Berra

[onassis]

Good stuff in all three replies. My approach is to think of the chord progression mostly as double stops (essentially two note chords), then I resolve to whatever appropriate chord shape or double stop is under my fingers, if that makes sense. In practice, it means learning more and more chord shapes and inversions. If you know 5 ways to play an E chord without passing the fifth fret, it makes it much easier to resolve to an E when playing the melody in first position.

[RickPick]

Good ideas and very helpful. It makes me realize the need to think about using different chord shapes. I've typically just used conventional chop chords when I've played chords, and individual notes when I play the melody. The smooth movement between playing those full (and still somewhat contorted feeling) fingerings and the melodic notes lurking in them or nearby escapes me. Thinking of different chord shapes (maybe more like jazz mandolin?) is perhaps what I need to do. Bill, I'm not following you re: "starting on the ring finger going up and the middle finger going down". Care to elaborate?

[Bertram Henze]

This is not so much a "what do you do?" question as a "How do you think of it?" question.

Doublestops have a certain ambiguity in them, because the same doublestop can be part of more than one chord. This is a good thing, it gives you the benefit of reasonable doubt.
Example: melody steps to a C (A course, 3rd fret). Now you doublestop that with an E (D course, 2nd fret) and play x23x. This can be either C major, your melody note being the root, or A minor, your melody would then be the 3rd. You can extend this doublestop into two different triple stops (223x or x233) which resolves the ambiguity into either full chord.
There are many other doublestops, e.g. the 05 (octave), the 22 (or any two equal frets, 5th), the 52 (3rd) etc.

Doublestops are planned and tried at first, then incorporated into the practise routine. They become a fixed part of a tune, but after a while this "development" of doublestops becomes second nature (by now, I hardly can learn a new tune without adding doublestops immediately).

[DavidKOS]

When I play a melody and want to resolve a phrase with the relevant chord, it seems a far away mental step to go from the melody note to the chord. Does that make sense? When better players play the melody or breaks, it appears they keep their fingers more or less in the same position they would use to play the relevant chord. ..

That may be true some time, but often it's just because the "better" players' hands are in playing position over the neck and know many chords shapes, so they can find one particular chord as needed easily.

What it sounds like to me is that you could use some more study with chords, scales and harmony so that it is not "a far away mental step to go from the melody note to the chord"

So by having a better understanding of the way chords, scales and melodies all fit together will help that mental process.

"Should I be thinking "chord fingering shape" more as I pick out the melody, which would make it smoother and more obvious to play a whole chord (or at least a double-stop) at points along the melody?"

The more chord shapes AND chord arpeggios you know, the easier to make smooth musical lines.

[Phil Goodson]

It's been a while since I've mentioned how helpful I found "Pickloser's Guide to Doublestops (https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/entry.php?528-Revised-Guide-to-Doublestops)" as a way of thinking about which notes to put together while playing a melody. I find the information there coming into my head in unexpected ways as I play many times.

Just to mention: Lots of people admit to me that they don't have a good immediate grasp of where ALL the notes are on the fingerboard. Hard to believe?

When you know where every note is on the FB, it's a LOT easier to come up with a doublestop or a chord variant on the fly.

Back to the original question: Always learn the chord progression before or along with the melody unless it's a tune you'll never vary your playing of.(Maybe classical sheet music or such.)

[Bill McCall]

...The smooth movement between playing those full (and still somewhat contorted feeling) fingerings and the melodic notes lurking in them or nearby escapes me. Thinking of different chord shapes (maybe more like jazz mandolin?) is perhaps what I need to do. Bill, I'm not following you re: "starting on the ring finger going up and the middle finger going down". Care to elaborate?

In the chop chord position (G or C), the ring finger is on the root and the middle finger is on the octave. So if you can play the scales and arpeggios from those positions you're in the game. Starting on the index finger, which is the third of the chord, obviously is also quite useful. And from the position you've already got two double stops to hit when you resolve to that chord.

[Rheatown]

When I play I like to think of the available “right” notes. Ninety percent of the right notes are from the pentatonic scales. Commit the pentatonic scales to muscle memory and you are a long way toward playing the right notes, or not playing the wrong notes. Even if, during your break, you play a note not in the melody line, the note will still sound ok. Sometimes a note or riff from the pentatonic scale will make you sound like you really know what you are doing.

