Playing Advice: A Re-cap of Musical Principles

At one point this blog was partially about the experience of learning to play music as an adult.  I did that even while knowing that my approach and viewpoint was a bit too peculiar to suit such a universal purpose.

With that disclosure, here are some musical notes (to self) - really just a re-cap of musical principles I've been keeping in mind over the last year or more.

Playing Music On An Instrument Is Like Whistling, or A Melody Can Be A Standalone Piece of Music
This stems from the belief that a melody is not something that is derived from or played over a set of chord changes, but that a melody is the music.  When you whistle a song what are you whistling?  Usually it's the vocal melody line.  You whistle it naturally without thinking about it intellectually or theoretically.  Instead of strumming chords and singing, I pluck instrumental melodies on tenor banjo to accomplish what is essentially the same thing as whistling.

This belief in melody also comes from my exposure to Irish music, where the traditional tunes are already complete pieces of music when played as melody lines by an individual on violin, or accordion, or flute, and so on.  My preference for melody may also come from listening to the playing of Jerry Garcia.  His "solos" on almost any conventional Grateful Dead or JGB song were really just further expressions on the vocal melody line.

Tell Your Subliminal Mind That Playing Your Instrument Is A Very Natural Thing To Be Doing
Basically this is simple - loosen up!  Playing and learning music should not be stressful or frustrating.  If you are tense or awkward during the playing of music your body will start to associate that activity with those feelings.  Posture and alignment are important.  Music playing should be a time of enjoyment, comfort and relaxation.

Scale Fingerings For Instruments Tuned in 5ths, or There Are Various Different Ways To Finger A Scale
I once took some mandolin lessons from Dennis Elliot in Richmond, VA, who I highly recommend.  Dennis introduced me to a complete, well thought out technique of closed position scale fingerings for the mandolin that could be applied to any position on the fretboard, starting on any note in the major scale.  This stuck with me even though it's not always easy to implement this technique on the longer scaled tenor banjo.

Then I discovered something called the Never Ending Scale by Dave Haughey, which is kind of like the cello version of the mandolin closed position scale fingerings that Dennis Elliot showed me.  Since tenor banjo is somewhere between cello and mandolin when it comes to scale length, an understanding of both the mandolin and cello closed position scale fingering best practices could lead to a hybrid form that could be fluidly applied to tenor banjo.

There's also the ongoing question of Irish tenor banjo fingering, pertaining most specifically to frets 2 through 5 (or 2 through 7) when playing in first position using open strings where available.  Some use a mandolin technique that assigns the middle finger to frets 3 and 4 and the ring finger to fret 5.  Others, like myself, try to use more of a one-finger-per-fret format that puts the middle finger on fret 3, ring finger on fret 4 and pinkie finger on fret 5.

The Major Scale Is The Foundation For Most Western Music, or Melodies Are Really Just Scale Exercises
The idea of scale fingerings described above really opened me to the section called Seven Worlds in David Reed's extraordinary book Improvise For Real.  The tonal center can be any note of the scale -- seven harmonic environments.

Learning the mnemonic I Don't Punch Like Muhammed A Li has helped me remember the seven modes.  The major scale from note 1 to 1 is known as Ionian, 2 to 2 is Dorian, 3 to 3 is Phrygian, 4 to 4 is Lydian, 5 to 5 is Mixolydian, 6 to 6 is Aeolian, and 7 to 7 is Locrian.  There are two scales that start with L but it's pretty easy to remember that 4 (the Phishy Lydian scale) is the one that you might actually play, while 7 (Locrian) is more theoretical than musically practical.

Melodies are really just scales arranged in a certain order.  Any melody line can be broken down by figuring out which major scale it is using.  A song in A-minor (a key signature with no sharps or flats) is probably using the C-major scale with note six of that scale as its tonal center.

Include Time In Practice For Improvisation, or Play Free
This quote comes from a 2011 JAZZed interview with pianist John Medeski:

I also recommend playing free as part of your practice. First do your technique warm-up and then sit down and play free. You can sit down and play a sunset, you can play an emotion, you can play a scenario – it can be programmatic, it can be romantic, it can be whatever but do it every day as part of your practice. Then you can go work on learning tunes, writing, studying harmony, lines, approach tones – all that other stuff that you need to learn – but first get yourself in a warmed up state and connected to your instrument and then play free. That’s how you find your voice and stay connected to it. That way you know what all these sounds mean to you. You can’t be taking your cues from everybody else – we need to know what every chord and every note means to us and what every combination of those notes means to us. Then when we play them it is coming from us. (John Medeski)

Lastly, Be Open (To All Influences), and Write It Yourself
Melodies can be mined from endless sources:  15 minutes into a Phish jam, sounds from nature, a theme song to a children's show or a TV jingle, adding music to a spoken phrase like “you are tearing me apart Lisa!”.  If you are open at all times the inspiration can come from anywhere.

By Write It Yourself I don't necessarily mean write your own songs or music, although that is one aspect of it.  What I mean is put it in your own words.  Take musical knowledge you are gaining and treat it as if you came up with it yourself.  A hobbyist musician probably doesn't need to have a strict by-the-book music school understanding of all aspects of music theory.  Music theory is really just an attempt to define what is already going on.  So just define it in your own terms.  That may lead to creating your own music under your own terms, which is great too!

Decoding Jerry Garcia with GratefulGuitarLessons.com

"The greatest changes on earth don’t mean anything to me if they don’t have a great melody tying them together." (Jerry Garcia, 1978 Guitar Player magazine interview).

Last week I emailed Seth Fleishman of GratefulGuitarLessons.com to thank him for creating his online video lessons on the playing of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. Even though I'm not a guitarist, I still play a plucked, fretted, stringed instrument that contains the same 12 notes that Jerry was working with. Seth's lessons and learning materials have made it easy for me to apply these concepts back to my instrument of choice.

Anyway, one thing led to another and Seth shared a whole bunch of knowledge with me via our email correspondence, and he's been kind enough to allow me to share this information below. Read on for Seth Fleishman's insights into the guitar style of Jerry Garcia!


Describe Jerry's approach to soloing.
In general what differentiates Jerry’s approach from most rock guitarists is that he was almost always playing to the chord changes, rather than playing a modal scale over the changes. So if a song goes from D to C to G to F, he would play to the chord he is on. He was trying to outline or identify melodically each chord using chord tones at key moments in his phrases, so that if all you could hear was Jerry, you would still hear the changes happening. 

Some might say, oh, so he was using arpeggios? And I would say, for the most part, not really. JG was using chord tones. He had ideas on the fretboard based on chord shapes, but because chords are derived from a particular major scale, he always had a choice of using chordal-based ideas, or scale-based ideas, or both. I usually refer to chordal-based ideas as vertical and scale-based ideas as horizontal, but that’s just a general idea, and doesn’t always apply. So whether he was using a chord shape or a scale, he was going to most of the time hit a target note -- a root, a third, or if applicable, a dominant 7th, on the change, to mark the movement of the harmony, all within a hopefully logical melodic idea.

