Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Discuss the Mandolin lesson: B Major Scale Study

https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/b-major-scale-study-mandolin

The purpose of this study is to teach your fingers where they’re going to live when playing in the key of B. We’ll first learn 3 positions for a one octave scale, then introduce a great exercise, and finally apply it to playing licks in B!

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What I like about this lesson is the ease (sorta) in which you can do the same patterns for different keys. It’s starting to help me recognize where notes are on the fretboard, too.
I still don’t really understand the theory on the last section of this lesson (2-lick slides) but right now it doesn’t matter; it sounds pretty good and I’m having fun. Now I just have to get speed with clarity. Great lesson!

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Hi Ben, would you please consider revisiting some of this scales study and incorporate this theory over tunes in the key of B like Rebecca or into Watson Blues, Southern Flavor or any others people can suggest. I know I’m supposed to go off and explore these things…which I do…but it’s always nice to hear this stuff incorporated in tunes.

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Those songs are all still protected under copyright and currently can’t be included here on the site.

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Of course I should have thought of that. It’s better for me in the long run to figure it out myself anyway. I feel like I’m at a point now where I’ve been playing for a few years and learning all these tunes and techniques and finding it easier to plug into tunes - sometimes they work and sometimes not but that’s what makes all of this fun.

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Understood.

They are very cool tunes though. I’ve run htrough Rebecca on the fiddle , but it’s a very difficult break.slides, doublestops, chromatics…uhg…

Southern flavor has been on the “to learn” list for a few years, just haven’t ever got to it yet.

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I love, love Southern Flavor and another tune called Lockwood. There is a great guitar tutorial on Rebecca, a lot of people freak out when a tune is in B but it’s a lot of fun. Same with Southern Flavor and Watson Blues being in E.

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I don’t mind B so much…just don’t care for staying there long. I run out of things to do there fairly quick.

Footprints in the Snow rocks in E!

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