Useful Lick - B to E

Here's a great little lick that takes you from B to E very nicely (for songs in the key of E) and will spice up the end of any break. You can take it down one string and it will lead from E to A in the key of A, and move it around a bit to make it fit in G, C or D and all the other keys. Work it up until you can play it at a good speed like 110 or 115 bpm, then slot it in your next improvised break. It has a great rhythm and feel.



You can hear this played on "You Let The Dog Off The Chain" on Junior Sisk and Rambler's Choice's CD Blue Side Of The Blue Ridge. I believe the mandolinist on that album was Chris Harris. Maybe the lick sounds like a little dog barking - that's a good way to remember it.

It's very tempting to use too much left hand finger pressure when playing a lick like this - avoid it at all costs, it hurts your fingers and makes it too hard to play the slides. I've found it worthwhile finding and practicing the minimum pressure I need to make the notes ring out, but not sound clipped or whispery. It takes me a lot of practice.

Practice Hint: Relax

If I'm having trouble playing a particular passage at speed, usually I find that at least part of the problem is tensing up during that passage. The way to fix this is to play it slowly, of course, but even more important is to focus on keeping your left and right hand relaxed while you play it slowly. If I can learn to play a piece slowly and stay relaxed, I can then speed it up succesfully. If I learn to play it well slowly but don't relax, I can never get it up to speed.

Closed position movable solos

Here is an example of a great little closed position solo, in this case in the key of C. The wonderful thing about these is you can play them in just about any key by moving them around, so it's really well worth putting in the effort to learn to play a number of these really fast, and to develop licks to embellish them.

Keeping this solo on the same strings but moving it up or down by one or two frets you can play in keys Bb through D. By transferring it to the next set of strings down you can play in E through A.

When I first started playing on stage, that was pretty much how I played every tune. It's surprising how often I hear something that sounds very cool and new on a recording, and when I start to transcribe it I find it's built out of this position.

The example below is from Wanda Vick's charming album "Bluegrass Hymns". It's about 19 bluegrass gospel standards but with no singing, just instrumental breaks, and I think Wanda plays all the instruments. Her fiddle playing is fabulous, and the rich variety of mandolin breaks is very instructive. She also has a perfect chop. This is played over the verse of "Shouting On The Hills of Glory".



Notice how in bar 6 and 7 when going to the G chord, she uses what I suspect is (and play as) a 2nd finger bar at the fifth fret over the 2nd and 3rd strings, and then comes out of it with a slide - a great little move. For the last 2 bars you'll want to back up with your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret.

Improvising Kit Bag

Improvising's a controversial subject so I'll try not to make too many generalizations about it, but from what I've seen - especially when forced to put together a break on the spot for a fast tune - instead of hand-crafting a beautifully nuanced brand new composition right there and then, most folks, even pros, just follow the tune as best they can, and then copy and paste in their favorite licks for kickoffs and endings.

Usually the place they do this most obviously is in the joins - by that I mean the places half way through the verse and at the end of the verse, at the end of the vocal line. Often there is no clue what to play here from the melody, since it's where the singer pauses for breath. Mostly it's where either there's 2 bars of the V chord resolving to the I, or else one bar of I, and one of V, then back to I.

So, you need some licks prepared for these situations. Not only that, but if you have some fancy licks to insert here, in my view it makes it easier to be faithful to the melody in the other parts of your break. The reason is, you're not under any pressure to make up something impressive on the spur of the moment, because you have something up your sleeve, like the best magicians.

In my next few posts I'll be showing you some of the goodies I'm working on for my kit bag. The good news is, just about every mandolin break you ever hear can give you ideas to expand your bag, so you don't have to rely on me - you can rip them off from everybody.