We love Mike’s Etude #3. Too bad you can’t see his hands because they’re a blur in this tune!

If you don’t know the note names, memorizing the 5ths will help you learn the patterns.

All but one are “even” pairs (a term I made up) that contain no accidentals or all accidentals:

A-E
Ab-Eb

C-G
C#-G#

D-A
D#-A#

Eb-Bb
E-B

F-C
F#-C#

G-D
G#-D#

The “uneven” pair (with one accidental) is B to F.

Bb-F
B-F#

Visualizing where the 5ths are will help you “place” the other notes around them. For example, I’m practicing guitar trying to get a picture of the notes across the whole fingerboard in my head. With an unfamiliar scale, I can orient myself if I find the 1st and 5th notes of the scale.

A scale can be visualized as two sets of 4 notes. Each group of four is the same pattern — 1 2 3 4 with a half step between 3 and 4.

Saturday, July 19 at 2:00 pm
Orange Mighty Trio
Hosmer Public Library
Minneapolis, MN – MAP

This is a free show that will warm us up for our summer tour. You can catch us there and then come to the Bryant Lake Bowl the next day!

This is one of our newest arrangements.

Tuesday, July 22nd
Orange Mighty Trio
House Concert
Albert Lea, MN

We love to do house concerts and this will be our debut in Liz’s homeland.

Sat July 26 from 1:00-3:00 pm
Bowed String Workshop
Orange Mighty Trio
Swallow Hill Music Association
Denver, CO

Admission: $40.

To sign up please visit the Swallow Hill website.

Open to all bowed strings including violin, viola, cello and bass, the innovative bluegrass-chamber-folk band the Orange Mighty Trio shares its tricks of the trade. The workshop will be led by Zack Kline who has taught privately and at the Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp and RockyGrass Bluegrass Academy and his bandmates. The Trio will pass on their knowledge of a full complement of modern string techniques and cover topics in improvisation, composing and ensemble playing. Click here for the fiddle tunes and other sheet music for the workshop. See the Mighty Orange Trio perform in the Swallow Hill’s Café series on Thursday July 24th, then bring your bowed string instrument to the workshop on Saturday. Other instruments may attend by arrangement with the instructors (e-mail them).

DOWNLOAD THE TUNES WE’LL WORK ON