On top of playing to the chord he was on, Jerry also tried to connect that chord to the next chord with a phrase that begins on the current chord, and lands appropriately on the next chord with some kind of natural resolution, using target notes that make you hear the chord change.

He had a whole bag of licks he could fall back on as needed -- no one can be purely creating at all times -- but he was always trying to make his solo well-composed, made up of phrases that become sentences, sentences that become paragraphs, and paragraphs that become the theme. Jerry tried to create these phrases based on the song at hand. Sometimes he’d play lines clearly based on the melody, other times it might be very loosely based on the melody -- perhaps the phrases are entirely novel, but they are rhythmically arranged in a way that follows the pattern of the melody. He had an ability to recall and build on what he'd already done up to that point in a solo. Sometimes he might imagine the melody continuing in his head, and he’d be playing around where it would be if it were there, creating a sort of counterpoint.

He's always playing to the song, never slathering over it with licks willy-nilly. And he's trying to build whole thoughts in a logical way. JG was able to retain that big picture and stay focused and concentrated, even while dancing out there on the high wire all the time. He was relentless in trying to find a new permutation each time. In a way, within each song, it's like he's trying to do the SAME thing each time, just differently. So the Sugaree solo is always Sugaree. He doesn't want to take it out a new door. He wants to find an undiscovered way of taking it out the SAME door, differently.

He made great use of ornamentation to make the solo interesting. With ornamentation, he could use returning tones, approaching tones, turns and trills to decorate a chord tone, thus transforming a simple chord outline into an elegant passage. Those ornaments could sometimes become a motif unto themselves -- an idea he could use to build and develop as a central theme for a solo or a section of a solo. He also made frequent use of sequencing (scale patterns of a certain ascending or descending character).

Jerry also had an incredibly wide dynamic range. He wasn’t blasting away the whole time. His lead volume would be set loud so that he could use his touch and pick attack to vary the delivery of notes from very soft to very loud.  

When playing repeated patterns and sequences in a modal jam, he would use his pick attack to make certain notes pop on unpredictable beats, creating interesting sounding lines that didn’t just sound like running scales.

On more lyrical passages, he could create emotional impact by emphasizing certain notes. He could also be incredibly tender and subtle, bringing things down to a level that was unusual for a rock player in a big arena. The Grateful Dead had an audience that listened intently, and because of this, Jerry was able to use a wide range of dynamics to great effect.

Last but certainly not least, Jerry used a tremendous amount of chromaticism. Perhaps because triad-based music only gives you so many note choices, he would use chromatic passing tones, approaching tones, and returning tones to turn the simple into something interesting. He had a somewhat rich, elegant style that reminds me of early Baroque violin. So he wanted as many notes as he could have to work with. Chromaticism also enabled him to create phrases with a wide variety of rhythmic contours and length on the fly. If he needed an extra beat or two, he could fill in the gap with chromatic tones, as long as he landed on a solid target note.

Seth Fleishman - GratefulGuitarLessons.com

He was a brilliant and original player with a truly artistic mindset.


How did Jerry incorporate a wide range of influences into a unique(?) style? He seemed to be simultaneously distinctive and closely tied to various traditions.

He said in an interview somewhere that the only two major influences he could name were Chuck Berry and Earl Scruggs. I can see how that forms a simplified, but very true idea of his sound. The brightness of it. There was a joyful rock and roll spirit. The banjo incorporates so many of those time-worn folk tradition licks that provided a reservoir of ideas for Jerry to play with and reinvent. Even the tuning of a banjo, to an open G major chord, seems to suggest something of Jerry’s sound, which featured major 3rds so much more prominently than most rock players.

I think the raw power of simple chords on a somewhat dirty sounding electric guitar (Chuck Berry), plus the major 3rd leaning, 8th-note filled, always moving, ornate style of bluegrass banjo (Earl Scruggs) really do go a long way towards describing his sound.

I think Jerry also took inspiration from other instruments. That’s really a great way to come up with fresh ideas, and I recommend it to anybody. Transpose ideas from a different instrument. Floyd Cramer’s famous piano style derived from his copying of pedal steel licks. A piano can’t bend strings, so the bends became little approaching tone licks, and a whole style was born. It’s a great way to get out of a rut and find fresh ideas, not based on your instrument, but based on music itself.

I hear Jerry getting ideas from horns. I think some of his ultra-distorted guitar work, anything from Minglewood to Stella Blue, could be imagined as emulating a saxophone, and inspired by what a horn might do.

In fact, when he started tinkering with the midi set-up, you could hear him quite literally applying horn sounds. So where he might have imagined a trumpet in Let it Grow, it became a trumpet. I wasn’t crazy about this, honestly. I thought he took midi too literally, and I missed his beautiful guitar sound, and I found Weir’s rather sneaky, mischievous and creative application of midi far more interesting. But it shows you where Jerry’s inspiration may have been coming from.

Like everyone else of his generation, where needed, he could draw from the three kings -- BB, Albert, and Freddie, but I think he tried to use their ideas very sparingly. There were so many guys ripping off the blues in those days. I think his artistic mindset demanded that he find something different to do.

And I’m sure he picked up bits here and there from all over. He’s mentioned Django Reinhardt, and I could see how he might have been able to get some ideas he could use. I definitely think he was into Roy Buchanan around 1980 or so. I hear the influence in there. It comes out in JG's own unique way, but it’s there.

Did Jerry play differently in the Grateful Dead than in the Jerry Garcia Band?

That’s a good question. He played a lot more cover tunes, and the mood was a little more somber. I always used to say the difference between a Dead show and a JGB show is that at a JGB show, there are no beach balls. That may not be entirely true, but you get the point. JGB shows, in tone, reminded me more of a Dylan show: somewhat more serious, slightly less celebratory, less spacey or psychedelic. That comes from the songs he chose when he was on his own, and is reflected in his playing.

He was perhaps a little looser and freer with JGB. If you think of it, his band is there to support him. There’s interplay, to be sure, but in the GD, they were all presumably equals, and so the give and take was probably a little different, and perhaps more challenging.

I personally think he was more himself in the JGB. A little looser, but a little more serious. Maybe you could say in the GD he was rock player, and in the JGB he was a soul player, an R&B player. The first time I saw the JGB, while they were still playing the opening bars of “How Sweet It Is”, my first reaction was “Holy crap-- they’re better than the Dead!” Which also may not be true, but to this day I am a huge fan of R&B and soul music, and not so much a fan of rock.

How did you go about learning the styles of Jerry and Bobby, and what is your approach to teaching and explaining it through GratefulGuitarLessons.com?

Just listening. I refer to video where possible, but usually just to try to confirm what my ears are telling me. I have a pretty vast collection of soundboards, so when I am working on a particular song, I’ll listen to many, many versions, with my eyes closed, headphones on, and try to pick it all up. Some of that, honestly, is a gift. I didn’t always know the fretboard or music theory, but I’ve always had an ear.

