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Thread: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

  1. #1
    🎶 Play Pretty 🎶 Greg Connor's Avatar
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    Default I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    I’ve been trying, but no luck finding anything that sounds like the Blues in my mandolin. I play blues harp and guitar in a pickup band every week and would like to bring the mandolin once in a while, but there are no blues to be found in that instrument.

    Can somebody please get me started with a couple easy licks?

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    Registered User Freddyfingers's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    It’s got to be in there. Mine had it. But i cant find mike marshall in mine. There are a few courses that can help layout some simple blues scales in different keys, and once you have that and your blues background it will fall in place a bit. There are forum members that have done class’s. Don Julian, if i spelt that correctly did a skype type class last year. It was easy and fun, and i pulled a few tricks out of it. Once i got past thinking it was a backwards strung guitar and focused on mandolin tuning, that helped a lot. Or tune it open and play slide. Ive done that on my octave, and a cheap Ibanez that has a pickup by the neck. Weither weay, it will come.
    Its not a backwards guitar.

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    Registered User urobouros's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Check out The Mandolin Blues Book by Brent Robitaille or Mandolin Blues by Rich DelGrosso.
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    Registered User Charles E.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Mandolin Blues, featuring Johnny Young, Carl Martin, Yank Rachel and others....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIyws3j18EA

    Ry Cooder, "Going To Brownsville"...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdHXqAvOfXg
    Charley

    A bunch of stuff with four strings

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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    More than a few blues ideas right here:

    And

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Steve James's books and dvd's (or codes for downloadable music) are also good. Joe Carr's School of Mandolin: Blues is the simplest book out there. If you google "Mandolin Blues Lesson," you'll find many videos demonstrating licks or tunes. Good luck.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Registered User samlyman's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Greg:

    I have a dozen or more YouTube videos where I play solo mandolin on a variety of blues standards. Enter my name in YouTube - Sam Lyman - and the videos will magically appear . There is also a link in my signature.

    Hope there are some things there that work for you! Happy pickin', Sam

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  14. #8
    🎶 Play Pretty 🎶 Greg Connor's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Thanks guy, I’ll check these out. I appreciate the help.

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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    And don't forget to check out Howard Armstrong [aka Louie Bluie].

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    Professional Dreamer journeybear's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Member Jim Richter has a ton of stuff up on his website and youtube. Member Rich DelGrosso probably does, too.

    The thing is, a blues scale is a blues scale is a blues scale. It's the same on a mandolin as a guitar. Sure, there are little dealios that are more natural or inherent for one instrument or another, but by and large, most of it translates pretty well, pretty naturally. I'll try and throw together some examples of my go-to riffs tomorrow.
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Well, dang. What I expected to be a quick tune watch on my phone turned into an almost 2 hour Compton and Newberry extravaganza thrown up on the tv. Of course, Mike can make anything sound amazing, but that Gil is perfect for that setting. Thanks for posting. I’d totally forgotten those two made their album back in ‘19.
    Chuck

  20. #12

    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    G minor is made for mandolin blues. Learn the Bach sonata in G minor and take it from there. Think Autumn Leaves.

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    Registered User Perry's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by Greg Connor View Post
    I’ve been trying, but no luck finding anything that sounds like the Blues in my mandolin. I play blues harp and guitar in a pickup band every week and would like to bring the mandolin once in a while, but there are no blues to be found in that instrument.

    Can somebody please get me started with a couple easy licks?
    Try this:


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  24. #14
    Professional Dreamer journeybear's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    G minor? I dunno. Maybe for you, but for me, the notes don't fall in the right places. G major, even not quite, though I'm so familiar with it that I can make just about anything work pretty easily. Which helps, because the band I've been in for a year do a lot of bluesy numbers in G. Might be because the guitarist/singer has a G harp, on which he plays straight, not cross. But out of all the dozens of blueses I've written over the years, I've got only one in G. Not sure why; maybe it feels right for my voice.

    My favorite keys for blues are A and E, and further back, D, maybe C. That A chord, 2245 - just made for the blues. The low end fifth with the root on the bottom, the walkdown on the top string, the little wiggle you can do on the A string between the minor and major third, the pull-off/hammer-on between the tonic and flat seventh on the top string - who could ask for more? Similarly, D 2455 has that third wiggle and VIII/VIIb pull-off/hammer-on. Also, these keys have a sweet two-octave range with conveniently placed open strings.

    C 5233 comes with a built-in walkdown/walkup on the bottom string. I use it a lot in jug band, country, and swing as well as blues. I play so much blues in E because guitarists do and, again, the barred fifth in 1224 is pretty powerful.

    Quote Originally Posted by CES View Post
    Well, dang.
    Right? Compton and Gil - can't go wrong. Now, just which thread was this supposed to go to?
    Last edited by journeybear; Feb-28-2023 at 8:55am. Reason: just one more thing ...
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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    My personal way of playing the blues on mandolin is to take a Monroe lick and slow it down to fit in the blues pattern you're trying to play. Hasn't failed me yet.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    "Blues" covers allot of ground. Messing around now trying to find something the Clapton, Stevie Ray crowd would like, how about a Canned Heat style boogie? On the G and D strings played together open and at the third and fifth frets for the rhythm and solo around that.

