Violin to Mandolin, understanding chords

[lyndarva]

I am new here. I have played the violin for a very long time - reading sheet music. I have a mandolin I just purchased and I want to learn to use it. Yes, I can play violin songs on it using the standard sheet music technique, but I need to learn chords. I do not understand chords, they make no sense to me as a sheetmusic reader. The guy I used to play violin with in school tried to explain chords and I didn't get it. He is the best professional fiddle player in Nashville now, obviously he knew what he was talking about.

Can anyone direct me to a good resource or help me out? My husband says I shouldn't try to understand it, but I am analytical.

Lynda

[JonZ]

Mike Marshall's Chord DVD has some good explanations. The corresponding book has less explanation but more examples.

This thread takes a different angle. You might find it helpful.

[Jim Garber]

If you played violin, you played chords, just maybe didn't know which ones you were playing. Double stops are chords. You might need some background theory.

[Mandobart]

My first instrument was also the violin, played as a late starter from 5th grade all the way through high school (and sporadically thereafter). Along the way I picked up guitar, and that background has done for my chording what the violin background has done for my site reading and melody picking. I'm not saying you need to pick up guitar to learn how to chord a mandolin. I see two options that hold promise, there are doubtless more.

1. Build chords using the music theory you've learned as a violinist. Major chords use the 1, 3 and 5 note of the major scale. The minor chords flat the 3rd, like the minor scale does. So for example a G major chord uses the notes G, B and D. G-minor would use G, Bb and D. Seventh chords flat the 7th. G7 is G, B and F (natural, not #). To me these are the basic chords (major, minor and 7th) used in most of the bluegrass, blues, C&W and rock tunes I play. Most of these songs use the chord whose root note form the 1, 4 and 5 of the associated scale. In the key of G, you use the G, C and D chords. In the key of A songs tend to use A, D and E.

2. I never used any of the above for the first 30+ years of my musical life. Only AFTER starting mandolin did this start to make sense to me. You don't have to know any of that to start playing chords. The way I learned guitar chords was to buy a book of chords (many are available for mandolin) . Next you get a book of songs you know and enjoy (many folk song books are available in your library) that shows the chords for each song, usually above the lyrics to show where the chord changes are. Work on one or two songs per week or month or whatever worksd for you. It will start to flow and make sense for you, and you'll be playing music right away. A great source for you is The Fiddler's Fakebook as it shows you the notation you already know and the name of the chords, too.

[Ed Goist]

Hi Lynda:
* You should certainly find this site helpful.
* You went to school with Stuart Duncan?

[EdHanrahan]

... just maybe didn't know which ones you were playing. Double stops are chords. You might need some background theory.

Reinforcing Jim's comment: After decades of rock & folk guitar (hey, I knew all the chords!), a friend shamed me into finally learning scales, and that led to theory. I found "The Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory" to be exactly what I needed, as it herded together all of those bits of knowledge that were running around loose.

Like me, I suspect that you'll be surprised at how much you already know.

[PenfoldPendleton]

When I first got my mando my method of learning chords was by going to www.chordie.com. This site is basically a giant fakebook with thousands of songs to choose from (unfortunately it is mostly pop and rock). You can spend hours just scanning through all the songs they have. Anyway on the right side of the page of any song you pick, they have the fingerings for each chord needed. And just below that they have a button to click on for what kind of tuning you want. Simply click on GDAE mando tuning and voila... all the mando chords needed for the song you want to play. At first I simply picked the songs that I knew best and just started playing and after doing this for awhile you will start to remember various chord postions. And soon you will see the similarities to double stops and whatnot, and the more you learn and memorize chords the more you will start to see patterns. This is where I started to get a better hold on chord structure and certain music theory. Because soon you will want to find different fingerings and other inversions to make songs easier to play and this is the beginning of building a good chord education. And before ya know it you will wanna add more in your basic chord playing and that will lead to studying scales more. I also have the book "The Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory" and it really is very helpful.
Remember though this works best if you already are familiar with the song. Just find the music you like and know well (the Beatles worked for me ) and practice, practice, practice basic versions of these and before you know it chords will be second nature.

[Brent Hutto]

I'm rather stubbornly refusing to "learn chords" per se. In my mandolin lessons we've recently started choosing bits of music to work on that utilize certain hand shapes corresponding to triads and seventh chords and contain phrases which arpeggiate various inversions and so forth. The idea being that my fingers will get used to those positions and my brain get used to those locations on the fretboard without thinking "B-minor" and actually sifting through mental list of chords. If that makes any sense.

[RobP]

I'm rather stubbornly refusing to "learn chords" per se. In my mandolin lessons we've recently started choosing bits of music to work on that utilize certain hand shapes corresponding to triads and seventh chords and contain phrases which arpeggiate various inversions and so forth. The idea being that my fingers will get used to those positions and my brain get used to those locations on the fretboard without thinking "B-minor" and actually sifting through mental list of chords. If that makes any sense.