In a way, particularly with Jerry, I just got kind of lucky where I was able to sort out what he was doing, and see the logic and the method behind it, or at least divine a logic and a method from it. And then this logic ends up applying over and over again. What’s amazing is how inventive he was within that framework. Just an amazing improviser.

My approach to the videos has not changed. They are very straight-forward and come with tablature and a backing track to use for practicing. I perform a demonstration of whatever we are going to work on, and then I walk through it note by note, step by step, discussing whatever I think is important as I go. The song, or the solo, is the script for me.

I work in bits of music theory, ideas about what makes a good solo, ideas about scales and chords and understanding the fretboard, all in the context of whatever it is we’re working on. I always try keep the explanations simple and practical. I never try to make it sound high-minded or intellectual. So, for example, I’ll say "here’s some chromatic passing tones", but then I’ll say “just think of them as in-between notes.”

I like to use note-for-note stuff almost exclusively because otherwise one could get lazy and miss the true brilliance of the artist. Let's check out what he actually did and see what we can learn from it. It will usually be a combination of things. So you get to steal some actual licks, which is fine, or learn how to play a song the way they played it, but hopefully you learn how to create, you learn more about the fretboard, about music itself, about improvisation, and composition.

I’ve been very fortunate because the feedback has been so great, and leads me to believe that my approach works for a good amount of people. I love the music of the Grateful Dead. I love Jerry and Bobby. I respect all those guys so much as artists. I just wanted to show folks how cool the stuff really was that they were up to.

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Seth says that two lessons readers might find useful are 10 Steps to Jerry Style Blues and 10 Steps to Jerry Style Solos, because both of those get right to the heart of Jerry's overall strategy and approach to basic melodic improvisation in a mostly triadic work. If you start with those lessons, when you later look at specific songs and pick apart JG solos to get ideas, you'll get more out of it, and better appreciate his creative ideas within the context of his approach to the task.

A New Kind of Lead Sheet

I've been creating lead sheets that don't use sheet music notation or tab.  I simply write out the chords in Roman numerals and the melody notes based on their scale number.  For example, for a song in D every D chord is the I chord, every Eminor chord is the ii- chord, etc.  An F# note would be the number 3, an A note the number 5.  "Accidentals" and chords outside of the 7 chords from the scale are no problem.  An A# note in D would be a 5# note.  An F7 chord in D would be a III7 chord (capital letters because it's not minor).

This type of numbering system makes all keys universal. With this approach you can play any song in any key that you know the scale of and the chords for.  For songs that change keys, just choose the major scale that fits the best.

I've created a table containing boxes representing measures/bars to use as a template for writing out songs this way.  For songs where the melody comes straight from the vocal melody, I also write down the lyrics and apply a note number to each sung syllable.

Here's an example lead sheet for the song I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now.  I encourage others to try this.  It's also good ear training because it's less visual and less tied to a certain key or fingering.  It makes it easier to practice a song in all 12 keys and in various ways, which is good for building an aural connection.

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Wynton's 12 Ways to Practice

I saw this list in a book a few years ago and had forgotten about it until I came across it again recently.  These 12 practice tips from Wynton Marsalis are very well thought out ways to get the most out of your practice time.

Wynton Marsalis photo from 1981

First Published in The Education Digest, September 1996

As a boy growing up in New Orleans, I remember my father, Ellis, a pianist, and his friends talking about “sheddinʼ.” When they got together, theyʼd say, “Man, you need to go shed,” or “Iʼve been sheddinʼ hard.” When I was around 11, I realized that sheddinʼ meant getting to the woodshed – practicing. By the age of 16, I understood what the shed was really about – hard, concentrated work. When my brother Branford and I auditioned for our high school band, the instructor, who knew my father, was excited about Ellisʼ sons coming to the band. But my audition was so pitiful he said, “Are you sure youʼre Ellisʼ son?” At the time, his comment didnʼt bother me because I was more interested in basketball than band. Over the next several years, however, I began practicing seriously. Practice is essential to learning music – and anything else, for that matter. I like to say that the time spent practicing is the true sign of virtue in a musician. When you practice, it means you are willing to sacrifice to sound good. Even if practice is so important, kids find it very hard to do because there are so many distractions. Thatʼs why I always encourage them to practice and explain how to do it. Iʼve developed what I call “Wyntonʼs 12 Ways to Practice.” These will work for almost every activity – from music to schoolwork to sports.

1. Seek out instruction: Find an experienced teacher who knows what you should be doing. A good teacher will help you understand the purpose of practicing and can teach you ways to make practicing easier and more productive.

2. Write out a schedule: A schedule helps you organize your time. Be sure to allow time to review the fundamentals because they are the foundation of all the complicated things that come later. If you are practicing basketball, for example, be sure to put time in your schedule to practice free throws.

3. Set goals: Like a schedule, goals help you organize your time and chart your progress. Goals also act as a challenge: something to strive for in a specific period of time. If a certain task turns out to be really difficult, relax your goals: practice doesnʼt have to be painful to achieve results.

4. Concentrate: You can do more in 10 minutes of focused practice than in an hour of sighing and moaning. This means no video games, no television, no radio, just sitting still and working. Start by concentrating for a few minutes at a time and work up to longer periods gradually. Concentrated effort takes practice too, especially for young people.

5. Relax and practice slowly: Take your time; donʼt rush through things. Whenever you set out to learn something new – practicing scales, multiplication tables, verb tenses in Spanish – you need to start slowly and build up speed.

6. Practice hard things longer: Donʼt be afraid of confronting your inadequacies; spend more time practicing what you canʼt do. Adjust your schedule to reflect your strengths and weaknesses. Donʼt spend too much time doing what comes easily. Successful practice means coming face to face with your shortcomings. Donʼt be discouraged; youʼll get it eventually.

7. Practice with expression: Every day you walk around making yourself into “you,” so do everything with the proper attitude. Put all of yourself into participating and try to do your best, no matter how insignificant the task may seem. Express your “style” through how you do what you do.

8. Learn from your mistakes: None of us are perfect, but donʼt be too hard on yourself. If you drop a touchdown pass, or strike out to end the game, itʼs not the end of the world. Pick yourself up, analyze what went wrong and keep going. Most people work in groups or as part of teams. If you focus on your contributions to the overall effort, your personal mistakes wonʼt seem so terrible.

9. Donʼt show off: Itʼs hard to resist showing off when you can do something well. In high school, I learned a breathing technique so I could play a continuous trumpet solo for 10 minutes without stopping for a breath. But my father told me, “Son, those who play for applause, thatʼs all they get.” When you get caught up in doing the tricky stuff, youʼre just cheating yourself and your audience.

