Posted by Ted at 11:07 AM

In our inaugural issue of MandolinSessions.com, Understanding the 'ii V7 I' Progression, we brought up the concept of harmonic function. "Drama; it's always about conflict and resolution," was the way this started. The "drama" of a V7 chord, resolved or unresolved is what defines the majority of Western European music, classical, folk, pop. It wasn't until the middle 20th century that these sounds were thrown out the window in contemporary musical styles of atonal and 12-tone compositional techniques.

An unresolved Dominant Seventh chord stirs motion. Roll out a huge arpeggiated G7 on a grand piano and sing "Happy..." and who can resist following up with a tonic C based "Birthday to you!" It's a primordial a 'V7 to I' as you can get.

Music theorists will teach you that in our tonal universe, we have three functions; Home (I) or Tonic, Dominant (V7), and Dominant Preparation (ii, IV, vi and variations on them). When we think C7, in context, more often than not, it will be a V7 or Dominant chord of F. In jazz contexts more often than not, you'll see stylistic interpretations, "spice" if you will that take a basic 7th chord C7 (C E G Bb), include variations like C9 (adding the 9th or D), C13 (adding the 13th or A), and C7 b13 (adding the lowered 13th, the same as a raised 5th or Augmented chord), and use them interchangeably.

If a jazz musician sees or hears C7 in the score, he/she is not thinking C E G Bb, rather thinking a contextual function of "Dominant." That's why depending on what other musicians are doing at the time, chord extensions are not only okay, they are encouraged. All the preceding variations are fair game, as long as the additional chord extensions don't conflict with the melody or another comping instrument. (You don't want to play a C7b9 if someone else is playing a C9.)
It all boils down to function. A good skill to have is to be able to recognize all the 'V7 I' pairs in the Circle of Fifths. Playing through these in all 12 keys until they become automatic is a healthy exercise to add to your practice routine, both physically and intellectually.

Posted by Ted at 12:49 PM

In working on final mixes of some of the sound tracks for the upcoming "Getting Into Jazz Mandolin" book from Mel Bay due out in June '08 (crossing fingers), we've experienced a very graphic revelation in swing...

Let's explain. As we exploit modern technologies, the band and many of the guitar parts were recording by good buddy and mandolinist/guitarist extraordinaire, John Eubanks and some of his amazing session friends down in New Orleans. Piano, bass, drums, guitar (and some of John's mandolin) were recording in a professional studio, post-Katrina, an interesting experience, no doubt, but long distance from JazzMando Headquarters. Some additional bonus tracks are in the works from arguably the world's greatest jazz mandolinist, Don Stiernberg next week in a recording studio in Chicago. Music is being exchanged through PDF in email, and audio transferred back via FTP.

PDQ. (pretty darned quick...)

The humble author has never professed the greatest mandolin chops, but the recording does call for mandolin demonstration in the exercises. Painstaking efforts were made to produce a quality recording in the JazzMando Lab, and because of the miracle of dice and splice digital technology, we should have a pretty good recording, despite the playing inabilities and natural imperfections of the author.

What's happened though is interesting. Recording jazz, you aren't going to have even straight, eighth notes; you want a recording that isn't metronomic, it needs to swing. This makes computer editing very intriguing when you see the splash of bars and graphs of digital audio on a monitor screen, all the discussion of our most recent entry on swing comes to light, in a very literal way. (See It don't mean a thing if it ain't...) Of course, a downbeat is a downbeat; you want starting notes to be on time, but if it truly swings, you don't line up exactly with the subdivisions of perfectly divided time.

If you ever have chance to use a digital audio editor (we used Steinberg's Cubase and SoundLab), take it. Not only is it amazing in editing out mistakes, you get a visual education and conception of swing--a fresh look under the hood.

Posted by Ted at 04:40 PM

We've recently been questioned about the frequent use of doublestops in many of our chord charts. Admittedly, it can be difficult stretching the pad of your finger out to cover two (or sometimes three) strings, but if you can do this with your first finger, particularly on the G and D strings, you have much more freedom and flexibility with the remaining fingers.

Those with a history of guitar playing know the benefit of barre chords, as well. These closed position chords allow you to move stock fingerings up and down with ease mentally and physically; that's yet another reason to approach chord construction with this approach. We even have two less strings (and less reach) to confound us.

