Stuck in D and G...

[bjewell]

Okay I've been working at this for two months now. I play every morning watching the news and drinking my tea, then again when I go home for lunch and later in the evening, again while watching the TV. I've noticed that no matter what I play, I end up in D or G. Rarely do I get to C and even less to A. I have the music theory to play a scale in any key up and down the neck but playing in F, Bb or the like creeps me out, sort of like barr chords did to me a s a kid when I first got a guitar.

I'm sure there are tips, exercises, lesson ad etc to break me of my Deegee habit. Any suggestions as usual will be most appreciated...

[Lord of the Badgers]

Well if you fancy a style change you could start with ...
Gm / Cm / D
or
Cm / Fm / G

chuck in the odd A & F or Bb when it fits...

Though I just wrote a ballad about a disused ferry service in G... dammit...

[JeffD]

Learn some tunes in A. Learn to play the tunes you know in A.

[Mike Bunting]

Turn off the TV for starters.

[Tobin]

I'm not sure I understand how or what it is you play, that you're always ending up in D or G. Are you just noodling around, randomly? Or are you playing specific tunes? If you're playing specific tunes, just pick some in other keys. And if you're just noodling around, then try playing some specific tunes. There are lots and lots of them in C and A. (I'm not really sure what kind of answer you were looking for?)

Maybe also try turning the TV off while you're playing, so you can focus?

[Lord of the Badgers]

*applauds Mike Bunting & Tobin*... exactly what I did all evening tonight when the song idea started flowing... makes for a nice chilled long evening too. Nothing but the odd passing car in the rain and the sound of the wind. Yes. It's raining in the UK.

[mandolirius]

Okay I've been working at this for two months now. I play every morning watching the news and drinking my tea, then again when I go home for lunch and later in the evening, again while watching the TV. I've noticed that no matter what I play, I end up in D or G. Rarely do I get to C and even less to A. I have the music theory to play a scale in any key up and down the neck but playing in F, Bb or the like creeps me out, sort of like barr chords did to me a s a kid when I first got a guitar.

I'm sure there are tips, exercises, lesson ad etc to break me of my Deegee habit. Any suggestions as usual will be most appreciated...

Suggestions? Yep, you bet. Find those exercises, lessons etc. that you know are available and decide to do something with them aimed at getting you out of your rut. But no matter how you do it, what tips etc. you find along the way, it will always be a conscious choice on your part whether to do it or not. No material will solve the problem on its own without a dedicated effort on your part.

[Mark Wilson]

...I play every morning watching the news...and later again while watching the TV.

Maybe some time away just the two of you. Someplace quiet and TV-less.

I did the same for a while when learning to play guitar. But yeah you tend to not really focus on the instrument and more go along at what you can easily do without distracting from the telling and unfolding of world events.

[jim_n_virginia]

For fun I like to play fiddle tunes in every key. I might have to search some but usually i can get it. it's good practice and it anoys the heck out of my buddies when i play Angeline the Baker in C! LOL!

Okay I've been working at this for two months now. I play every morning watching the news and drinking my tea, then again when I go home for lunch and later in the evening, again while watching the TV. I've noticed that no matter what I play, I end up in D or G. Rarely do I get to C and even less to A. I have the music theory to play a scale in any key up and down the neck but playing in F, Bb or the like creeps me out, sort of like barr chords did to me a s a kid when I first got a guitar.

I'm sure there are tips, exercises, lesson ad etc to break me of my Deegee habit. Any suggestions as usual will be most appreciated...

[Beanzy]

Learn the pattern of those tunes with the little finger to cover the open/1st fret notes on the 7th/8th instead.
Once you've done that just start them off on the next fret up from your normal starting position.
That's G# and D# covered. Then go up another fret and you'll have sorted A and C..... then keep on up the board.

You can swap up a string too.....and you'll be playing in whatever key that final finger lands on (probably... but don't go there yet ).

Then with the low open G tune pattern you can just move that up to the D course to start off on the 5th fret G.
Where you'd have played an open string use the first finger.
Then use the other fingers to play the pattern you did in the open position.
You now have two patterns for the same tune and you can play them up and down the fingerboard.