10. Think for yourself: Your success or failure at anything ultimately depends on your ability to solve problems, so donʼt become a robot. Think about Dick Fosbury, who invented the Fosbury Flop for the high jump. Everyone used to run up to the bar and jump over it forwards. Then Fosbury came along and jumped over the bar backwards, because he could go higher that way. Thinking for yourself helps develop your powers of judgment. Sometimes you may judge wrong and pay the price; but when you judge right you reap the rewards.

11. Be optimistic: How you feel about the world expresses who you are. When you are optimistic, things are either wonderful or becoming wonderful. Optimism helps you get over your mistakes and go on to do better. It also gives you endurance because having a positive attitude makes you feel that something great is always about to happen.

12. Look for connections: No matter what you practice, youʼll find that practicing itself relates to everything else. It takes practice to learn a language, cook good meals or get along well with people. If you develop the discipline it takes to become good at something, that discipline will help you in whatever else you do. Itʼs important to understand that kind of connection. The more you discover the relationships between things that at first seem different, the larger your world becomes. In other words, the woodshed can open up a whole world of possibilities.

Five Questions with DeadPhish Orchestra's Paul Murin (High Country Guitar)

Paul Murin

Paul Murin is the guitarist for DeadPhish Orchestra, a tribute band that bridges the gap between the music of Phish and The Grateful Dead. He is also the creator of High Country Guitar, an online resource for guitar players interested in improvising and composing. His formal study has included the Jazz and Commercial Music program at the Lamont School of Music at the U. of Denver, where he graduated in 2002.

These qualifications mean that Paul knows as much about the music of Phish and the guitar playing of Trey Anastasio as anyone not named McConnell, Gordon, Fishman or Anastasio. Plus, he is approachable and affable. So, fortunately, he was happy to answer the following Phishy questions.

How does Phish’s improvisation differ from jazz improvisation? How is it similar? 
Well, if you're talking about the classic, bebop style of jazz improv, which most true jazz musicians are familiar with (and I, by the way, do not consider myself a jazz musician at all, although I have studied jazz fairly extensively), then I would say it's a LOT different. Jazz is very sophisticated, harmonically--chords tend to be complex, and there are usually a lot of them in a typical jazz piece. Phish's harmony tends to be much simpler, more in the vein of rock, blues, etc., and more static harmony and mode-based as opposed to improvising over a long series of chord changes.

However, jazz did take a turn for the simpler (largely thanks to Miles Davis) starting in the late '50s, and even more so in the 60's and 70's. The crazy-complicated chords of the bebop era got scrapped, and improvisation became more modal, and more groove-based. Here, I do think you could draw some parallels in Phish's improv style, and I would imagine the guys in Phish would cite much of this music as being influential. But Phish's influences come from a lot of places, and this is only one of them. 

Are there specific songs or performances that exemplify Phish’s improvisational style(s)?
I would look to some of their best-known jams as being exemplary. Like the 2013 "Tahoe Tweezer" or the "Tweezer > Prince Caspian" from the Magnaball Festival this summer. I guess some people call these "Type II" jams, though I'm frankly not 100% certain what that means, exactly. The jams start with the key and groove of the song, but before long they stretch out into different feels, and different keys and modalities. And they may or may not return to the original feel. 

I have noticed some interesting chord progressions in some of their newer songs--Waiting All Night has a really interesting chord progression for Trey's solo, as does Wingsuit and Halfway To The Moon. So it seems to me like they are trying to explore some new improvisational territory. 

Compositionally, are there any traits or themes you’ve noticed in Phish’s written music that you’d like to point out?
Off the top of my head, one thing that I see frequently in Trey's older compositions is that a melody will be cycled through several different keys. It happens in David Bowie, Golgi Apparatus, Squirming Coil, Foam, etc.--the same melody played in several different keys. Sometimes there will be slight variations, making things less predictable. 

Another "trick" that you see is that phrases will sometimes be odd lengths. Normally stuff happens in twos, fours, etc., but in Mango Song, for example, each phrase is 5 measures long. And in Runaway Jim, the phrases of the guitar solo are 3 measures long. Again, I think this makes things a little less predictable. 

As a musician, what is the biggest thing you’ve learned by listening to Phish?
They taught me that it's worthwhile to get as good as you can at your instrument, and to never stop learning and improving. 

How might one go about incorporating some of Phish’s writing style and improvisational techniques into his or her own music?
That's actually a tough one--I was in a band in my 20's that was heavily influenced by Phish in our songwriting, and when I listen to it now, it mostly just sounds like second-rate Phish to me. So you do have to be careful, if you're influenced by Phish, not to make that influence too direct. Instead I would recommend reading up on the guys in the band and looking at the music that influenced them. Absorb some of that stuff, as well as the other music that you love. Study it all (at least a little bit), learn to play as much of it as you can. And as you do that, hopefully your own voice develops out of it.

Mary Halvorson on Reading, Interpreting and Improvising

Mary Halvorson

Jazz and Avant-Rock guitarist Mary Halvorson has quickly become one of my favorite musicians. Getting to see her play live for the first time last month as part of the Tomeka Reid Quartet - while sitting just a few feet away - helped solidify this growing appreciation and gave me a little bit better idea of how she does what she does.

Mary was working from written music on a stand. I happened to see one of the pages and what she was doing was way more abstract and varied than what could have possibly been written on the page, and yet she seemed to maintain her concentration on the notation even during long periods of free improvisation. I asked Mary about this process and this was her response.

“With Tomeka's music, there is quite a variety in how the compositions are structured. Some of the tunes are way more open, in which case I am reading less and interpreting more, and others are more highly structured. If you see me staring at the page, I might be reading or following a solo form to improvise over. However, it's just as likely that I might not be reading at all and my eyes just happen to stay focused on the page after I've finished the notated portion. This happens sometimes too.

But regardless of what I'm reading, I do try to let the composition guide the direction of the improvisation. Even if I'm not playing over a form, the written material that comes before and/or after is still integrated into improvisational sections. For me, this is what ties it together into a coherent piece of music and gives each piece its own identity.” (Mary Halvorson)

Are You A Sharp Person or Do You Like to B Flat?

People who play music that is most often in sharp keys tend to think of those keys as being the easiest. Those who play wind instruments prefer flat keys. Piano players fall right down the middle with their attraction to the key of C (all white keys - no flats or sharps). What it boils down to is the keys that people are most comfortable playing in are those where the chords or scales are easiest (most common) on the instrument(s) of choice in that style or genre. That might be D for Irish, E for The Blues or Bb for Trumpet Rock.

I don’t want to be one of those people who sees G as being easy but Eb as being hard, for example. I want to see them as equals. When working on an arrangement or interpretation of a tune I’m mindful of running it in different keys, different octaves, different positions and different fingerings. Was that an Irish jig, a free jazz freakout or a downstairs mixup? Who knows? Who cares???

Basically, I am striving to play stuff in as many different ways as I can think of, while understanding the “similarities” of each different way. I can easily spend a whole evening doing this with just one tune or one or A-part or even one phrase. As a result, I am having more fun than ever before practicing/playing music.