Learn the D pentatonic scale first. Then move it over one string to get the A pentatonic scale. You already know three of the strings, so just learn one new string, the G string in this case. Move it the other way to do the G pentatonic scale, and add the A string. This is why fiddle tunes are in the key of D or A. Also note that this is the classic 1-4-5 of bluegrass. If you start with A the D and E are the 1-4-5.

Next add “rolls”. For an 8 note scale it would be 1-2-3-2 2-3-4-3 and so on. Do this for the main keys first. When you master that and go through th circle of fifths with it you can play in any key.

Improvisation is just using the available “right” notes, and hopefully avoiding the wrong ones. If you do hit a wrong note act like you meant to do it and quickly get back to the right ones. If you do that successfully people will think you are a musical genius. Watch Chris Thile do that when he plays.

To the original post, think of the chord position as you are playing pentatonic notes. Hold your hand in that chord position and you will already be in the right position for 90% of the notes. Now practice a bunch more to add those wrong ones in there like you mean it. If you get lost go back to the pentatonic notes.

[RickPick]

Many thanks, folks, for these helpful suggestions. The more I learn my way around a mandolin neck, the more I realize I know nothing about it!

[RickPick]

I've recently stumbled onto the world of double stops on the mandolin, and I think some of the theory and practice behind double stops is quite relevant to the original question I was struggling to articulate in my post. I found the following video very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzuxBcbkpns&feature=em-share_video_user I thought I'd post it so that someone else at my own stage of learning mandolin -- especially for bluegrass breaks -- might benefit. What I perhaps thought was someone playing the melody out of full chord fingerings was possibly just someone playing the melody and harmonic notes out of double stop positions. Anyway, it's opened a whole new dimension of good fun in my little corner of the world!

[Gary Leonard]

Rick, I recently realized I was in sort of the same boat as you. Great tip about the double stops, those will certainly point the way. You said in the original post:

"But I don't seem to think of the chords as I'm picking the melody (or vice versa, I suppose)"

I looked at playing the melody as a completely different task from playing the chords. Practicing all the pentatonic scales in the world wouldn't help me, as I had no clue when I was playing over what chord most of the time. Chords, I would rely on a chord chart of the song, or simply ask what key it was in and work it out. Never really crossed my mind to join the two tasks, other than an occasional transition to play the A or B part.

I asked Mike Marshall about this a bit ago, and he said you really should be thinking about chords as you play the melody, and melody as you play the chords, and to memorize them at the same time.

So now I find myself going back to the beginning, memorizing the chord progression and putting the two together.

[RickPick]

Stringout has another video putting some of the fundamentals re: double stops to work in a solo. I found it very helpful, and others might too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiNLaWiFFrY&feature=em-share_video_user I spent 30+ years banging out chords on a guitar, but putting my real energy into singing. For the past few years, I've been trying to learn "lead" stuff on mandolin and fiddle. I know how connected chords are to melody, but trying to think BOTH AT THE SAME TIME has become quite the delightful challenge. I'm sure learning a lot more about music theory than I had intended to when I started!

[dadsaster]

Good ideas and very helpful. It makes me realize the need to think about using different chord shapes. I've typically just used conventional chop chords when I've played chords, and individual notes when I play the melody. The smooth movement between playing those full (and still somewhat contorted feeling) fingerings and the melodic notes lurking in them or nearby escapes me. Thinking of different chord shapes (maybe more like jazz mandolin?) is perhaps what I need to do. Bill, I'm not following you re: "starting on the ring finger going up and the middle finger going down". Care to elaborate?

I've been teaching myself some chord melody tunes but am not an expert. I would start with the basic major Jethro-style 3-finger chords. In addition, learn where the root note of each chord is in each shape. The three basic ones are (examples A major):

Root on top 2-2-4-x or x-7-7-9
3rd on top (root on mid) 6-7-7-x or x-11-12-12
5th on top (root on bottom) 9-11-12-x or x-2-4-5

What you start to realize after doing this a bunch is that these 3-finger chords are all over the neck. You can learn the I-IV-V 3-finger versions in little clusters. (Again with A major as the I chord):

I IV V
(A) (D) (E)
2-2-4-x 2-4-5-x 1-2-2-x

6-7-7-x 7-7-9-x 4-6-7-x

9-11-12-x 11-12-12-x 9-9-11-x

These patterns are (like everything else) consistent. Learn which string contains the root note and you'll know which shape to use.