Whats wrong with thinking "b-minor" for the chord shape? I come from a guitar background long ago, and I still think in chord progressions. It really helps me keep the melody grounded, and helps when improvising too.

Cheers,

Rob

[Brent Hutto]

Rob,

Nothing wrong with the label. It's the chicken or egg question.

For instance a lot of people from a guitar background especially start from thinking "B-minor" and that gives them a mental list of shapes and locations on the fretboard that will get a B-minor. So the name of the chord is the starting point.

I think there's an opposite way of arriving there in which you recognize that your fingers are in a place where you can play B, D, F# and/or maybe A and those notes form a B-minor chord. You might think "B-minor" or if you don't need to know it you might not even mentally name it at all.

In my own case, we've started working on one of the Bach things in Mike Marshall's book plus some "Fairy Dance" variations in a J.S. Skinner book as well as an arrangement my teacher wrote out for a little South American folk tune. Working on each of these for a couple weeks now seems to have magically placed some useful chord shapes (the ones corresponding to arpeggios or fast melodic passages) under my fingers. However we never went through the exercise of saying "This one is A-minor, then you shift to this other inversion of a minor triad up four frets" or naming the chords at all. Of course when I look at either the sheet music or my fingers I can identify the A-minor or whatever because that's what the notes spell.

Make any sense?

[Nelson Peddycoart]

Lynda,

The Bill Monroe style is all about playing out of chord positions, and is the basis of Mike Compton's style. I, as well as several regular here at this site, take lessons from him via Skype. I am sure he can put you on the right track pretty quickly.

http://mikecompton.net/
http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando

You can also find the group on Facebook at TaterbugMando.


Chord theory is pretty simple, but can get as complicated as you want.

Nelson

[Steve Downey]

Lynda, are you having trouble learning to play, and remember chords, or are you having trouble understanding what chords are? That is, when a piece of music calls out an G chord, are you having trouble mentally translating that to a fingering? Or is it more understanding why that set of three notes is a G major chord, and why that goes with the music being played?

Both are normal hurdles to overcome when learning chords, but trying to help you with one when you're thinking about the other could be sending you off on a wild fox hunt.

[Don Julin]

Hi Lynda, chords can be a pretty deep subject. If I am hearing your question correctly you are looking for guidance in what to do when you are NOT playing melody. If this is your concern, it is not only chords but a variety of strumming, chopping, comping, etc, patterns or styles that you need to also be aware of. Coming from a classical violinist background this may seem very odd to you.
You might try looking at the mandolin as a rhythm instrument. Get some songbooks with words and chords and try to strum through the songs that you know while sing the word in your head. Some of these books even have suggested strumming patterns for guitar. Try to learn the guitar strumming pattern on the mandolin. If millions of people that can sing and strum chords on a gtr ..... it can't be that hard!

For each style you want to play there are characteristic rhythms and chords that define the style. Bluegrass, Old Time, Celtic, Swing, Bossa Nova, Reggae, Funk, Rock, Folk, etc. The most important thing you can do is LISTEN to rhythm players and learn from them.

There are a few ways to approach learning chord formations on the mandolin. Open chords, Chop chords, 3 note chords in root position, first and second inversion. I suggest learning folk strumming with open chords first. After you get the hang of it move in the direction of whatever music you want to learn next. Just remember to LISTEN to the rhythm players that play THAT STYLE of music.

Here is a video showing some chords. It moves fairly fast but there is a free pdf you can download from my website that shows hundreds of 3 note chords.

[Ten_or_Fifths]

For starters, it might sound like a silly question, but can you hear the chord changes in a song? I also have a violin/sheet music background, and the first time I decided to learn about chords, I had to play the same song over and over (with a simple harmony looping on the computer) for hours before I even started to hear the chord changes. Learn chords in context. Play with other people as much as possible. Sometimes people who are slightly farther along than you are the most help, so the occasional group lesson or workshop can be nice.

Various resources that are available no particular order are chord dictionaries, charts of common chords, circle of fifths charts, slow jam sessions (preferably old-time; bluegrass and jazz music will be too technical and Irish is more oriented to melody), fretboard charts, teachers, players of other instruments (guitar, piano, tenor banjo), songwriting books, various music fora including this one (usually filed under music theory), youtube tutorials, fakebooks. Keep in mind that bluegrass, pop/blues, old-time, django/jethro jazz, dixieland use different chord fingerings so something that you learn in one context won't necessarily apply to others. A bluegrass "chop" C is intended to be percussive rhythm, a two-fingered C is great for learning, 'movable' three and four-finger chords are easy on the memory, a four-fingered C inversion will have a certain tonal quality for jazz. That was a source of confusion for me early on. I once spent a whole day trying to work out chords for Somewhere Over the Rainbow using a chord dictionary. Focus on the kind of music you want to play, but don't try to rush things - strumming along to Carter Family tunes can go a long way.

