Finding chord shapes in same area of fretboard

["Umm, fish?"]

Since you say you are a music theory nut, try Googling "voice leading." The basic idea is to try to connect the chord changes as much as possible in order to make the changes smooth, so that they sound less like a bunch of disjointed and disconnected chords. Then, you have the control to throw in a big leap on occasion so it comes across as a surprise. You'll find most of the theory is applied to piano or guitar but it all works for mandolin, too.

You haven't told us what your playing situation is. That is, is this for solo playing? Or are you playing with a group where you don't necessarily need to play the bass notes?

So, if you have a bass player they are probably playing the root and the 5th of the chords. Is there any need for you to play those notes? Not really. So what's necessary for you to play to get across the harmonic information? I tend to play blues and jazz, so for me I need to play 3rds and 7ths. If you are playing bluegrass then I'd probably stay away from 7ths. I guess you could probably play root and 3rds or 3rds and 5ths. (Or, alternate between the root and 5th to make it more interesting for yourself.)

But by whittling down the chord to the minimum number of tones you need to express the harmony, you can work out easily fingered "chordlettes" that are quite close to each other. It also makes it nice to throw in passing tones as you are moving from one chord to the next that lead the ear to the next chord. They might get you some nasty looks since they'll be non-diatonic, but they'll sound really good in, say, a blues context. Or maybe no one in the bluegrass group will notice since everyone's ears are really trained to accept the bluesy sound anyway.

At any rate, that's the road that I'm traveling these days. I'm trying to break away from a bunch of memorized, static chord shapes so I can play moving lines of harmony that flow. Your mileage may vary.

[Champ49]

Thanks Phil. I'll check that out. I have an old one that I made up but it's hard to read and doesn't include those odd ball chords like D2, etc.

[joni24]

Since you say you are a music theory nut, try Googling "voice leading." The basic idea is to try to connect the chord changes as much as possible in order to make the changes smooth, so that they sound less like a bunch of disjointed and disconnected chords. Then, you have the control to throw in a big leap on occasion so it comes across as a surprise. You'll find most of the theory is applied to piano or guitar but it all works for mandolin, too.

You haven't told us what your playing situation is. That is, is this for solo playing? Or are you playing with a group where you don't necessarily need to play the bass notes?

Hmmm, voice leading, very interesting. I hadn't heard this term before but in reading about it, it is along the lines that I'd like to pursue down the road a bit. I'm still pretty new to the mandolin, only been playing for a little over a year. My focus right now is a better understanding of the fretboard and the various chords available to me whatever hand position I may be in. I try to play with others every chance I can, mostly at jams, parties and festival campsites. The mix of the jam can vary from just one other person (guitar) to a dozen or more, including bass. Right now I'm focused on bluegrass, fiddle tunes, folk & soft rock. Next year, with a little more experience under my belt, I'd like to move on to blues & swing. I'm guessing that voice leading would fit in real well at that time... Thanks for your comments.

[Don Julin]

The odds are pretty good that if we asked 3 mandolin players how to play an A chord, we would get three different answers. That is because specific styles of music require specific chord forms. Bluegrass, swing, old-time, rock, choro and others all have there own chording style that helps identify the style.

All of that aside, chords are real just a combination of three notes. In it's most simple form on the mandolin, we can play three different forms (shapes) for each chord based on how we arrange the notes, with the only rule being that all three notes must be used and no notes are doubled. Here is a video that demonstrates these three major chord forms on the mandolin.

[Rosemary Philips]

Once again, really helpful explanation, Don!

[joni24]

In it's most simple form on the mandolin, we can play three different forms (shapes) for each chord based on how we arrange the notes, with the only rule being that all three notes must be used and no notes are doubled. Here is a video that demonstrates these three major chord forms on the mandolin.

Hey, Don, thanks so much for your reply and for directing me to this video. The linking of the I-IV-V chords together towards the end of the video is part of what I was looking for. Do you by chance have any follow-on videos showing other common progressions such as I-vi-ii-V, III-vi-II-V, etc. (perhaps more common in swing/jazz than in bluegrass)?

BTW, your Mandolin for Dummies book is great! I can't believe the amount of work it must have taken to put all that together... amazing.

[Capt. E]

The book "Fretboard Roadmaps - Mandolin" will give you a very good description of the various movable chord shapes. It made everything much clearer for me, at least.

