Dix Bruce


Mandolin Magazine articles by and about Dix Bruce

Transposing Horizontally

Music for this workshop

I can't begin to tell you how pleased I was to hear that Ginny Hollon was starting up a new mandolin magazine.

Mandolins and mandolin magazines have long been near and dear to my heart. It all began in my high school and college years when I first heard mandolin played in bluegrass, old-time and jug bands. The sound intrigued me and I got a mandolin as soon as I could and started hacking away.

The highlight of my involvement with the mandolin came in early 1978 when David Grisman asked me to edit his magazine Mandolin World News. I stayed at the job until 1984. What a ride! I couldn't have been more immersed in mandolin culture.

I worked with David, Darol Anger, Bob Alekno, Jethro Burns, Becky Smith, Don Stiernberg and the other dedicated staff members; and, at the same time, I got to interview and profile just about every major mandolinist from the last half of the 20th century -- from Bill Monroe to Tiny Moore to Jesse McReynolds to Rudy Cipolla and many more.

What an incredible opportunity it was to learn about music and the mandolin from these great artists.

I was quite flattered when Ginny asked me to write for her new magazine and happy to have the opportunity to talk mandolin with all of you again. It's been fifteen years!

In the meantime I've been writing books for Mel Bay, making CDs, and playing a variety of music, from bluegrass to traditional jazz to swing to original compositions that encompass all of the preceding. I hope to bring some of that experience to bear in this column, which I've decided to call Mando Basics.

Mando Basics will be aimed at experienced beginners and intermediate players. Most of the music covered in this column will be accessible with a minimum of work.

No stylistic boundaries will be observed as I believe that great musicians in any style need to have at least a passing acquaintance with many genres of music. So, in the future you'll find a variety of subjects and types of music explored in this column.

My own interests lie in all types of traditional American music, from blues and jazz to bluegrass and country; classical music; rock; modern jazz; Celtic; folk and more. Any type of music that catches my ear is likely to show up. Be sure to let me know what you'd like to read about.

In this first column, I'd like to show you a simple rag entitled "The No-Name Rag" that I wrote for my "You Can Teach Yourself Mandolin" book (Mel Bay). Once you learn it as written in the key of G, we'll transpose it to the key of C.

One of the great strengths of the mandolin (and the violin also) is that it lends itself quite readily to transposing. That's because the strings are tuned in a regular arrangement of "fifths." When the mandolin is tuned to the standard E A D G (highest to lowest pitch), each string is a musical interval of one "fifth" (seven half steps or frets) away from its neighbor. This arrangement allows you to move a melody to an adjacent string and to a new key quite easily. (Try that on a guitar, which is tuned in fourths and a third! Mandolins rule man!) I think of this as "horizontal transposition."

With a little more practice, you can also move closed position melodies up and down the neck. I think of this as "vertical transposition."

Let's take a look at "The No-Name Rag." It's a simple melody, played on two adjacent strings, with typical ragtime chord changes. You'll notice that measures one, two, and three (don't count the pickup measure) repeat again and again throughout the tune, so it's an easy melody to memorize.

The numbers below the standard notation show suggested fretting finger numbers. I only show them the first time a note is played to keep the music as uncluttered as possible. As you work through the melody, try to memorize these hand positions.

When you can play the tune with your eyes closed, you're ready to transpose the melody to the key of C. To transpose "The No-Name Rag" horizontally from the key of G to the key of C, we'll simply move the whole thing over one string. Your first note will now be the C on the fourth string, fifth fret.

The trick is to maintain the same basic hand shape and position you learned on the key of G version at this new location. Try to do it from memory before you look at the C version below. It'll be challenging at first but eventually the concept will pop into focus like a magic eye picture.

Once you can play both the key of G and the key of C versions with no problems, try moving the C version over two strings so that your first note is on the second string, fifth fret. What key are you in here? G was the first note of the G version and C was the first note of the C version. Here your first note is D, so, thus, ergo, eureka, hot damn, voil‡, now you're in the key of D.

What about the chords for the D version? Move every chord up one whole step or two frets (half steps) from the key of C version. G7 becomes A7; C becomes D; etc.

You've just succeeded in learning a new tune in the key of G and transposing it to two alternate keys using your knowledge of horizontal transposition.

Try this same technique with other tunes you know. It'll get complicated on melodies that encompass more than two adjacent strings but the results will be worth the effort and in the process you'll not only learn to transpose but you'll also learn a whole lot about the mandolin fretboard.

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