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Thread: need help figuring out a lick

  1. #1
    small instrument, big fun Dan in NH's Avatar
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    Default need help figuring out a lick

    Hello

    I'd like some help deciphering a fiddle lick to that I can apply it to mandolin.

    In the song Devil Went Down to Georgia Charlie Daniels plays some various fiddle licks. When he gets to the line "Granny does your dog bite? No, child, no" he then plays a series of licks that, near as I can tell, are just some simple arpeggios.

    Now if we set aside the question of what chords he playing and just listen to the arpeggios, my best guess is he's playing 3rd - root - 3rd - 5th a couple of times, and then finishes with 3rd - root - 3rd - 5th - 7th - 5th -3rd- root.

    Am I anywhere even close to being right?

    'Cause it seems to me that simple arpeggio fits quite comfortably into a thousand songs, and if I can just work my way up to 120 BPM on the metronome then I'll have done something very worthwhile for myself as a mandolin player.
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  2. #2
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: need help figuring out a lick

    Quote Originally Posted by phydaux View Post
    'Cause it seems to me that simple arpeggio fits quite comfortably into a thousand songs, and if I can just work my way up to 120 BPM on the metronome then I'll have done something very worthwhile for myself as a mandolin player.
    I don't know the recording well enough to answer, but your intuition is right, that arpeggios fit well in a thousand instances, and with slight modification a thousand times a thousand. Practicing arpeggios is of great benefit for developing technique and musical intuition that will help in all genres of music.

    Learning closed form arpeggios, portable all over the fretboard is very useful, and if you can practice them in sets of the I, IV and V chord of the key where you are at, it will open about 80% of all doors, IMO.

    Nothing like it.

    Now I have to go listen to Charlie Daniels
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

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  4. #4

    Default Re: need help figuring out a lick

    Sounds like you are on the right track, the CD song is repurposed Lonesome Fiddle Blues so you might take a listen to that for some ideas.
    Northfield F5M #268, AT02 #7

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