[joni24]

The book "Fretboard Roadmaps - Mandolin" will give you a very good description of the various movable chord shapes. It made everything much clearer for me, at least.

Thanks for the recommendation, I went ahead and ordered it. For the price, it's worth a gamble. Even if it doesn't have exactly what I'm looking for in the way of chord progressions, the content should still really help me in my mandolin journey.

[pickloser]

In the most recent issue of Mandolin Magazine, Don Stiernberg presents an excellent tutorial on movable chord shapes. That alone was worth the price of my subscription for the year. (Plenty more to love about the mag. NFI.)

[Don Julin]

Not sure if this is considered marketing or spamming but chapter 7 of "Mandolin for Dummies" is dedicated to to three note "Jethro" style chording.

[Ted Eschliman]

Might find something useful here:


Streams of 7th chords

[Turnip Mountain Picker]

This is movable all over the fretboardChords.doc

[Danny Thomasson]

In Mandolin for Dummies there is a chapter devoted to Jethro Burns. He has chords developed in the fashion you are describing.

[bobby bill]

In the most recent issue of Mandolin Magazine, Don Stiernberg presents an excellent tutorial on movable chord shapes. That alone was worth the price of my subscription for the year. (Plenty more to love about the mag. NFI.)

Don't you think that in that article, where he is listing 6-8 examples, there are supposed to be illustrations to go with that and the magazine just forgot to put them in? I love the magazine but there seemed to be some sloppiness this month. In Marilyn Mair's article, there are two different composers listed for the same piece. A few of the articles could have used some editing.

Still, an excellent article by Don Stiernberg . . . . as always.

[joni24]

Don't you think that in that article, where he is listing 6-8 examples, there are supposed to be illustrations to go with that and the magazine just forgot to put them in? I love the magazine but there seemed to be some sloppiness this month. In Marilyn Mair's article, there are two different composers listed for the same piece. A few of the articles could have used some editing.

Still, an excellent article by Don Stiernberg . . . . as always.

I agree that Donny Stiernberg is a phenomenal player and excellent teacher. (I was fortunate to attend a couple of his classes at this year's mandolin symposium in Santa Cruz). As far as Mandolin Magazine goes, I find myself being frustrated that there are no mp3 examples or accompanying CD for each issue like there is for Flatpicking Guitar magazine. Am I missing something? It would really be a valuable add-on to the material presented in the magazine.

[pickloser]

Don't you think that in that article, where he is listing 6-8 examples, there are supposed to be illustrations to go with that and the magazine just forgot to put them in? I love the magazine but there seemed to be some sloppiness this month. In Marilyn Mair's article, there are two different composers listed for the same piece. A few of the articles could have used some editing.

Still, an excellent article by Don Stiernberg . . . . as always.

You may be right. I had just gotten my issue a day or two before I posted, and I had only read Don's article on the quick, said "cool" to myself and planned to study it later. mp3s would be great with MM, but even without those I'm happy to get some new pieces to learn. I have to admit too that, except for what Don writes, I generally just skip the articles and go straight to the tunes.

[mandroid]

2 string 'chords' C in the middle 2.. the IV is on the lower 2, the V is the high 2..
5 string .. 3 note chords are usable.

[groveland]

Over at jazzcittern.com find ModeExplorer web apps online. Free. One that might illustrate chord-building and inversions (and more) would be the Expedition Pack:



http://jazzcittern.com

Gotta keep your Firefox, Safari or Chrome browsers reasonably up to date. Have fun!

[Jean-Pierre WOOS]

I use a "private" way about that question.
With a few words: everybody knows the fingering of a diminished chords. Move that chord 3 frets up or down, and you have… the same chord.
Now: move only one finger one fret down (regardless of the finger): you are now playing a seventh chord and the root is on the finger you have moved. You can play now 4 different seventh chords on each dim grip.
That chord contain root, 3th, 5th and flat 7. You can move fingers to play chords with b3, sus4, and b5 or#5 and 6 or maj7.
Thus, you can play almost anything using a fingering that moves one minor third (three frets) maximum, and most often in jazz, one or two fingers only move one or two frets.

[groveland]

...everybody knows the fingering of a diminished chords. Move that chord 3 frets up or down, and you have… the same chord.
Now: move only one finger one fret down (regardless of the finger): you are now playing a seventh chord and the root is on the finger you have moved. You can play now 4 different seventh chords on each dim grip.

That's a great answer... I recommend giving it a shot.

