Deering Banjos vs. Gibson Banjos

Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 19:57:07 -0400

Hey Mickey, Just wanted to let you know that i am very pleased with my Morgan Monroe mandolin, thank you. I am interested in learning more about harmonizing songs on the mandolin and was wondering if you could help me out with that. Is there a book or possibly a tape or something you know about that I could purchase? I've studied the tape you sent me extensively and I really like the little fill-ins, hammer-ons, etc that you demonstrated. I am also a guitar player so most of that came to me fairly easy. Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated. Thank you again........Tom Kolan

Greetings Tom,

Glad to assist if I can:

Harmonizing on mandolin falls into three forms: single melody, double melody or double-stops, and chordal (3 notes or more)...

For single-note harmonies, as played alongside another instrument simultaneously, you only want to consider the harmony theory...for instance, the common harmony that rides on top of a melody would be the third note of the scale.

For instance: when the melody is playing a G note, to harmonize on third above, you'll want to play a B note...if the G walks up to A, then you'll follow suit by playing a third above A, within the G scale, by playing a C note.

The G Major Scale:
G A B C D E F# G

When playing a third harmony above the lead, always keep in mind, that you will be following the key center scale of the song...

To harmonize with yourself, you would essentially follow the same principle...for instance, a two-note G scale harmony on the A and E strings would be:
A String/E String
B/G to C/A to D/B and so on...if you'll notice, the harmony is riding below the G scale...even though the harmony notes fall into the thirds as we've discussed, they're a 6th apart when measuring from the bottom.

Think of harmonies as scalar and based on intervals.
For instance to place a third harmony above you would have:
1 = G 2nd Harmony: B 3rd Harmony: D
Above, we have a 1 3 5 harmony making essentially a G major chord...

Other than music theory books, I'm not sure if there's any mandolin instructional media that covers harmonizing on a mandolin. It's a great idea though...

Hope this helps...Mickey