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  30. #17
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    there are various ways to codify the groups of tones(scales, modes,etc) that yield a blues sound.."blues scale", "minor pentatonic", etc. It seems that blue tones, common to various rows of tones are the b3, b5, b7. Also worth noting is that blues sounds exist including both kinds of thirds(flat and natural)and fifths(flat and natural)..if you think of bent notes on a guitar or harmonica you'll hear how it's say a b3 and natural 3 and everything in between that's creates the blues feeling.
    So on a mandolin of course we resort to playing both kinds of thirds and fifths to suggest or realize that sound and feeling. (not so much on 7ths by the way)
    A "blues scale" doesn't include the major third. Also we learn from our guitar brothers and sisters that it's fairly easy to fall into playing one blues scale across all three chords in the progression, leading to a limitation of sorts..something to watch out for.

    In discussing this usually end up playing what I consider to be a Bill Monroe kickoff in G(perhaps from "Get Down on your Knees and Pray..):

    D string 5 5 A string 1 slide to 2 D string 5 5 A string 3 D string 5 5 A string 5 E string 3 3 3 3 6 7 3 A string 5 4 3 5 1 slide to 2 D string 5 0 3-2-0 3-2-0 G string 0

    Therein we see b3rds, Bb notes, 1st fret of A string and 6th fret E, always followed by natural 3rds a fret higher
    b5,Dbnote, 4th fret on the A string..many have expressed wonder at Bill Monroe playing b5's, but there it is, and without it together with the natural 5 the phrase would not sound bluesy

    One formula for a blues scale is 1,b3,4, #4(b5), 5, b7. The list of formulae I'm looking at right now shows a pentatonic thing that fits in the blues situations The b5 Pentatonic: 1,b3,4,b5,b7

    for me it just somehow at some point became a matter of being able to find the b3's, b5's and b7's in whatever tonality(chord) I'm improvising in, and remembering that the tension between b3 and regular 3, b5 and regular 5 is kind of where the blue sounds are found

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    My personal way of playing the blues on mandolin is to take a Monroe lick and slow it down to fit in the blues pattern you're trying to play. Hasn't failed me yet.
    That makes sense. Apparently, Arnold Schultz, a blues guitarist and fiddler with whom Bill played in his youth, was an important influence on Monroe's music. Here's an interesting article about Arnold Schultz and the Arnold Shultz Fund. The radio program linked below has much more detail than does the article. (I'm no expert on Bill Monroe, just passing on the research of others.)

    https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022...uegrass-legacy
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    🎶 Play Pretty 🎶 Greg Connor's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    Thanks to everyone for the help in bringing the Blues to my mandolin. I’m watching videos and checking into specific recommended artists and so far my playing all sounds like folk music.

    At least now I have a few example of the sound I’m lookin for. I play mostly acoustic music, except for the “Blues Band” once a week where I’m allowed to suck the reeds out of the harmonica and twang on a Fender or Gibson guitar with reckless abandon.

    I recently picked up a Jonathan Mann 5 string mandolin and that’s what set me on this path. Now there is no going back.

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    If you go to the "Jazz/Blues Variants, Bossa, Choro, Klezmer" genre category, where this thread is posted, then go back a few pages, you'll find fifty videos of blues and blues-related mandolin players from the 1920's to contemporary times, under the heading, "Blues, Stomps, & Rags." Another way to get at them is to google "Mandolin Cafe Blues, Stomps, & Rags." In some cases the videos are gone but there's usually enough information to find the video if it's been posted again on Google or elsewhere, There's plenty of blues mandolin there. Also see the Blues Mandolin group at https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/group.php?groupid=99 . It's not very active but there are many good posts.
    Last edited by Ranald; Mar-01-2023 at 1:00pm.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    I'm from a part of the country where Piedmont blues was the main form being played. I was lucky enough to learn guitar from the late John Cephas, and formed my initial harmonica chops taking private lessons from Phil Wiggins at his house in AM in DC.

    I later transferred those ideas over to mandolin and mandola by ear.

    One thing I'm gonna caution about is... bluegrass riffing and timing. I can hear someone starting with a blues feel, but then they switch to a bluegrass feel, a barrage of triplets or slides that don't follow the normal shuffle, and it's like, well, another dilletante!

    I'd recommend learning the scales, chord progressions and such where you can, but tgen listening to actual blues players to learn the phrasing. In fact, blues harmonica players have to play within certain scale constraints which prevent quite a lot of bluegrass scale phrasing, so you can't go wrong starting there.

    If someone is just going for a bluesy feel, by all means do that, but if one wants to play actual blues without bluegrass, limit yourself to the blues. Learn from the actual blues.

    Whatever one chooses, good luck!
    ----

    Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    What an opportunity, learning from Cephas and Wiggins!
    Sound advice, Explorer.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

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  43. #24

    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    I think I still have a Mojo bag from Howard somewhere....
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    Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.

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    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: I can’t find The Blues in my Mandolin

    What Don said about b3-3 and b5-5, etc. is a really good lesson. There are lots of ways to approach the blues on mandolin. For me personally, at this point I’ve stuck mostly to acoustic blues recordings to study rather than electric blues players, eventually I’ll spend more time with them. I’ve been working on stuff from Bo Carter, Robert Johnson, Howard Armstrong, etc. for the most part early country blues guitar and mandolin players, that’s just where my head has been mostly with both guitar and mandolin in the past decade, YMMV

    You asked specifically about showing you some licks, so I’ll offer these two videos of Rich DelGrosso. I found it really fun and helpful to transcribe, learn and play these passages, attempting to find the blues feel. Pay attention to the timing, the subtle rakes, the slides, etc. and learn these licks and groove with them. Doesn’t hurt to analyze the intervals while you’re learning them, either.


    https://youtu.be/WzQlTR2inEw

    https://youtu.be/iqOA2P1OHZg
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