Another trick to doublestops is what we call half-fretting. Sometimes if your 1st finger covers a string that's actually fingered higher up the fretboard, you get a hand/wrist position that is more stable.

This Am9 is an example of what we mean, but the half-fingering is in the 2nd finger. A four-fret span reach is difficult enough to hold down, but since anything you close below the 4th finger isn't going to be heard, why not get this extra grip? Note that it also puts your hand closer to the fingerboard, and rests more comfortably.

Using the 1st and 2nd fingers for 5th doublestops is also very useful for rhythmic accompanying. You have easy access to a common interval, the Perfect Fifth; great for power chording as well as a half-muted rhythmic texture.

Note you can keep your 1st finger there, and add the 2nd finger two frets above for some great blues riffing. It's a little tougher for the 3rd and 4th fingers, but if you hold your hand right you can get the 3rd up a fret for the minor 3rd and minor 7th.

Automatic blues!

Posted by Ted at 02:51 PM

Last week we spoke of three ways of arriving at material to induce both a cerebral (brain) and tactile (finger) approach to developing material for improvising: Gravity Notes (of the scale), Arpeggios (linear chord spellings), and Pentatonics (a glimpse of the triad and two auxiliary tones). There is another approach worth investigating, and it's something we tackle in another section of the website on Improvisation Techniques. (If you haven't read it, now would be a good time.)

What we've outlined in this concept is simply taking a motif, a phrase, a "lick," and building off of it using some of the theory concepts you've picked up. It can be something as basic as altering the phrase within the context of a new scale, injecting auxiliary notes, extracting nuggets, or varying the rhythms. What you end up with is something musically consistent, but also fresh in the ear of the listener. It's like remodeling a house, rather than starting an entire building from scratch.

We challenge you to find some licks you like. It can be the first two measures of "Scrapple from the Apple," a recognizable lick from one of your favorite players, even a line from a Bach Violin Partita. Make it simple, though; the idea is to retain consistency, and just see what you can do limited to a simple set of fresh notes. You may astound both yourself AND your audience with what a simple dose of creativity can do to supercharge your solos.

Like the old Timex watch TV commercials from the 60's, but instead of "It takes a licking, but it keeps on ticking," your improvisation can now be, "Take your "lick" ing and keep on ticking....

Posted by Ted at 09:46 AM

Improvised solos can sound marvelously ingenious, or strained and sterile. The very essence of improvisation is freshness and spontaneity, but in order to be "spontaneous," you must be first equipped with the material to begin construction. The ability to play a sequence of notes is certainly a start, but what to do with this sequence is where the rubber meets the road.

We want to propose three different approaches to developing better improvisational skills. Each in their own way are great jumping off points, but the best way to solo will be a combination of each approach. Individually, they contain the components of melodic creation, but only in tandem will they start to sound like music coming out of a mature player.

We will assume you've already dived into the FFcP materials, and have at least a cursory feel for what these exercises do for your fingers and ears. Scales are at the very rudimentary end of nurturing melodic material; hopefully you're already using major and minor scales and modes to improvise. We want to go the next step and not sound like the music is coming out of scales. All of these are previous exercises introduced on the website; now it's up to you to figure out how to work them into a regimen of practice time. Our suggestion is to spend a day or three on one, move to the next for the same period, and move to the third, and rotate them. Work them in different areas of the fretboard, and most importantly, inject them into songs you are already attempting to improvise over. Keep it simple to start; you'll get better and more "subconscious" with their application as you get better.

Guide and Gravity Tones: Introduced in our April 2004 Mandolin sessions article, Critical Decisions in Improvising: 'Gravity' Notes, we uncovered the importance of identifying the "gravity" notes of the scale, the 4th and 7th notes, and the 2nd and 6th--how they pull the music along. Understanding, hearing, and communicating this pull through your improvising gives your melody a harmonic context. It drives the phrase.