So don't bother too much with learning new tunes, use the old ones to learn the new patterns.

[bjewell]

Thanks! I'm not really watching the tube, but I take your point. I play various Cajun tunes, and things like Texas Gales, Black Mountain Rag, Shady Grove and etc. I can hear tunes in my head and play them no problem. They just lay real nice on th fingerboard in D and G... As for effort, I've learned to play any number of stringed thingies and I know what is ahead. But I don't know who has created solid teaching materials. I guess I could go to Homespun and spend my lunch money.

[bjewell]

turn off the tv for starters.

-L- Good one Mike-san!

[onassis]

For me, the impetus to really get comfortable in more unfamiliar keys was encountering tunes or songs in those keys that I really wanted to add to my repertoire. Recently, I got an urge to work up "Old Train", "Blue Virginia Blue" and "Greenville Trestle High", all of which I like to do in F. So I've been working on intros, solos and back-up in F. Still not as comfortable for me as A or D, but it's getting more fluid. A concrete goal and repetition seem to be the keys for me.

[UsuallyPickin]

Practice your scales in Chord Key groups. A/D/E ---- or --- C/F/G/ ------ F/ Bb /C---- Bb / Eb / F -----throw in the relative minor or the two chords major or minor and that will break you out of your key rut ..G and D are the natural mandolin and fiddle keys .. it is easy to slip into them when noodinng alone......using FFCP scales will also help break the G /D key cycle .... ... R/

[bjewell]

Thanks all. i'll turn on MNF, crack a beer, make some Thai food and get out the 400. Eedle-eedle-eedle-Touchdown! ;- )

[OldSausage]

Learn East Tennessee Blues and Big Mon. Then you'll know A and C pretty good.

[foldedpath]

Lonesome Moonlight Waltz and Beaumont Rag are good for playing in F.

If you slide over into Irish and similar traditional fiddle tunes, then you've got tons of them in E minor, B minor, or D minor (or dorian for all of these). Even a handful in G minor, all played in first position. And then all those Scottish pipe tunes in A, or A mix.

When you look at "fiddle tunes" outside the American genres of Bluegrass, Folk, Blues, and Country, it's a big world of different keys and modes. Probably because it's not dominated by guitar players trying to find easy keys to play and sing in.

[AlanN]

Keys of F, Bb, B, Eb are great on the mandolin, as you can be way down by the nut and get many open strings to fit in tunes, scales there.

Was at a jam with a banjo lady last weekend, she said "I hate Bb and B." I didn't stay long.

[bmac]

Turn off the TV

In all seriousness when I took up mandolin and banjo and my wife took up banjo we canceled our cable.... and have never missed it... Serious mandolin requires serious thinking.

[Jim Garber]

I keep my TV in cross-tuning.

[Lord of the Badgers]

Jim I hope you're referring to a television...

[Jim Nollman]

Take a long week to learn President Garfield's Hornpipe. If you don't read music, then download a version somewhere. I guarantee that, at first try, you will struggle mightily with its ragtime/hornpipe phrasing.

It's in Bb. And it possesses as wide a spread of notes as any fiddle tune I know. It says "hornpipe" right there in the title,, but if you didn't know that, you might rightly think it was composed by Scott Joplin.

The tune has a few choice phrases that, you'll eventually discover on your own, are much much easier to play in the second position than in the first position. The challenge of figuring this out on your own, will open up for you a vast new area of fingerboard real estate.

I suggest this tune from personal experience. It is one of the tunes that completely changed the way I perceive the mandolin fretboard. Once you can play it well, lots of other great tunes in F, C, and Bb—Oklahoma Redbird comes to mind immediately — will suddenly be so much more approachable.

[AlanN]

Yes, Garfield is a tough one. A good version is by Tony Furtado, I think Adam S plays the mandolin. Even Butch struggled with that one, the B part. Ain't easy up to speed.

[bjewell]

Yes, Garfield is a tough one. A good version is by Tony Furtado, I think Adam S plays the mandolin. Even Butch struggled with that one, the B part. Ain't easy up to speed.

Yikes! Lots to be said about playing exclusively in D and G...

[yankees1]

You definitely have the incurable disease !