Cello Hand Shapes and Fingering Techniques for the Tenor Banjo?

The cello is tuned in fifths like a tenor banjo and has an even longer string length, so any reaches or stretches that a tenor banjo player has to deal with must certainly be more extreme on the cello, right?  For this reason I figured it wouldn’t hurt to research how cello players navigate the fingerboard of their instrument.

Based on what I found out, it seems as though cello players view the major scale in three note increments.  Unlike a mandolin, where you can reach 4 scalar notes on the same string without having to move your hand, on a cello you can only reach 3 scale notes in a row.  After playing those 3 notes you then have to decide if you’re going to shift and play the next three notes of the scale on the same string or on an adjacent string.

There are three different hand shapes or 3-note scalar patterns on the cello.  I've put it in my own words below, but this information is best explained in cellist Dave Haughey’s  Never-Ending Scale Exercise. 

Firstly, there’s X (whole + whole).  This is like playing notes 1-2-3, notes 4-5-6 or notes 5-6-7 of the major scale.  To play it you use the index finger, middle finger and pinkie with a fret spaced between each.  It’s a bit of an eXtension but is doable. 

Secondly, there’s 2 (half + whole).  This is like playing notes 3-4-5 and notes 7-1-2 of the major scale.  For this pattern you also use the index finger, middle finger (finger 2) and the pinkie, but there is no open fret between the middle finger and the index finger.

Thirdly and finally, there’s 3 (whole + half).  This is like playing notes 2-3-4 and notes 6-7-1 of the major scale.  For this pattern you use the index finger, ring finger (finger 3) and the pinkie without an open fret between the the pinkie and the ring finger.

Cello's Three Basic Hand Shapes - by Dave Haughey

On a GDAE tuned tenor banjo there’s a D-note on the 7^th fret of the 4^th string (G-string).  Using these cello fingering concepts, you might play a two-octave D-major scale by using Pattern X on the 4th string (frets 7-9-11 / notes D-E-F#), followed by Pattern X on the 3^rd string (frets 5-7-9 / notes G-A-B), followed by Pattern 2 on the 2^nd string (frets 4-5-7 / notes C#-D-E), followed by Pattern 2 on the 1^st string (frets 2-3-5 / notes F#-G-A), then shift up and play Pattern 3 on the 1^st string (frets 7-9-10 / notes B-C#-D).

There's so much more you can do with this and so many ways to think about it.  I encourage you to check out Dave Haughey's Never-Ending Scale Exercise that I linked to above because it does a good job of explaining some of the possibilities.

Two Octave Scales in Each of the Seven Modes:

Ionian = X-X-2-2-3

Dorian = 3-X-X-X-2
Phrygian = 2-3-3-X- X
Lydian = X-2-2-3-3

Mixolydian = X-X-X-2-2
Aeolian = 3-3-X-X-X
Locrian = 2-2-3-3-X

Warren Haynes on Playing With The Dead: Trust That the Magic Will Happen

Today I read the following quote by guitarist Warren Haynes on his experiences with playing with members of the Grateful Dead:

"Playing with the Dead is all about relaxing and letting the music flow and come through you and not being in a hurry to force it to go somewhere, trusting that the music, the magic, will happen, and they’ve always been about waiting for that magic to happen and capturing it when it does happen."

This is advice I could have used a few weeks ago when I put together an Irish session at a local brewery. Even though I wasn't the best player there, I was the organizer and kind of the person in charge so instead of relaxing and having fun like everyone else, I over analyzed everything. I ended up having a good time but things could have been a lot easier if I had not been trying to force the "craic" and was just letting it happen naturally.

A few days later a couple participants told me that they had had a good time at that session, so it was then that I realized that my experience/reality was probably not the same as the others who were there. This is information worth taking to heart because tomorrow Laura and I are supposed to play some tunes at a fundraiser with a fiddler friend of ours. Instead of worrying about whether the music is jiving, I am going to try and remind myself to just settle back easy and just let the notes fall as they may.

Eddy Davis' 4-String Banjo Video Lessons

Eddy Davis

Tenor banjo legend and Hall of Famer Eddy Davis (AKA Mr. Greenmeat, AKA The Manhattan Minstrel) has started posting a series of 4-string banjo video lessons to YouTube.  These lessons are primarily designed for banjos tuned CGDA, but are also broad enough to cover general music basics as they apply to any four string instrument.

Why should you care?  Well, anytime a player of Eddy's stature provides this kind of direct insight into his or her philosophy of music it's worth taking note, even if the material being covered doesn't directly apply to your specific musical genre or "dialect".

Here are the first few videos.  There are at least 14 of 'em!

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Guitarist Vic DeRobertis on Playing Like Jerry Garcia

Left-handed guitarist Vic DeRobertis of the New England based Grateful Dead tribute band "Playing Dead" shares some tips for playing like Jerry Garcia in this Guestlisted Guitar Lesson with Jeff Gottlieb.

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The Dual Roles of the Notes Used in Irish Traditional Music

The majority of Irish session tunes use the notes found in either the D-major or G-major scale, even when the tonal center is E, A or B. 

For example…

The note D is usually going to be either the 1^st note of the D scale or the 5^th note of the G scale.  It’s not unusual for a tune to have D as its tonal center but be using the G scale (i.e. Tatter Jack Walsh, Rakish Paddy, Star Above the Garter).  More on this later.

The note E is either the 2^nd note of the D scale or the 6th of the G scale.  Without going too far down the path of chords, which is a loose concept in Irish music, those two chord E-minor/D-major tunes like Cooley’s Reel and Swallowtail Jig can be thought of as using the II chord and the I chord of the D-scale, with the II chord (E-minor) being the “home” chord and the I chord (D-major) being the “away” chord.  That’s better than thinking of the E-minor chord as the I chord and the D-major chord as some kind of flattened VII chord.

The note F# is either the 3^rd note of the D scale or the 7^th note of the G scale.

The note G is either the 4^th note of the D scale or the 1^st note of the G scale.

The note A is either the 5^th note of the D scale or the 2^nd note of the G scale.  Those “two chord” A-minor/G-major tunes like Mist Covered Mountain and Congress Reel are using G-scale notes (A-Dorian), just like how those E-minor/D-major tunes are using D-scale notes (E-Dorian). 

The note B is either the 6^th note of the D scale or the 3^rd note of the G scale.  You occasionally have tunes like Musical Priest or Connaughtman’s Rambles that have B as the tonal center for portions of the melody, and/or modulate from B to D.  That’s usually an indication that B is acting as the 6^th note of the D scale.

The note C does not reside in the D scale, but it is the 4^th note of the G scale.  When you encounter a tune like Tatter Jack Walsh which resolves to D but has that prominent C-chord, you’re actually working within the G-scale.  The D-major chord in Tatter Jack Walsh, even though it is the “home” chord, is acting as a V chord, while the C-major chord, even though it can be seen as the “away” chord, is functioning as a IV chord.  These are characteristics of D-mixolydian, which is simply the G-major scale starting on its 5^th note.