Exercise: G & G

Arpeggios: We must think chords as we blow through a solo; we need to "be at one" with the harmonic and vertical construction of the changes to be effective, let alone consistent with the accompaniment. Knowing where the leading tone (7th), the third and emphasizing these important tones is essential. Practicing Arpeggios is a great way to do this so that they become familiar and automatic. We have 4 different versions of 7th chords in our upcoming book, Major, Minor, Dominant, and m6 (half diminished), but until then, try a sample from the Major 7th exercise. You can map out your own for the other chords

Exercise: Major Arpeggios

Jazz Pentatonics: We've avoid inserting Pentatonics to the end, because so many beginning players overuse and abuse these. You have to understand why they are useful in jazz before diving in, or you never get to use them to their potential, especially if you don't have them cold in all 12 keys. There is a strong foundation here, with the root, third, fifth all so apparent, a couple of benign passing tones added. Read our thoughts on Jazzed Pentatonics and some of the jazz specific uses available. Then dig in and learn them in all 12 keys and up the fretboard.

Exercise: Jazz Pentatonics

Also, read our latest MandolinSessions, Enhanced Pentatonics.

Three ways to skin this hep cat!

Posted by Ted at 12:08 PM

In additions to the 132 pages of regular entries at Jazzmando (and 454 pages of news items) we do a regular "Tips and Tricks" entry somewhat weekly. These are all available for you hunt through. We thought it would be better, however, if we updated our catalog listing, so as of this entry, we have most all 145 now listed by category in our page archives. See below for a list categorized by subject.

Check out these Tips and other past submissions you may have missed:
Fingers
Ears
Brain

Also, don't miss our ever-increasing archive of past issues of Mel Bay's MandolinSessions.com, a free webzine educational service.
For an entire listing: Jazz Mandology.

Posted by Ted at 06:00 AM

We continuously mention a huge advocacy for 3-note chords. Maybe you've already got your own stock of them under your fingertips, and are fluent with transpositions seamlessly across strings and up frets. This is an incredibly valuable skill, and if you don't now, the more you work with these, the more automatic they will become.

We've been privileged with a great PDF resource we want to pass on to you. JazzMando Research Assistant and designated Deputy Chord Curator, Charlie Jones has generously submitted an intensely thorough catalog of 3-note chords. This can be enormously helpful, even if you already know the variations of major, minor, 7th, etc. Of course if you have these voices down, you can take the next mental step of adding extended voicings, 9ths, 13ths, and 11ths. Put the 3-note chords in the lower string and your pinky is right there on the E-string to add some color, too.

Entirely usable: Download 3-Note Chords PDF

Thanks Charlie!

Posted by Ted at 01:03 PM

The standard four-course paired tuning (8-string) of the mandolin presents wonderful opportunities for transposing modes, chords, and licks across the string and up the neck. So what happens when one contemplates picking up a mandola (tuned a fifth lower), or tackles a 5-string (or 10) mandolin? What happens mentally and physically when we either replace everything by one fifth, or add the ranges of a fifth?

Perhaps the biggest mistake a 5-string player can make in approaching the instrument is to try to run 5-voice chords (all five strings simultaneously). We see requests for chord charts for these frequently, and it shouldn't be baffling why these are uncommon. First, it's easy to transpose 3- and 4-note chords down another string, and second, the open fifths tuning extended to five voices really doesn't lend itself well to a full five voices. Think about a piano; eighty-eight keys and are they all played at the same time? No, and rarely are all ten fingers used at a time to play chords, either. We need to take the same approach to both 4- and 5-string mandolins, learning to mute adjacent redundant adjacent strings or unnecessary chord tones. If we learned any thing from listening to Jethro Burns, it's that 3-note chords rule!

This should put the novice 5-string player at ease. Don't think of covering five notes, think of playing the 3-and 4 note chords you already know, mute the E string and move them to the lower four strings of the 5-string, and you're not learning a new instrument, you're simply expanding the one you already know! This is not only good, it's better!

Try this for a mental exercise on a 5-string: play the closed position chords you already know, and move them up 7 frets and down a string (lower). If you did it right, you are playing the same chord, but you've just opened up a new way of thinking chords. Move them down two frets, you have the same chord only a whole step lower; down four frets and you're two whole steps lower. You get the idea; move these down and you've just rewired your brain for a new way of grabbing chords you never dreamed of.

