Originally Posted by
doublestoptremolo
In "Jimmy Brown," if you're playing in what I guess is called first position (near the nut) in G, and you wanted to harmonize the B note (on the words "name is"), you'd play the G note above, and playing the C and the high G together will sound fine.
I don't think double stops are necessarily that hard but I think the pedagogy on the subject isn't great. You have people recommending violin books, when the challenges of playing double stops on the violin are so much more difficult than mandolin.
And you have a lot of key-centric thinking when, in my opinion, it's better to think in terms of intervals. The main intervals you use in bluegrass harmony are minor 3rds, major 3rds, and 4ths, and to a lesser degree 6ths. Each of these intervals has a shape. The shapes of the double stops repeat in patterns (see Pickloser's guide). More important, learning the non-contiguous double stop shapes (1/3, 3/5, 5/1) and the double stop shapes that apply to the I, IV, and V chords, enables you to harmonize with minimal effort.
So if you tell me to play "Jimmy Brown" in E-flat, I put my index on E-flat (either on the 3rd or 1st string), and I'm visualizing the 4 or so double stops that correspond to the I chord, the 4 that apply to the IV, and the 3-4 that apply to the V chord in a two or three-string area. I'm not thinking about the names of the notes or the chords, only shapes and the chord (I, IV, V, vii, etc.). I find the sustained melody notes in the shapes. So playing in E-flat is only marginally more difficult than playing in D.
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