DG Mandolin Scales - How-to

The DG Mandolin Scales Android application is very easy to use.

The screen is divided into four regions, as shown in the following figure:

There are four regions: 1 pull-down list, 2 button grids, and one central graphics frame:

• The red pull-down list contains a list of 249 scales to apply to any chosen key;
• the list includes the most common scales used in modern classical, folk, and jazz music styles, as well as some very exotic scales from around the world.
• The blue button grid contains the 12 keys, or roots, on which you can transpose a scale;
• these are labelled C, C#, D, etc.
• The green button grid facilitates the direct navigation into the Mandolin frets (1, 5, 9), and also shifts to the next (>>) or previous (<<) frets, when pressed.
• The central frame (in yellow) displays the fretboard, and, when tapped, switches between note names and interval names.

When you are operating the application, all you have to do is to choose one scale from the pull-down list, and one key from the button grid.

Immediately after, the chosen scale is displayed on the central frame, the yellow area on the figure shown above.

For the currently displayed scale, you may tap consecutively on the different keys (with the blue button grid), to transpose this scale into other keys.

This is particularly useful to find a key that is easier to play. Mandolin players tend to prefer keys such as C, D,E,G, or, A.

The central frame displays the chosen scale graphically, and also by name (on the bottom).

When you tap on the fretboard, it switches between displaying the notes of the scale, or the intervals.

The intervals are particularly important for a musician, because it will help you identify where the root is, and its relationship to the other notes in the scale. Also, by studying the intervals, you come to understand and deduce the possible chords for producing harmonies in that scale.

This application is ideal to help you explore and learn the scales, which you may use to compose new melodies.

Feel free to explore and discover melodies and matching chord harmonies.

On the figure above, for example, examining the intervals in the "Infra-Jazz Mixolydian Octatonic" scale shown, transposed to the E key,

the following notes are in the scale: {E, F, F#, G#, A, B, C, D, E}. For the E key, the compatible chords may be deduced and they would be:

Using this table, a simple I-III-VI-II-V-I progression on this scale could be: E | F#dim | Bdim7 | Fm | G#dim7 | E.

In the same way, feel free to explore Middle-Eastern scales, such as Persian, Isfahan, Husayni, Egyptian, or Oriental Pentatonics, such as Javanese, Kumoi, Hirajoshi, etc.