As for books, Mel Bay's The Complete Mandolin Method is great. Don't skip the beginning book, or if you do, make sure you come back to it. It's probably the one book I'd recommend if you were only going to look at one book. Don't skip the section on the blues even if you never intend to play blues. MandolinSessions.com has some good tutorials as does jazzmando.com. Also, don't ignore the tabs just because you can read music. (I'll second mandobart's recommendation for the Fiddler's Fakebook, but also consider children's songs and when you get a larger chord vocabulary: jazz, standards, or show tunes. It helps if you know the tune inside and out so you know instinctively what chord to expect) Sometimes where you finger the note isn't where you'd expect. (an aside, shifting up the fretboard is a little different than you're used to as a violinist)

Since you can read music, you'll be able to go much farther in the theory books than if you were starting from scratch, but it still might not make sense for quite a while. Mark Levine's The Jazz Theory book is highly recommended, though I haven't read it. Ted Eschliman's Getting Into Jazz Mandolin is more practice based, but the exercises had me hearing the different intervals in the scales and feeling the physical position of the scales and arpeggios on the fretboard. The chord chart I'm using most right now is the pdf here: http://www.mandolincafe.com/pat.html (take note of which string the chord root is on in each shape), but you'll want to learn some two fingered chords first. The chord chart/circle of fifths on this page is also great: http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...Circle-of-5ths.

A confusing thing that I'm still working out for myself is that once you start using chords that include a 7th interval, there are many chord 'qualities' (major, minor, dominant, etc.) but within a particular scale, they are mixed together (i.e. ii V7 I). So you can't just start with only major chord shapes in a major key and expect the thing to sound 'right'. I've never actually seen, say a full C major scale in chords. Again, most folks seem to think of these things in context, usually a chord progression (I'm analytical too, so it can be frustrating). Start with songs you know that have simple chord progressions. Alternate theory, practice and listening because the theory makes more sense when you can really hear the intervals and the qualities. Don't be afraid to read through things without understanding completely. All sorts of concepts overlap, but they gradually fall into place.

Also, don't forget about rhythm and right hand techniques. That's another thing that's easy to miss with a violin background. Good luck, relax and have fun!

[Bertram Henze]

For starters, it might sound like a silly question, but can you hear the chord changes in a song?

After a while, you can hear them, but even before that, you can see them. Coming from pure single-note melody playing, the way to chords leads via doublestops (I show a couple of them here). The problem in the end might be to find out the actual name of a chord developed this way - I guess that's what Brent was referring to, and it can indeed be argued that your chord doesn't need a name once you're that far.

For a chord player, melody just means highlighting what is already contained in the chords. But for a melody player, chords means making those silent harmonic relationships between the melody notes audible which the ear dreams of and wants to hear.

[Brent Hutto]

Mr. Henze as usual understands exactly what I was stumbling toward and trying to hint around at. I think I must be totally what he calls a "melody player". But I would love to also be able to hear the chord progressions underlying a song and we spend a little bit of time at the end of my mandolin lessons working on ear training to that end.

I've added some understanding of double-stops and am starting to be able to see/feel two harmony notes underneath the melody note in the simplest situations. When I played guitar, I ended up gravitating toward classical-guitar music even though I don't particulalry care for the bulk of that repertoire. But classical technique seems to be based less on being a "chord player" than popular and folk music on guitar.

P.S. I went and looked at the double-stop explanation video on YouTube. That's a great explanation of basically what I've been "discovering" lately by trial and error.

[PseudoCelt]

What no-one seems to have mentioned is that if you've played arpeggios, you've more or less played chords. An arpeggio is basically the notes of a chord played separately rather than simultaneously. It gets more complicated when you get past the basic chords, but once you understand the basics, you can build on that more easily.

In a song/tune, where the accompanying chord is a G major, the "important" notes in that section of the melody will mostly be notes from a G major arpeggio (G B D). That's why the chord fits well with that section of the melody - they use the same notes (most of the time).

Patrick

[russintexas]

For instance a lot of people from a guitar background especially start from thinking "B-minor" and that gives them a mental list of shapes and locations on the fretboard that will get a B-minor. So the name of the chord is the starting point.

One of the most difficult but rewarding things one can do as a guitar player is to walk backwards once one has learned the grips, and start playing multiple monophonic lines simultaneously. This is something I've been working on with my teacher for a while, but he's got trouble and wants me to go back to grips from time to time. It's darned difficult.

I don't think there's an easy way around it. I think one needs to learn the grips for speed, but then unlearn them to be able to do true multiple-voice leading.

[Bertram Henze]

I don't think there's an easy way around it. I think one needs to learn the grips for speed, but then unlearn them to be able to do true multiple-voice leading.

Yep, it's two different views on a piece of music, contradicting yet complementing. Like drilling a tunnel from both ends, it takes time and control for the whole to come together. But when it's together, there's no limits.

[JonZ]

This page from Frank's Violins might interest you.