The note C# is the 7^th note of the D scale.  It does not exist in the G-major scale, proper. However, C# does seem to be one of those notes that can sometimes be used in place of a C-natural note in a modal tune at the discretion of the melody player.  The presence of a C# in a tune like The High Reel is an indication that it is in A-mixolydian - the same notes as the D scale – meaning that the C# is serving as the 7^th note of the D scale.

This is kind of a hard concept to describe, but it gets clearer the more you think about it.  Basically, most tunes use either the D scale (resolving to either the 1^st note D, the 2^nd note E, the 5^th note A or the 6^th note B) or the G scale (resolving to either the 1^st note G, the 2^nd note A, the 5^th note D or the 6^th note E).  It’s also worth noting that the tonal centers D, E and A show up in both the D and G scales, and that both scales use all the same notes except for C or C#.  

Closed Position Scale Fingerings for Tenor Banjo

I took some lessons a while back from Dennis Elliott, who is one of the best stringed-instrument teachers in the Richmond, VA area.  Fiddle, mandolin, guitar, bass, bluegrass, jazz, classical, theory - Dennis knows it all!

Dennis really helped me understand scale patterns by teaching a closed position scale fingering method for mandolin.  In a nutshell, this was basically:

Scale notes 1-2-3-4 (and 5-6-7-1) use a "whole-whole-half" pattern w/ fingers 1,2,3,4.
Scale notes 2-3-4-5 (and 6-7-1-2) use a "whole-half-whole" pattern w/ fingers 1,2,3,4.

Scale notes 3-4-5-6 (and 7-1-2-3) use a "half-whole-whole" pattern w/ fingers 1,2,3,4.

Scale notes 4-5-6-7 use a "whole-whole-whole" pattern w/ fingers 1,2,3,4.

This works great for mandolin, but on tenor banjo some of those stretches and reaches are damn near impossible to do.  So, I kind of ignored that method for tenor banjo since for Irish music you usually play in first position utilizing open strings, and I prefer a cello/guitar fingering of one-finger-per-fret.

But, to play in closed positions up the neck on tenor banjo you do need to figure this kind of thing out.  Just this morning I searched and found an archived 2010 forum topic on Banjo Hangout on 'Scale Fingerings for Tenor' where Andrew Roblin added a comment that happened to summarize Buddy Wachter's approach to this tenor banjo fingering dilemma.  I've indicated in red text where this fingering approach differs from what Dennis showed me for mandolin.

Scale notes 1-2-3-4 (and 5-6-7-1) use fingers 1,2,4,4*
Scale notes 2-3-4-5 (and 6-7-1-2) use fingers 1,2,3,4.

Scale notes 3-4-5-6 (and 7-1-2-3) use fingers 1,1,2,4.

Scale notes 4-5-6-7 use fingers 1,2,4,1 -- the last note in that 4-5-6-7 pattern is on the next higher string.

Roblin explained that in Buddy's method he slides with only the 1st and 4th fingers, and avoids whole steps between the middle finger and the ring finger because it is too awkward.  Further analysis may be needed to figure out work arounds for all of the potential occasions when a whole step might fall between fingers 2 and 3.

*I'm assuming that 1,2,4,4 would be Buddy Wachter's fingering pattern for closed scale notes 1-2-3-4. In Andrew's explanation of Buddy's technique, this is the only closed position example he left out.

Irish Trad - Does It Help To Read Music?

Have you ever seen the lyrics to a favorite song and realized that you were mishearing some of the words? Did you benefit from learning what the correct lyrics were? One example that comes to mind is the Grateful Dead song Franklin’s Tower. I used to think that the words “If you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind” were “If you play nice you’re gonna always win”. What I heard in my head was inferior to the actual poetic lyrics penned by Robert Hunter. Finding this out didn’t in any way take away from my enjoyment of this song that I already loved. It enriched it!

I think the same can be done with caution with Irish tunes. When people say that Irish traditional music is an aural tradition and you should learn by ear and not by notation that is true. You should strive to train your ear to learn this music via osmosis and resist the urge to “cheat” and look at the music too early in the process of learning an individual tune. However, glancing at transcriptions of the music can help clarify some muddy areas and help you grasp and remember the tune better, much in the same way that seeing the lyrics to Franklin’s Tower helped correct the faulty words that my mind’s ear was hearing.

I am trying to learn basic tourist French right now prior to a trip to Quebec this summer. I have some audio instruction “tapes” that I got from the library. Since I am a visual learner (and a fairly good speller) it really helps me comprehend the language better if I can pair the audio with the written. So for me, pairing a written phrasebook with the audio helps give me a more complete picture of the expression. The same holds for music: audio + notation vs. audio only.

Jerry Garcia said, “With records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. Nobody has to fool around with musty old scores, weird notation and scholarship bullshit. You can just go into a record store and pick a century, pick a country, pick anything, and dig it, make it a part of you, add it to the stuff you carry around and see that it’s all music.”

This is definitely the approach I want to take as I continue to learn Irish music and tunes. By listening to the likes of Angelina Carberry, John Carty, Kevin Griffin, Daithi Kearney and Mick O’Connor (slowed down and pitch-corrected as needed) I hope to intuitively get the feel of this music as played on tenor banjo. Ideally, in my case, the years of listening to Jerry Garcia prior to ever playing an instrument can also come through the background of my unconscious when I am attempting to interpret tunes. No harm in that!

Jerry Garica also said “If you’re wondering why in an old-timey band you can’t understand the words very well, it’s because we don’t know them, and we can’t figure them out off the records, so we make up our own as we go along.”

When you can’t understand the exact words you replace them with words of your own choosing based on what fits or what you think it might be. The same is done as a player with your choice of musical notes. You may not like what you see when an Irish tune is written out and may prefer your own way of hearing it. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as your aural version is driven by purity of intent and not held back by your ignorance or skill limitations. You get to choose how “enlightening” you find someone else’s idea of what the notation should be. Use it as an aid, not as a crux.

Liz Carroll STRINGS Interview Transcript

I’ve linked to this Liz Carroll article before but I thought I’d post a full transcript of it below.  The interviewer is a classical music oriented publication and these appear to be stock questions, but a lot can be learned from Liz’s thoughtful responses from the perspective of an Irish traditional fiddler.

Liz Carroll (Michael Tercha, Chicago Tribune)

Ask Chicago-based fiddler Liz Carroll to describe what she does and she replies: “I play Irish music, a music made up of mostly short pieces such as jigs, reels, and hornpipes. The first and second parts of tunes are made up of eight measures. Every once in a while you have a three, four, or even five-part tune. It’s simple, lovely music! It’s also a very social music—fiddles, accordions, flutes, pipes, whistles, and an array of backing instruments partake.” You can hear for yourself on the new solo album On the Offbeat. Strings asked Carroll to describe her daily practice regimen.

