I use a lot of double stops in my playing. They are great where you don't want to chord but you want more than just a melody. I also like to use them along with the melody.
I use a lot of double stops in my playing. They are great where you don't want to chord but you want more than just a melody. I also like to use them along with the melody.
THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE JUST FOR YOUR SMILE!
I mentioned it above here. There is also a 2nd volume and transcriptions for viola. There may very well be transcriptions for other stringed instruments.
Jim
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19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
I just ordered Pete Martin's Double Stops book.
I love the feature of Amazon that lets you look inside the book. Looks like it's geared for a player who is just stepping into the double stop world.
Pete is a regular contributor on the Cafe, too.
"Keep your hat on, we may end up miles from here..." - Kurt Vonnegut
Toomas Rannu has ten arrangements of some Finnish folks songs, simple melodies but solos accompanied by double stops. Check this thread. He has a link for the pdfs of these notated with fingering/tabs. Scroll down to post #8.
Jim
My Stream on Soundcloud
19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
Starting to play with folks is a huge adjustment for many of us. You can get the feel by pulling up something on YouTube and click on the little gear wheel in the corner. This allows you to slow the tune down closer to your speed. Tone is a bit funky but the notes remain true to the key. Then there are apps like iReel.
As for double stops, they can work in any genre. Chuck Berry thrived on double stops.
Girouard A
Silverangel A
Eastman 615
I love double stops, especially down the fretboard. Using various chord shapes I noodled around to find the melody. The nice thing about fifths is the shapes works in any key
[QUOTE=JeffD;1812091]I use double stops all the time, where a harmony may be needed. Its very mandolinny, but I don't think of it as exclusively bluegrassy.
Hammer-ons and slides are more bluegrassy, IMO, and can have the effect in other music (old time for example) of advertising that one also plays bluegrass. Chop chords are, IMO, exclusively bluegrass.[/QUO
HO's, slides and PO's are (or should be) used extensively regardless of idiom. Chop chords are simply closed form chords. These too are used extensively outside Bluegrass. And there's much more, even in Bluegrass, to rhythm playing than just chopping on the offbeat
I think of double stops as part of the chord as mentioned above. 1-3, 3-5, 1-5 etc. It isn't always true but generally you'll be good with one of those. Then you can invert them for a different sound. When you practice scales do them with double stops and pretty soon your fingers are just wanting to go there. They are invaluable when you start cross picking because they allow you to cross pick anywhere on the fingerboard.
We few, we happy few.
John, do you know of a resource for double stops scales? I like the idea.
And it's interesting you mention crosspicking in connection with double stops. My teacher said the same thing at my lesson this week. I don't see double stops, but simply individual notes. Maybe I'll have an "aha" moment one of these days.
https://www.mandolessons.com/harmony...-stops-part-1/
Might be a place to start
Jim
My Stream on Soundcloud
19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
Sone violin scale exercise books have harmonised scales, and scales in octaves. Parallel 5ths (one finger across 2 strings, tune it by rocking your finger to favour one string or the other) can be useful, some jazz fiddlers used them a lot.
Schradieck's Complete Scale Studies has harmonized scales in octaves, thirds, sixths, and tenths. Seems like pretty advanced stuff to me which may be why your violin teacher may hold off with these. I am sure there are other methods that use similar etudes.
On the mandolin side, Calace Method, Book 2 has harmonized scale etudes in 11 keys for thirds, sixths and octaves.
Jim
My Stream on Soundcloud
19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
Jim and Max, I believe I have some harmonized scale exercises in my collection. Dumb me, I didn't make the connection between them and double stops until you mentioned them. I'm (slowly) studying Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory. If I can force myself to finish the basic stuff, I'm bound to get to harmonized scales.
Edit: I've been playing double stops exercises from Bud Orr's Anthology of Mandolin Music. As I look at them now, I see they move up and down the scale. That hadn't registered with me until now.
Last edited by Sherry Cadenhead; Mar-20-2021 at 10:06am.
It may have been mentioned but Sharon Gilchrist has a lesson at Peghead on DS, she calls them “neighborhoods”, also while practicing scales and such is never bad, I’d just pick the keys you play in for right now and practice finding the 1 4 5 DS.
For instance if it’s bluegrass/OT/folk in G you could do:
G - 45xx
C - 52xx
D - 24xx or 74xx or x45x
Then find them somewhere else:
G - x52x
C - x23x
D - x45x
Finally
G - xx23
C - x53x or x23x
D - x45x or xx52
You’ll learn how to move around efficiently and how to mute strings/hit only the ones you want. Go slow and just strum them to a chord progression at first and watch your fingers, you’ll see the patterns develop, then try out on tune. As to your question about when to play them, just put them in a tune be it bluegrass to classical and see if you like it, if you don’t move on and try something else. It really only matters what you think sounds good, some people may frown and like I said in another thread of yours...politely ignore them and have fun.
Northfield F5M #268, AT02 #7
Found this today, looks cool; under exercises, beginner
https://www.mandolincafe.com/te/sear...rder=A&submit=
A quick and dirty selection I scraped together from a fiddle lesson.
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