Hello all, just joined. I've been doing the scale exercises and starting the Up the neck exercises for a couple months. I always wondered when the exercises would start leading to playing "real" music. A question was asked in the Theory Message Board about playing out of the G chop chord position. After some thought I realized that the G chop chord lay right over the 3rd FFcP scale position. While this may have been pretty obvious to most of you, to me it was a revelation! Here's my analysis; it's easier to play than explain. Once I realized that the chop chord and that FFcP scale were related, I was able to make the jump of improvising out of the chop chord position. Using a simple major pentatonic scale (the 1,2,3,5 and 6 notes of the scale interval) you can noodle around and have some fun out of the top 3 strings of the G chop chord. *1 - G - 2nd finger 3rd fret E string 6 - E - 4th finger 7th fret A string 5 - D - 3rd finger 5th fret A string *3 - B - 1st finger 2nd fret A string 2 - A - 4th finger 7th fret D string *1 - G - 3rd finger 5th fret D string Note that the * notes are the strings covered by the G chop chord 7523 Does anybody else have any experiences or ideas about moving from scale work to real music?
HaHa I'll just answer my own questions! Here is something that relates FFcP to Pickloser's double stop explanations: Quote: Originally Posted by Pickloser "You can do the same type thing out of any double stop shape. The key is to know what chord tones the double stop is using, and that tells you where the other scale tones are relative to the stop. Each double stop has a corresponding FFcP scale that best fits it." It gave me some more ideas as to how to turn FFcP into real musical passages. I just went through the double stop handout and figured out which scales went with which double stop. Most of them have at least two FFcP scales depending on how you choose to finger the double stop. Tiny can squeeze in all 4! Here is a link to Pickloser's double stop treatises. (Thanks again) http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...ht=double+stop
Hey there AZStu, I think our minds are on the same wavelength. When I saw your post on scale patterns out of the chop chord, I actually said "YES"! out loud. Although it's one thing to have one's brain get it and quite another to get one's fingers to do it on the fly, trying to make FFcP patterns and double stops second nature has really helped both my technique and my ability (still quite minimal) to improvise. I'm working on trying automatically to know which FFcP pattern I have most conveniently available depending on which fingers I use to make the I chord double stops and where the 1 or 3 or 5 note is. When the tune goes, for example, from the I chord to the IV chord, I know I can keep the same FFcP pattern, and that FFcP pattern will determine which IV chord double stop is most convenient. Conversely, I can choose whichever IV chord double stop fits my needs best. This requires that I know where the 1 note is relative to the IV chord double stop so I can know which FFcP pattern I now have most conveniently available. Working on getting my head around this has emphasized to me that I also must know automatically what FFcP pattern leads to what other FFcP pattern, depending on whether I'm taking it toward the higher strings or the lower strings. The sheer logic of the mandolin gives me great hope.
Original quote by pickloser "The sheer logic of the mandolin gives me great hope." You and me both.
I had always seemed to have a mental block and some confusion when it came to improvising. I asked a couple of questions here: http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=58112 Many of the responses are very thoughtful and practical. I think that good improvisers probably use all three possibilities depending on the situation and their preferences. Pete Martin's approach of using the chord tones seemed to mesh very well with FFcP practice. (Basically, going to the 4 6 and 1 scale tones over the IV chord and the 5 7 and 2 over the V chord). I found that I was interrupting my scale work by picking out melodies and seeing where the scale focused changed when the chord changed. Add a couple extra notes from the scale and presto; you're improvising. Since you're basically picking out the melody, it doesn't necessarily sound like you're simply playing a scale.
Something I've found useful to build my improvising vocabulary is, when practicing, try not to move out of fingerboard position I'm in (1st, 3rd, 5th etc.) but instead find the ffCP that falls under the fingers at that position. For example if I'm in 3rd ffCp, let's say in first position with the G chord, and the song calls for a II chord (typical gospel progression), I need an A chord. Which is the closest?? Well, 4th ffCP already has my pinky on the A note on the 3rd string. So without shifting my hand I can play over the 4th ffCP A chord. Also, in that same position, my 1st finger is already over the A note on the 4th string, so if the melody is lower, I use 1st ffCP from the 4th string. And so forth. Of course in some songs I wil want to shift position, but forcing myself to try to find all the notes out of the same position forces me to use all the ffCP. In pieces with chromatic progressions the hand will need to shift, but I try to do this only one fret or maximum two up or down (e.g. Night in Tunisia), and otherwise find the appropriate ffCp.
I'll give that a try. It should help me learn the fretboard better too by starting in a pattern up the neck and trying to stay in that position. It would reinforce not only interval knowledge but note names too.
swampstomper--I know it's been a long time since you posted this, but I wanted to respond with a realization that, well, floored me the other day. It's probably completely obvious to everyone else, but I thought I'd try to state it (since that'll tell me whether I really learned it or not): You were talking about G as the I chord and shifting over to A as the II chord and how to improvise over the change. One thing to remember--'cause it's really cool--is that for every mode of the G major scale--I, II, V, whatever--they are all made up of _exactly_ the same notes. Check 'em out. There is no difference whatsoever. What makes G major (I of G maj.) sound so different from an A minor (II of G) and from a D dominant (V of G)? It's not that there are any different notes. It's that the notes are organized in different ways such that different relationships between the tones are emphasized. So, what does that mean? If you are soloing around through a G major chord progression you are under no obligation to follow the progression through different hand positions unless you want to. What happens if you improvise through the A minor scale over the G major chord? You get a little more tension because the important notes of the A minor scale are just off the chord tones of the G major chord. (A minor 7 arpeggio: A C E G. G major 7 arpeggio: G B D F#.) If you are ready to resolve the tension and relax the listener for a bit, you just slide over to whatever scale is being played in the chord progression and improvise there for a while. Make sense?
Fish, nice to revive this thread. Of course for the major scale there are seven modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixylodian, Aeolian and Locrian in that order) made up of the same notes. So yes your ffCp already has all the notes. BUT the range is different, so you can't do the whole scale of any of those modes *in that register* without moving to another position or ffCp. Staying with the G major Ionian example, you can indeed get Dorian A just by extending the scale at the upper end with the 3rd finger to the high A (you ended the 3rd ffCp scale on the G note with 2nd finger), same for B Phrygian (using the pinky) but for the others you can't get high enough to finish the scale. Example: E Aeolian (relative minor) you can only reach E F# G A B (maybe stretch that pinky to high C!). So to play that in that register you need to go to 4th ffCp starting on the 2nd string E note (7th fret), of course it's not Ionian ffCp. For the lower register you can go down on the 3rd string to the F# and E with your 2nd and 1st fingers, from your anchor at the G note with your 3rd finger. So you are actually using some of the 4th ffCp that would start on the 7th fret of the C string (Mandola or 10-string mando). What I've taken to doing is practicing all 4 strings from a given ffCp, going up or down as needed to get all the notes that my hand can reach w/o shifting.