What do you feel you need to do on a daily basis to maintain your skill level?

I do love to play, so it’s pretty easy to take the fiddle out of the case and have it handy throughout the day in case a thought occurs to me. It’s true that the fingers can get rusty, but it doesn’t take much time to get facility back. Tunes are in the first position, so the tunes themselves are the practice.

Do you have your own daily routine of scales or technical exercises?

No, I have no particular routine as such.

Why not?

I try to feel the music my own way when I play, but then I try to explore what other people (fiddlers) and other instrument players are doing. I feel that anything I choose to work on helps the whole. So, I can take a tune from a recording and sit down to play along with it and learn it by ear. This is an enjoyable exercise—playing along, stopping to check out what the player did, and then turning off the recording to see if I have it. Whatever journey the tune takes you on—you’re playing, you’re listening, you’re adding a new tune to your repertoire, and so you’re improving as a player.

Do you still use études or study guides?

I don’t have any exercise books, but there are some out there for Irish fiddle. I do work out kinks or difficulties within tunes, but it is a self-driven type of exercise.

Do you practice scales and arpeggios?
There are lots of nice runs within tunes, so I feel I get to practice arpeggios there. Irish music employs a lot of keys and a lot of modal scales. There are tons of tunes within keys like A, D, and G.

Any tune one learns can be played in a number of places on the fiddle. Some players don’t worry about shifting tunes to other keys (and you don’t have to have that skill), but I feel that I’m a better player if I can go there.

Was there a particular teacher who was instrumental in developing your practice regimen?

I took classical lessons at school when I was a little girl. I had a wonderful teacher, Sr. Francine, who did two things: She very much encouraged a good bow hand, and she noticed when I did or didn’t practice. I still work at my bowing, although I do love the left hand, too. When I play in front of an audience, there’s no question that the work put into a tune or an ornament within a tune gets noticed. You can get a certain amount of reaction from energetic playing. But you can’t beat that reaction from the audience, and the satisfaction from nailing a note or a variation within a tune, that comes from evident work.

How has your daily practice regimen changed as you’ve advanced as a player?

I’m the very same now, I’d say. I still love to compose tunes, still like to learn a new tune. I’m lucky to live in Chicago where there are lots of Irish sessions, gatherings of musicians playing tunes. When I’m not touring, I like to get to a session. And when I’m on tour I like to have a session with the local musicians, too. You can’t beat sitting down with your cup of tea—or whatever!—at a nice establishment and playing tunes with other musicians for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. You work on your chops (bowing, fingering, variations) at a session—you work to make your music flow.

How do you know when you need to brush up on fundamentals?

You do need to play a lot in order to have a good brain-to-bow/brain-to-fingers connection. You just know when you need to play, I think.

Is there a particular technique that has given you trouble?

Style and the pursuit of a style loom large in Irish fiddling. Again, it’s simple music for the most part. When you see it written, it might not occur to you that there is a challenge there. But there is! There are regional styles in Ireland—Galway style, Kerry style, Donegal style, Sligo style, to name a few. Within those styles, there are excellent players past and present. When you learn a simple jig, from that point there are a myriad of versions from different players that you can and should attempt (long bows/tight, short bows; very ornamented fingering (rolls, cuts)/no ornaments; crans taken from pipers, breaths taken from flute players, unusual note choices from accordions. Then there are various stresses and pushes one can employ to the rhythm. All of these can give you trouble!

What advice can you offer about developing a daily practice regimen?

Well, one is to follow your nose—there’s nothing wrong with learning this music your own way. People are nice (especially fiddlers—ha!) and they’ll play a tune slowly for you on your recording device for you to learn. They’ll also show you a roll or other ornamentation they’re using if you ask them. You can take lessons; you don’t need to take lessons. Sessions are free, and you can do what I did when I was young—go to the session, sit in the back, and try. Try to pick up the tunes and try to pick up the bowing and the ornaments. There are apps now where you can record a few notes of a melody, find out the name of the tune, and then find the tune in a book or online.

And of course there are recordings of new and old masters—with a good ear and patience, the melodies are there for the taking. I always think it’s a good idea to keep your fiddle out of your case, where it’s visible and beckoning.

Finally, don’t be too hard on yourself. Learn the tunes you like first, and then go from there.

The Joys of Playing with a Metronome

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I only recently started using a metronome.  This lack of discipline is probably apparent in my playing, but I'm happy to have gotten over the hump of not using one only to discover that playing with a metronome can be a fairly gratifying experience.

Playing with a metronome is surprisingly calming and hypnotic. It allows you to identify trouble parts where you either speed up or slow down so that you can concentrate on smoothing those sections out.  I was working on the reel Rakish Paddy the other night.  After getting in sync, I probably played it over a dozen times through (with the clicker going), which is something I've never done before on my own.

Practicing with a metronome has the potential to make you a better listener because it forces you to be aware of more than just yourself.  Like I said above, it can also be calming.  Knowing that the tempo is not going to change allows for a stress-free playing experience where you can focus on other aspects of your technique like ornamentation and purity of tone.

Once you've identified errors and remedied them, you can practice playing the tune perfectly with the metronome to keep you on track.  This will teach your neurons to play the tune in-time in a relaxed, steady fashion rather than sloppily and full of mistakes.  By hearing yourself repeatedly play the tune correctly, the sound of the well-played tune gets ingrained in your mind's ear rather than a version filled with uncertainty and flubs.  This breeds confidence and perpetual progress.

After all the preparation and recitation, hopefully when the training wheels come off you are able to keep it on cruise control.  And all this time I thought a metrognome was a dwarflike spirit that lives in the city.

Irish Music Backing Cheat Sheet

I found this Backing Cheat-Sheet, self-described as a "super-short, massive over-simplification version", on the Lawrence Irish Music Session site.  The Lawrence Irish Session takes place every Sunday afternoon at 5:30 upstairs at Henry's Coffee Shop in Lawrence, KS.  Here's the advice!

Backing Irish Traditional Music is not as simple as backing some other forms of Western music. Remember to play quietly while you are getting your bearings. There is nothing wrong with droning on the tonic note or laying out altogether on tunes you do not know well. Tunes generally go around a few times (i.e. repeat AABB patterns for example, so listen for a round and then try something quitely on the second go-round.)

Lawrence Irish Session

There is no set chord pattern and no way to predict what chord order will work for any given tune. The only thing you can be reasonably sure of is that the I chord will be used a lot and will probably end each iteration of the tune's structure.

Some tunes modulate to different keys so watch out!

