Practising the Mandolin: Scales
When we study a complicated subject such as playing a musical instrument, it’s always interesting to be able to evaluate our competence level, to measure what we know and what is still to be learned. But first, is there a classic path for learning the mandolin?
I don’t believe there is an official answer to that question. To satisfy my curiosity, I’ve analyzed and compared four of the greatest methods available: Calace (6 parts, 192 pages), Munier (Part 1, 5 sections, 82 pages; Part 2, 121 pages), Cottin (part. 1; part. 2) (2 parts, 154 pages), Branzoli (58 pages). I’ve compared my observations with the curriculum proposed in the classical mandolin course on ArtistWorks. Everything put together, that makes 607 pages of exercises and explanations plus an Internet site.
Furthermore, even if I didn’t analyse them completely, I went through the methods written by the “Maîtres” from the 18th century : Pietro Denis, Giovanni Fouchetti and Gabriele Leone. Finally, I’ve also considered lesser known methods such as the one written by Laurent Fantauzz (part. 1; part. 2) and tools like the Mandolin Companion by Alison Stephens and Chris Acquavella. I wrote down the topics that appeared most frequent in those methods and assumed that these are the skills we must master to feel at ease with the instrument.
In a series of articles, I wish to present my findings. First of all, here are the scales highly recommended by those famous composers and pedagogues. Why should we practise those scales ?
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Let’s be frank, practising scales can be a real pain in the neck! It’s boring, sometimes difficult and every victory won can collapse simply by moving forward and adding a sharp or a flat. To be honest, is it so important?
Since it’s often the first exercise we get to practise when beginning to learn a new instrument, we’re not inclined to think about the importance of scales. Yet, the scale is the foundation of all our musical system, the foundation of the tonal system; playing a scale is the first step to playing a piece; we only have to play the scale once to correctly install all the notes used by the composer in a specific section and, most of all, remove from our mind all the notes that will be irrelevant to our tonality. |
Working on the quality of sound.
With time and practise, certain scales almost become automatic: playing a G major scale, the “natural” mandolin scale, doesn’t require a lot of concentration! So, it makes it ideal to focus on this well too often neglected issue: the quality of sound. It’s easy to blame our instrument for the sometimes-poor quality of the sound. The precision of the left hand, the relaxation of the right wrist, the angle of the pick, the motion of the right hand, the amount of pressure on the pick, we can concentrate on all these elements while practising scales and, thus, make a huge difference on the sound. If only mandolinists could care for their sound as much as guitarists do! |
Working on the positions and more...
Scales can be used also to practise playing in position. Scales with the tonic between G and C can easily be played in first position. But from the scale of D we must go up in position. Moreover, we can practise all the scales starting systematically with the first finger on the G string, like we can see in the third book of Calace’s method.
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We go up in position until we reach the G scale in the seventh position. Finally, for many scales, we can change our fingering to practise positions.
Changing dynamics, changing color, tempo, rhythm, picking, playing in thirds, sixths, octaves, dividing the scale in triads can help making the exercise more challenging.
Which scales should we practise ?
The scale of C major and A minor; G, D, A, E major and E, B, F#, C# minor; F, B flat, E flat, A flat major and D, G, C, F minor are the ones most authors suggest to work regularly.
In the first downloadable document, you have these scales with chord progressions; these chord progressions are from Munier’s or Laurent Fantauzzi’s method. The fingerings allow us to play all the scales in first position. We also find a page of right hand stroking patterns to be sure that both hands work equally hard.
For a very serious study of scales, arpeggios and chords, it’s highly useful to consult the Mandolin Companion by Alison Stephens and Chris Acquavella. It’s one of the best collection of exercises for an in-depth study of the subject.
In the first downloadable document, you have these scales with chord progressions; these chord progressions are from Munier’s or Laurent Fantauzzi’s method. The fingerings allow us to play all the scales in first position. We also find a page of right hand stroking patterns to be sure that both hands work equally hard.
For a very serious study of scales, arpeggios and chords, it’s highly useful to consult the Mandolin Companion by Alison Stephens and Chris Acquavella. It’s one of the best collection of exercises for an in-depth study of the subject.
A little variety
Another document offers scales in intervals. Those “scales” can be played legato, staccato, and tremolo; the exercises give a good opportunity to practise string crossing. Even if the document concentrates on the scale of G, we should work on these intervals on every scale.
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The chromatic scale is a very good exercise for those situations where we must slide one or many fingers on the string. |