Scales

[gravelbourg]

I apologize if this has been covered, but i am a real novice looking for major scales in tab. i have found that the online resources for scale generating are a little beyond me. Thanks in advance.

[csstanley]

See if this will help you. Co-Mando Excercises

[gravelbourg]

Thank you kindly...that really is an excellent resource. My mandolin treacher suggested that learning scales is a good place to start. #any suggestions on putting them to practical use?

[gravelbourg]

sounds do-able...thanks alot. What i'm trying to get a handle on is adding mandolin rhythym and short fills to existing songs that my family has written. I thought that a good konwledge of scales would put me in a better position to harmonize.

[JEStanek]

You could use this to write your own scales (I made it instead of practicing).

Pick a starting note on the circle and do either the major or minor scale pattern, Root, whole step (two jumps clockwise on the circle), or half step (one jump clockwise on the circle). #You can add the sharps and flat notation to the staff. #The 1o, 2o, 3o, 4o show where on the scale the open G, D, A, and E strings are respectively. #

You can use the space below to write out inversions for chords. The major minor chord convention is under the steps in the scale
RWWWHWWH
MmmMMmmM #where M=major and m=minor.

These are helping me learn the neck.

For example if you want the D scale you start at D
up two to E up two to F# up one to G, up two to A, up two to B, up two to C# up one back to D.
Your Chords are D maj, E min, F# min, Gmaj, Amaj, Bmin, C#min, DMaj.
The chords are named with Roman Numerals
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII #This is where you get the I, IV, V chord progression for so many songs.

A final goofy note (or chord) is the VI chord is the relative minor / major for the scale you are doing. #E.g., If your have the Dmaj scale we did above, the relative minor scale is C#min with the same notes and chords in it.

Send me an e-mail if you need further help with this.

Jamie

[csstanley]

Just to add to what has been said. I don't know if you want to buy something or not but I have been going through Brad Laird's book The Mandolin Master's Class and he is TOTALLY all what we are talking about here.

He talks about not only scales but also arpeggios and working up the neck. Like what Jamie was talking about above.

I strongly suggest this book if you want tolearn more. Its well worth the price.