In the treble register especially, 3-note chords do the trick in communicating the defining notes of the chord (3rd and 7th), and either the root or another color note of the extended chord (9, 13, +11, etc.). Assuming you're playing with a bass instrument or guitar, the root is probably already covered in the ensemble; in the interest of chord economics, you're free to leave it off and play some other juicy chord tones. Smart voicing also means not duplicating chord voices, so rarely will you play all five strings, except for some kind of special effect.

Our friend, mandolin software innovator Craig Schmoller has a terrific resource page at Groveland Software, the support site for his critically acclaimed Mando ModeExplorer software. (You do have a copy of this, don't you?) Bitten by the Cittern bug last year, Craig plowed into new ways of tackling the jazz potential of its standard CGDAE tuning. Duh, it's the same as a 5-string, except for the double courses, so it's worth your time to look this up and glean even more insight into this potential:

Read more: Cittern Lessons

Purchase a copy of Mando ModeExplorer.

Incidentally, we've put Craig on the hunt for even more sonic opportunity for the 5-string instrument. Stay tuned here (and at the Groveland Software site)!

Posted by Ted at 01:31 PM

We've had some requests to offer insights into the area of rhythmic interpretation, the perpetual question, "How can I swing?" The short answer has always been a subjective and not always helpful, "listen, listen, listen," but we'd like to suggest there are also concrete practical principles to consider. Yes, you want to listen to great music. Immerse yourself in the jazz giants, but while you're doing this, consider three aspects of rhythm you'll want to copy and assimilate into your playing, shuffle, articulation, and drag.

Shuffle. Our June 2005 MandolinSessions article outlined how we divide rhythms, and if you haven't already read this, it's worth the time. There is also an accompanying exercise to help you get your groove on, go back: "On the Up and Up: Jazz articulations." We talked about division and subdivision, divining a beat into halves (duple) and thirds (triple), and further subdividing, complete with a visual map of note placement:

Our conclusion was that in variations of true swing, you would find the divided beats in different degrees of shuffle. A good demonstration of this is to place your hands together in "prayer" position. Now rub the palms in motion, counting 1 & 2 & 1 & 2&, etc. (count out loud, too). Now do the same as if you were counting triplets 1& duh 2 & duh 1& duh 2 & duh (keep the same tempo) alternating on the 1st and 3rd division). Go back and divide in half again, and after you're set, move into the triple. Alternate between the duple and the triple. As you get comfortable doing this, try variances of something in between the two feels. Now go listen to your favorite swing music and try to feel which of the two, duple or triple the music is. What you'll find at various tempos, the subdivision is somewhere in between. If you're rubbing your palms in even thirds, it sounds terribly sterile; if your dividing in half, even worse.

When drum machines came out in the mid 1980's, many models included a "shuffle" slider or knob that would allow you to tweak the feel somewhere in middle of duple and triple. It's the dirty little secret of "Hip Hop" studio production, dialing into that magic feel, and sustaining it metrically through the song. It didn't sound "machine-like" because the brain struggles to comprehend what the division is.

Articulations. Mandolinists particularly struggle with a good swing sound for two reasons, 1.) the limited sustain of our plectrum treble range and 2.) the fact that every articulation is struck hard with a pick. Mandolin is not like a sax that can "Fooh Fooh" or "Thudt Thudt," tonguing into a note to varying degrees. We have one articulation, and it's either on or off. This means we work a little harder than our wind brethren to communicate swing. In addition to making sure our phrases are linear and well sustained, the best thing we can do is develop a rich upstroke. The MandolinSessions article mentioned prior goes into this in more detail, even offering an exercise to make yourself conscious of the need for a healthy upstroke. Think Frank (Sinatra). Doo BEE Doo BEE Doo...

Drag. Note, this is different than "shuffle." Sure you drag the upbeats to a certain point, but you can also drag an entire section of notes. Leave the meter and breathe some human-ness into your improvisation. Say you have a triplet pattern; try delaying each of the notes ever so slightly. Real swing musicians don't play in the box all the time. You need a good sense of time always, but that's internal (and held up by a good rhythm section or accompanying instrument). Don't lose track of where the beat is, but play around it.

This swing stuff is so subjective, but you can still listen and develop tricks that you'll inject into your playing and improvising.

Swing on...

Posted by Ted at 03:00 PM