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Hello,
I am an older player and am currently playing several solo gigs a month at retirement communities. what I do is being well received and I continually strive to vary the ‘feel’ and ‘dynamics’ of each song as to eliminate any ‘sameness’ in the music. However, that only goes so far and I now have hit a plateau in that I need to include melody lines for some instrumental parts of the songs when using a looper for the rhythm part. Since my ‘ear’ is not well established, I wanted a structured method to at least begin to pick out the melody notes of the song. I realize that ‘ear training’ is necessary but is there a way to BEGIN. Is it in the scales? Thanks! -
Hi Barry,
To start I would have you learn the triads for major and minor chords on the highest two string sets (E,B,G and B,G,D). That will give you the tonic, third and fifth of each chord in your progression. That’s where you will find most of your melody notes, you might have to use your ear beyond that without going into too much detail. If you can see the triads of all your chords in one position that can be a big help.
It can be very nice to use double stops within the instrumental parts, so learning how to harmonize in 3rds, 4ths and 6ths in the key of the song can add a lot to your playing.
Hope that helps.
John -
Some advice that I recd many years ago was very simple.
Choose a note on the third string as a starting point and find the melody to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Yeah I know its a children’s song but its a starting point. At first, it may be difficult but stay with it.
First find the melody on the 3rd string only, then onto adjacent stringsAs you are doing this, keep in mind what John said about how the melody falls into the chord forms on the high strings.
Use simple melodies as you work on this, songs that you are really familiar with, whether nursery rhymes, folk tunes, hymns etc.
Make this a part of your daily routine and see how you progress
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Much Thanks to GnLguy and Charjo !! Thank you all for responding. I will begin to do as you both suggested in my practices. What is funny is that when I first started to play at retirement, I began to learn to read sheet music and began to play melody from that! The guitar course actually BEGAN with that! Maybe should have continued with that but I got lazy.
A fellow I played my gigs with (playing since he was 14 Y.O.) could do it almost instantly…. frustrated me to no end!
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