getting notes from singing

Subject: getting notes from singing
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 02:47 PM

What is the easiest way to note a song? What I mean when you hear someone sing a song along with guitar and can you fill in with mandolin. I have been playing guitar for about 3 years and playing mandolin for about 2 months. I can understand sheet music and apply it to both instruments so if I hear a song how do I get the notes for it?

Jeff

Subject: RE: getting notes from singing
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 02:53 PM

More often than not the last note in a tune gives you the key. A chromatic tuner is a neat way to find out what that note is from a singer's voice, before you start playing. (Of course it still might be in a minor key, but it probably won't, and you should be able to hear that from the sound. And if you are wrong you'll find out pretty fast when you start playing.)

Subject: RE: getting notes from singing
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 03:17 PM

Are you just hearing the song,or watching as well? Do you play by ear or only from music? I started off in Jazz,so found playing by ear no problem.Just picked along and tried to sort out the key from where I was picking.If you can see the guitar,you can see what key its being played in,so I presume your listening.If its hard work,it'll get easier the more you do it.

Subject: RE: getting notes from singing
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 07:16 PM

I think Jeff wants to know how to play mandolin fills to accompany a singer who is playing a guitar-- fills are really little musical figures(melodic phrases) that fall in after the vocal phrase, which fills you use depends on what kind of music you are playing, but most styles of music have a number of stock fills that musicians pick up from other musicians that have gone before and use according to their own taste in whatever they play--

Jazz players tend to create their own fills, often based on parts of the melody that they are playing, but country, bluegrass, blues, and rock musicians often(but not always) just use the stock fills--

If you are a bluegrass person,you will probably already know to lift as much as you can from Bill Monroe, but it would probably help you more to listen to some of the Guitar/Mandolin duets, such as the Louvin Brothers and The Blue Sky Boys to hear how they fit guitar and mandolin together and what kinds of fills they use--