I was visiting the Journal of the Society of Music Theory and ran across a good article on Pat Martino's approach.

He sees the chromatic scale like the face of a clock.

A "diminished" (o7) chord is a square, perhaps corners at 12, 3, 6, and 9. Move any single corner of the square (diminished) back one, you get a dom7 chord. That's what M. Woos describes above, which is particularly easy to see in fifths tuning, and is handy for better voice leading. Not as handy, but in a similar way, if you raise a note of an aug chord, you get a minor chord; lower one, you have major.

[joni24]

A "diminished" (o7) chord is a square, perhaps corners at 12, 3, 6, and 9. Move any single corner of the square (diminished) back one, you get a dom7 chord. That's what M. Woos describes above, which is particularly easy to see in fifths tuning, and is handy for better voice leading. Not as handy, but in a similar way, if you raise a note of an aug chord, you get a minor chord; lower one, you have major.

I find this interesting in understanding a little more of the fretboard. However, I'm not seeing how this could be applied in very many tunes or chord progressions. For example, in the key of C, one Cdim chord would be 5-4-6-5 (C-F#-D#-A). By moving one finger down a fret, you could make each of the following dominant 7th chords: B, F, D or G#. Thinking in terms of chord progressions, what would be some songs or tunes that would go from the diminished to one of these related dominant chords? Or am I totally missing the point on this concept? (Sorry for being so dense!)

["Umm, fish?"]

Diminished chords are often used as passing chords that resolve either up a half-step or down a half-step. What they resolve _to_ is really just where ever you need to go.

I did a Google search on "how diminished chords resolve" and came across a Bach chorale that uses a diminished chord as a prep to resolve to a V (dominant) chord. Also, there's a Haydn piece that resolves one into a minor II chord. There are sound samples:

http://www.tonalityguide.com/xxdim7.php

And, of course, they often resolve up or down to the tonic major.

[Jean-Pierre WOOS]

That is the way I do it:
(Sorry for my bad english... I, normally, speak french...
For example: "It had to be you". The chords change I use is:
⎟G6 ⎟ % ⎟ E7 ⎟ % ⎟ A9 ⎟ % ⎟ A7 ⎟% ⎢D7 ⎢D#o ⎢G6 ⎢ % ⎢ A9 ⎢% ⎢ D7 ⎢D7#5 ⎢G6 ⎢.../...
Building G6: I search a fingering of a dim chord with a G#. For example: 7687 (G# is on the 3th string; 6th fret). Then i move that finger 1 fret lower: 7587, this is a G7. I don't need a 7th but a 6th: then i play 7577. That is my G6 I play at the beginning of that tune.
Now, I need to build a E7: I use the same G#dim chord 7687 but, i move my finger on the 2d string: 7677. That is E7.
G6 --> E7: only one finger move 1 fret: 7577 --> 7677
Now, i build a A9 i search a dim chord with an A# near the 7th fret: 6576. I move the finger from A# to A: 6575. That's a A7. To play a A9, I raise the same finger 1 tone higher: 6577.
Now, I need a D7: I have a dim chord with a D# here: 5465, the D7 is: 5455..., then D#dim.
Now we have all the needed chords: 7577 - % - 7677 - % - 6577 - % - 6575 - 5455 - 5465 - 7577 - % - 6577 - % - 5455 - 5456 - 7577.../...
Lowest fret: 4: highest: 7 = a minor 3th...

[joni24]

Thanks, Jean-Pierre, that totally makes sense, although I must admit that my playing ability is still well below the level of a song with that many chord changes! But that's my goal for the upcoming year or two: start playing some jazz & swing songs. I guess one big point that I've learned from your post is how to search for effective chords when you're working out a song ahead of time. In my original post I was focusing on a couple of the most common chord progressions and how to develop a sort of "motor memory" so that you can instinctively find the chords from wherever you are on the fretboard. By piecing together tips from many of the great posts in this thread I think I'm on my way. Thanks to all who have responded.

Ps. Jean-Pierre, your English is just fine!

[stevejay]

The Joe Carr book on Rhythm is pretty good as well. Actually the advice given to learn a couple of chord shapes for a chord was good. In 1st and second position by knowing 2 we're in pretty good shape for starters. That's my plan at least. Sometime there are little passing shapes between 2 inversions, find them by ear.

It's fun, and you are really just focusing on 2 inversions with a little segway between. If you can name it, cool, if not I just remember the shape. Less clutter for the head.