A pity we are half a globe apart. I would love to be able to play blues, but have not grown up with it. I prefer playing by ear, but understand notes too, of course.
Must examine what you are telling me here!
I have a mandolin too, but have not played it for many years. Dug it out recently and the metal holding the strings had broken. How? It slept in a very good case, so how? Never mind, I got new strings to put on it, and a new piece of metal, whatever it is called, to screw on.
Have not done it yet, as summer is coming fast here (guess where I live!), and the outdoors has to be tended to first of all, as everything is growing very fast.
I have a bluegrass mandolin book with both notes and TAB from way back, and learned just a few pieces. That was before I moved to the country, with lots more outdoor jobs.
The book has a RECORD with it, a floppy one, that I can't play anymore, but I think I put it on a tape as well.
Tape recorders were good, you could easily play tunes in, and edit them too.
You make me feel like getting the mandolin out now, but I can't! Have things I must do.
SOON!
Could you please tell me exactly the note names with that 4th added to make it a blues scale. Any key will do
- if it is not too much trouble? Sometimes I hear these blues in my head, but when I get to an instrument they are gone. That is where music books come in handy, but it is a bit bothersome to read notes......
Pentatonic.
Nomaste if you live in Australia or New Zealand i have always had an interest in that area of the world. I try to understand it rationally. Perhaps some of it has to do with the ocean surrounding most of the Populated areas. You can use your rational mind to understand attractions but it often requires past life recollection to understand where these interests originated.
O.K. Let's start with a minor pentatonic. Why? Because it is probably the easiest given the fact that you will use all the white keys for the scale and the identifiable black keys for the blues notes. You will not have to squeeze your fingers thru to hit white notes which you would have to do if we used all black keys. As I have said a basic blues scale is distinguished by the presence of a flat 5 which in a minor scale or a flat 3 in a major scale. The flat 5 in the scale a minor is e flat. You will play all the notes you did for the minor pentatonic scale starting with a then c, d, e, g and back to a but this time you will add e flat. So when you get to d you play e flat and e in succession. There is one more note added here that is all. This is a start. Next you must work with it and understand how to use blues notes.
All for now,
Steve