Tunes in Major keys e.g. D major, G major : Base backing on normal I, IV, V chords

Tunes in Dorian Mode e.g. E Dorian : Base backing on I, VII, VI. I.e. For E Dorian, E, D, C

Tunes in Mixolydian Mode e.g. G Mixolydian : Base backing on I, VII, V. I.e. For G Mixolydian, G, F, C

If it sounds minor, it is more likely to be Dorian than Aeolian (i.e. normal Minor). Try the major form of the flat seventh note of the major scale for whatever your root/tonic is. I.e. for Dorian tunes with an A tonic, try G Major

If it sounds major but the V chord doesn't work, its probably because the tune is in Mixolydian

Take it easy on the 7th (dominant 7seventh chords like G7, A7 etc.). These are a lot less common in Irish music than they are in other forms of music you may be familiar with in the folk traditions.

Tuning to Fixed-Pitch Instruments at the Session

If you are a stringed instrument player you might be accustomed to using a Snark or some other type of electric tuner to keep your strings in tune with one another. A funny thing happens when you rely on this device at an Irish session – you might not be in tune with the other instruments!

It’s not uncommon for a session to include fixed-pitch instruments such as concertina or accordion that cannot be re-tuned in the moment. If you’re lucky these fixed-pitch instruments are right on A440, but if they are a little sharp or a little flat you might have to tweak your strings to match.

This is why you’ll hear the concertina player sounding out his A note as people are tuning up. Players are supposed to use this as an opportunity to try and tune to the sound of that A. This is also why you’ll hear an experienced fiddler say to the accordion player “give me your A”. I suppose nothing can be done when both a concertina and accordion are present and they don’t match!

Even if you don’t have any fixed-pitch instruments at your session, the other musicians may attempt to tune to some proverbial “A” or to the sound of the loudest or most dominant instrument. At these times it is helpful to have your tuner handy so that you can offer a reference point to A440. Or just realize that – in a room full of folks who don't use electronic tuners – it’s not always you who is "out" of tune!

All of this can be difficult for the novice to pick up on. Even when you know what’s going on it can be difficult to tune by ear if you haven’t had much practice doing so. Just because you know what the accordion player's “A” sounds like doesn’t mean that you have the ear training to match that sound and, more importantly, to then also tune your G, D and E strings based on that A.

It might be a good idea to bring along a chromatic tuner that picks up ambient sound (not just the sound of your instrument) so that when the accordion player or concertina player is playing their A note that tuner will show whether it’s sharp, flat or right on the mark. That’s not the ideal method but it might help as a short-term solution.

I have a Casio keyboard at home which is pretty much at concert pitch so sometimes I’ll try and tune to that as practice.  If I start out flat it’s easier to hear when it gets up to pitch than when I start out sharp and am coming from the other direction.

Mnemonic for Remembering Music Modes - I Don't Punch Like Muhammad Ali

When I transcribe a melody I try I like to determine which of the 7 "church" modes it might be using based on the notes I am hearing. There is a mnemonic for remembering these modes - I Don't Punch Like Muhammed Ali.  I learned it in an online music theory class taught by the University of Edinburgh Reid School of Music.

In other words, that's I (Ionian) Don't (Dorian) Punch (Phrygian) Like (Lydian) Muhammad (Mixolydian) A (Aeolian) li (Locrian).  Since there are two modes that start with L I try and remember that Locrian comes last.  Another one that works is I Don't Play Loud Music Any Longer.

So what do these modes mean?  I like to think of them in terms of the major scale.  Let's use the C-major (Ionian) scale since it doesn't have any sharps or flats.

Ionian = the notes from the major scale starting on the 1st scale degree: CDEFGAB.
Dorian = the notes from the major scale starting on the 2nd scale degree: DEFGABC.
Phrygian = the notes from the major scale starting on the 3rd scale degree: EFGABCD.
Lydian = the notes from the major scale starting on the 4th scale degree: FGABCDE.
Mixolydian = the notes from the major scale starting on the 5th scale degree: GABCDEF.
Aeolian = the notes from the major scale starting on the 6th scale degree: ABCDEFG.
Locrian = the notes from the major scale starting on the 7th scale degree: BCDEFGA.

Using the above scenario, if a tune doesn't have any sharps or flats but has G as the tonal center, then it's G-Mixolydian.  If if doesn't have any sharps or flats and you feel like D is the tonal center, then it could be D-Dorian.

I used this same methodology when transcribing a melodic portion of the Phish song Horn this week. In the first 30-seconds of the instrumental section that begins after the lyrics are done, I only heard a flattened note once - a Bb - that I treated as an accidental. The rest of the melody was using notes from the C-major scale, although the tonal center of the melody was either G or D. It definitely wasn't C. So I determined for now that the first several bars of of that 2-minute end section of Horn are using either the G-Mixolydian or D-Dorian mode.

More often than not melodies do have lots of sharps (or flats!), so to determine the mode you have think in terms of scale intervals - whole steps, half steps...that kind of thing. As you are transcribing a melody, determine its tonal center.  The tonal center is the root note; the note it wants to keep going back to. Once you have the tonal center you can determine the scale/mode based on the other notes being used. For example, a tune using the notes G,A,B,C,D,E,F# with an emphasis on E it would be in E-Aeolian (E-minor).

Once you have the tonal center established, it's really important to pay attention to where the 3rd and 7th scale degrees fall. Is the 3rd major or minor?  Is the 7th scale degree flattened? Where those two scale degrees fall plays a big part in determining a tune's mode.

Transposing from Mandolin to Mandola

mandola (l) and mandolin (r)

I just got a mandola (tuned CGDA) and I would like to sometimes use it for playing Irish music.  The Irish tenor banjo player Gerry O’Connor uses CGDA tuning, so this can be done.  I believe Dervish and Planxty, among others, also utilize mandola.

Irish music tends to have four primary tonal centers:  D (D-major, D-mixolydian), G (G-major), A (A-major, A-dorian) and E (E-dorian, E-minor).  I guess you could also add B (B-minor), although B-minor tunes often feel like a modulation of D-major, since B-minor is the relative minor to D.

When playing a mandola in a session you can’t just use the same fingerings you know on mandolin because it will come out in a different key.  For example, a tune in G on the mandolin will come out in C on the mandola if played with the same fingerings. 

So, one way of working on this is to “transpose” from mandolin to mandola by thinking like this:

Playing in D on the mandola is like playing in A on the mandolin.

Playing in G on the mandola is like playing in D on the mandolin.

Playing in A on the mandola is like playing in E on the mandolin.

Playing in E on the mandola is like playing in B on the mandolin.

Playing in B(minor) on the mandola is like playing in F#(minor) on the mandolin.

This is good ear training because although you know how the tune is supposed to sound from playing it on mandolin, you can’t rely on the same fingerings on the same strings to play it in the same key on mandola.  It’s kind of like learning a new tune that you already have a head start on.

Eventually I hope to be able to play mandola without having to make these direct, literal comparisons to the mandolin, but for now it provides a foundation for comparison.  If nothing else, having a mandola should make me a better mandolin player because of the way it forces you to get outside comfort zones and think about music more universally.