Chords for Double Stops on the Mandolin

[B] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ [B] _ _ [Gb] _ _ _
[B] _ _ [E] Hey, I'm Anthony Hannigan.
Welcome back to musicmousse.org. We're learning the mandolin
here in these sessions.
Hope you're having a great [N] time.
I'm having a really good time
bringing all this stuff to you here at the Music Mousse studios.
_ [Abm]
We've been kind of talking
about left hand positioning chords and technique and [A] all that stuff.
You kind of may [N] be wondering
how this is all going to help you out.
I promise you that it's definitely going to help you
out when you start looking at chords and how they're broken down and how you can take off
on some improv or even basic note structure or even scale progressions off of these chords.
Where we last set off was the full [G] chord of the G.
_ [N] Using all four fingers, we got into
some exercises too, stretching out the pinky.
You can do that too.
After giving it some
thought here, you can even do that when you're just sitting around the house.
Just sit there
and grab the instrument and kind of just stretch the fingers out like anybody else, football
players do it by stretching out their legs and arms before they practice.
It's a good
idea just to give it some, shake your hands a little bit, both hands, get all the little
sparkles and the spiders out of the hands and start moving around.
_ The one thing I want
to get into also with these chords, they don't have to be such a [G] tight regime as just being
like the two finger or the three finger or the full chord.
[D] Each one of them, I think
we left off [E] last time, looking [G] how we have this right here, there's your G chord, there's
your big G chord.
If you look this up, you still have [Am] the G chord.
_ It's just a [N] different
position.
It's in the same position, but this is in different fingers.
[C] The one thing I like
to do [B] too is a lot of times on the kickoff, especially in a [G] bluegrass or a country tune,
[Em] they'll base a kickoff around these [N] chords.
You can do, [Em] _
_ _ _ _ there's your G double stop [C] or
your C.
_ [Am] _ _ That works for [E] C and I move down to, I'm going to have [Bb] D.
_ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ Now [D] here's something
really also [Abm] pretty cool.
[C] Jump down [G] here, there's your two finger G.
Here's a distant [E] cousin
[N] of the two finger G.
It's also a two finger G.
It's using the fifth fret on the A string
and the third [Gm] fret on the E string. _ _
_ _ [A] Sometimes you want a little bit more [E] strength here in
the index finger and the middle [Gm] finger to use those.
_ [C] Right above it, we know there's
Mr.
C.
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ [Gm] This is kind of hard to chop over, but you could.
It gives a real [A] percussive
kind [C] of sound. _
[Ab] I don't do it that [Bb] often.
Sometimes I'm playing [Em] a song and you [Bb] jump down [G]
to that
for a little bit of _ [N] effect.
But definitely for picking any kind of lead or any kind of
kickoff.
A [Am] good little rehearsal to get into that [G] would be _ [C] [Gm] doing _ _ _ _ a tremolo.
[N] We're going
to get into the tremolo too in the next lesson and some more right hand technique.
Basically
all I'm doing is walking down from my [Em] double stop G.
[Gm]
That's just [Ab] on the second fret A [C] string
and the fifth fret D string, [Em] which is also a G.
_ [C] _ _ [Em] _ _ If you notice, this also, [D] like it's cousins,
[E] is going to repeat all the way up the [Gm] neck.
G, [Abm]
G sharp, [Am] A.
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ [C] _ _ _ [G]
We can do the same thing up
[Bb] here with [C] C.
_ Walk it [Dbm] down [Bbm] and go down to [D] a D.
_ _ [B] Look right above [Ab] the D, where's the floor
of that chord?
It's going to [G] be a G. _ _
_ _ _ _ [E] Always, [A] always [Em] the rule.
It never _ [N] repeats itself any
other way.
Unless you're cross tuning the instrument, of course, and you're going to
have some other kind of bizarre chords in there, but we're not even going to get into
that right now.
So let's use that as an example of how we can come back and land from two
fingers to two [B] fingers.
[E] Take the G to [Em] _ _ _ a [Cm] C, _ _ [Am] _ _ up to a lower [G] NG, _ _ to a [Bm] D. _ _
_ _ [C] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
What's really cool
about this too, when [A] I talked about that double stop, and it's usually the rule of [Eb] thumb here,
or the rule of hand I should say, is if you [Em] take your G, what lives above it every single
time is the four [B] chord, and that's going to be your [Am] C.
_ [N] What lives below it, and [Ab] if _ [B] _
[Gm] the
little G down here would be a D chord, well [Em] taking this right here [Am] is a [Bm] G right here.
_ [N] And if I slide that up, and I know the [E] alphabet, there's an E.
[G] Same with your G going down
to an [A] A, _ [C] C to a D.
_ [Bb] _
_ [E] So let's look at this [D] D chord right [E] here.
We want to know what is
the five of the D.
[N] So you think about it, and you think about it, and you know, well
[B] it's an A.
[A] So there's my A.
And what's right below the A?
The five [E] of that is going to
be the E. _
_ [Ab] If we had more [F] strings down here it would be a B of course, [N] but we don't, so
we're kind of slaved to what we have right here.
But you can run that progression and
those chords right up the neck all the time.
So at any given time, wherever your hands
align [A] on the fretboard, you should be able to [C] kind of envision [N] where the next chord is
going to be, or what you can do as far as chords.
So let's just run through that real
quick.
[G] Little G, a little bit bigger of a G, full G, _ into a G, _ [C] to a C. _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [F] That's your lesson today on more chords here at musicmoose.org. As always, we're open [E] to
any suggestions or any kind of remarks that you may have.
Please tune in again for many
more episodes, and while you're at it, check out the [A] great exciting stuff we have to