cloudy days

[Don Stiernberg]

Now that the Cubs are done I have a bit more mando time. Plus we've had a couple raw, overcast or rainy days, chilly first days of fall. So naturally I played Nuages, that beautiful Django melody, title of which translates to Clouds...

And a funny thing happened. All these years I've been playing the first 8 notes as single notes, not falling into chord-melody until the Eb9 chord. This time that opening phrase came out as chord-melody! Probably a visit from Jethro. I got so excited about discovering something new to add, I thought I would share it with you:

Just two chord grips really. Grab 4-7-5 on the G-D-A strings, yielding the note stack B-A-D. I know what you're thinking, Donnie, that's that 6th chord you always play, D6th? Well yeah but in this case the shape functions as Gmaj9, since Nuages opens from the G chord. Our melody note(on top) is D, A is the 9th, B the 3rd. No root. OK so start there (4-7-5), back up a fret(3-6-4)and come back (4-7-5). I'm pretty sure these are the "and-two-and"notes in the pickup bar..

Now jump up the neck to 10-9-12 which makes a G9(a dominant chord, flat 7 on the bottom, then third, then the melody note on top of course and it's the ninth) F-B-A. Now we're just going to walk that shape back fret by fret until it hits Eb9! Rhythm here is the rest of that measure.."3+4+" The Eb9 is on the downbeat of the opening bar. So the entire opening phrase we might think of as Gmaj9-Gbmaj9-Gmaj9-G9-Gb9-F9-E9-Eb9 or again with the shapes:

4-7-5/3-6-4/4-7-5 10-9-12/9-8-11/8-7-10/7-6-9/ 6-5-8

You hear me always recommending grabbing these voicings with fingers 1-2-3 so as to keep the pinky available for cool pinky-dance stuff above the chords. Just now as I played this to check frets and all I found myself using 2-1-4 on the 9th chords starting up on 10-9-12. I attribute that to advancing age and the fact that it's early morning here as I write this. Habit-wise I think it still better to aspire to 2-1-3 up there on that shape, but if you grab those with 2-1-4 I guess that's ok too. I know Aaron Weinstein would.

Thanks for allowing me to share and Happy Chord Melodizing.

[AaronWeinstein]

Yes! I LOVE this.

As an alternate to the D6 as Gmaj9,--another option is to start with a D7--since we're heading to G...that standard D7 voicing works here--(from bottom to top) C,F#,D. It yields a slightly different color.

Or, for a little contrary bass motion for those first three melody notes:

descending bass notes (From bottom to top):

C,F#,D (D7)
B,F, Db (Db)
Bb,F#,D (D7#5)

or you can flip the order of the voicings and get ascending bass notes:
Bb,F#,D (D7#5)
B,F, Db (Db)
C,F#,D (D7)

[Bill McCall]

This is so cool. Good thing I’m on my second cup of coffee as my brain is filling up fast.

Now to see if the fingers cooperate.

[Tom Wright]

I like fingering the 10-9-12 type of chord with pinky on top much of the time because I can then play the related 9-8-12.

It's handy for this III-VI-II-V circle of dominant chords, pinky on top and the two lower notes just move down by half steps:

5-4-5-x
4-3-5-x
3-2-5-x
2-1-5-x
(D7, G7, C9, F13)

[Perry]

Cloudy in NY today too. Such a great song with endless possibilities. I've yet to try it on mandolin....but here's a guitar version I like..which is chock full of ideas:



I wonder if some of the open string bounces in Roland's intro would translate to mando.
The opening notes are often given the contra punctual treatment.

[John Soper]

Love this thread.

There are lots of ways to end the opening descending phrase. Because I'm lazy, I do something like this to finish the descent to the D note in a G6 voicing & add a turn-around:

6-5-8-x 6-5-7-x / 5-5-6-x 3-4-5-x / 4-2-5-x 2-2-3-x 3-2-4-x / 4-2-5-x

Rather than using an Amin 7b5 --> D7+, could also use D7b9 --> D7+ in the 2nd measure: 5-4-6-x 3-4-5-x

A similar idea can be used for the descending line from high D later in the song:

3-2-4-x 4-3-5-x / x-8-7-10 x-7-6-9 x-6-5-8 x-5-4-7 / x-4-3-6 x-4-3-5/ x-3-3-4 (or x-3-2-4) x-1-2-3 / x-2-2-3
(or if you want the turn around: 9-9-10-x 7-7-8-x 8-7-9-x / 9-9-10-x)

One of my favorites! And it is sunny down here today...

[Dave Martin]

The Astros are still in it, so I am noodling scales on the couch during the games. I grew up in Houston, and used to see the Colt 45s before they became the Astros.

Sincere thanks to Don and Aaron for the insights. And lots of great music!

[John Soper]

If anybody was confused by my post, I had a few more cups of coffee, took the mandolin out and corrected the tab.

[CarlM]

Perry
Your link does not work for me.