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What is the best way to memorize melodies and how many keys do you REALLY need to know them in? I'm asking specifically for melody because I'm pretty good with chord progressions.
So, I've read through some old threads that are sort of the same topic (but more about memorizing songs in totality).
What I do is memorize the melody relative to the song structure. Autumn Leaves ... 1st of Gm, up the scale, leads to 3rd of Cm, up the scale, 1st of F, up the scale, and so on...
I'll try and do this is in 2 keys/positions, but still I screw it up. So, at my level absolutely no more than 3 keys.
Is there a better way? The way I look at it, there's X options...
1) What I mentioned before, memorizing the melody based on each notes relation to the chord you're on.
2) Memorizing the melody based on the parent key. So for Autumn Leaves, it would be thinking of every note of the melody as a degree of Gm or Bb.
3) Muscle memory and visual. Useful but limited.
4) Trusting your ears to find the next note.
I suspect the answer is a combo of all the above, but would like to hear a few suggestions. How do you guys really drill in melodies, beyond, playing it in one position, one key 1,000 times.
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09-20-2024 10:54 PM
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I learn the lyrics and sing the melody while I practice (or try to figure out by ear) the changes. The lyrics are helpful for the phrasing and for the form.
Bruce Forman recommends to learn the changes relative to the melody. He compares the melody to a clothesline that you hang the chords on. And that is somehow like I always have done it no matter what style of music I play.
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Thanks.
Originally Posted by Bop Head
That is generally what I already do, though I do the reverse, I see the melody within the chords.
I do sing along as well.
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The melody is the song, not the changes. Originally Posted by jobabrinks
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See the melody linearly, or in as close to one position as possible?
Thoughts?
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I assume by linearly you mean along strings or string sets rather than in position? Originally Posted by jobabrinks
Definitely string sets for me unless it’s super technical, like a bebop head or something.
Listening to the song a ton, chunking the chord changes so that they’re in blocks that align with the form rather than thinking one chord at a time, singing the melody and playing it across single or pairs of strings (which makes me actually think about the melody rather than using muscle memory to get it).
I also like to alternate between melody and improvising or chording in two or four measure chunks. So coming in and out of the melody makes your melody looser and breaks the muscle memory, and also makes your soloing more tied to the melody. So that’s fun.
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Linearly would be moving the melody of say Autumn Leaves Gm starting at the 10th fret and then hitting then coming back to Gm on the 3rd fret following the shapes of which you can see all the roots. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
One position would be playing it all in 7th position Gm, in which case you'd have to see all of the different inversions without a symmetrical moving roots, which is harder.
I've 'mostly' done it the first way. I 'can' see the value of the 2nd.
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Not sure I follow. Where are you playing the melody when you do this? Originally Posted by jobabrinks
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This is what I am talking about. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Moving the melody and positions to meet descending the chord changes.
On a side note, I do believe I was taught this and to do it on a higher octave by teachers, though I suspect learning it in one position is valuable too.
Last edited by jobabrinks; 09-21-2024 at 11:09 AM.
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I learn the first couple of lines of
lyrics with the tune then feel my way through the rest
hear it
sing it
play it (or fumble through it)
it gets easier the more you do it
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I learn it in two distinct approaches: By tonal phrase and as an entire melody intact. This is with the ear.
In learning it on the guitar, I'll record it off a written lead sheet and then learn or even write it out off of that recorded version. This enforces the ear, the notes and the process of tying them together.
I will say I listen to a version(s) of that tune until it's internalized, before I attempt it with an instrument.
But that's me. It's similar to an approach Jules told me he uses. Take it or leave it.
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I forgot to mention a very important thing I do first: I listen to as many versions and especially vocal versions of a tune as I can find. I download especially (very) early versions of songs from the Great American Song Book from the Internet Archive. I listen to them on headphones on an mp3 player at home while doing mechanical things like e.g. cooking or cleaning and on public transport on my way to work. (I even copied all those old versions on the mp3 player in the cafe where I work which gives the cafe a special athmosphere while annoying some colleagues who are into plastic pop haha.) This way I memorize the melodies which are then the base for the changes as described above. The only problem this raised for me is that Beautiful Love is originally a waltz and it is hard for me to think of it as 4/4. Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
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I think that the way to memorize melody is the same way any non-musician can sing a popular song they like.
You listen to the song, learn the lyric and sing along.
Then, there's a skill you need. You need to be able to think of a line and play it. You can practice that by copying everything you hear. Noodling while watching TV? Imitate the music.
With that skill, and knowing the melody, you can play it in any key.
Chords are, at least for me, harder. But the idea is that you know the song the way a nonmusician knows it and you find the notes/chords by ear, on the fly.
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Yes, one should be able to effortlessly play any melody one hears, except perhaps complicated be-bop melodies, etc. Being able to play what you hear is necessary to be a proficient improvisor. Remembering how the melody was harmonized is a step above that but another form of pattern recognition. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Aural memory is interesting, so-called perfect pitch is actually an exceptional memory for sound, but whether it can be acquired through hard work is debatable.
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Lyrics help
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BTW for those who fear the effort of learning lyrics: Originally Posted by Christian Miller
First of all it is "brain jogging" that will not hurt your intellectual abilities and your memory.
Then a GASB jazz standard's lyrics are not so long. I recently finally managed to remember (meaning inside out -- "in the pocket") the five most commonly used verses of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (there are 88 altogether IIRC) and the ten verses of Bob Dylan' False Prophet and I got a 51 years old brain. A jazz standard's lyrics are much shorter than that. Repetition is the key like in every kind of practice. Transcribe the lyrics from an Ella or Sinatra recording instead of downloading them from a lyrics website. Write them down repeatedly from memory. It helps to connect the lyrics to a story or to mental images. "Somewhere there's music / how faint the tune / somewhere there's heaven / how high the moon." It is easy to imagine a nightly landscape with a full moon above and a distant melody coming from somewhere. Etc.
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Transcribe? lol I wish we could ban that word. Especially the scribe bit.
The world is full of non musicians who can sing all the words to their favourite songs.
It’s a funny one because I struggle a bit with learning melodies to things. But a lot of the time it’s that I simply because I haven’t listened to the thing enough.
Once you’ve done that putting it on your instrument is not that big of a deal.
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In the case of lyrics it actually helps me to write them down. My parents are/were from a generation that still had to learn a lot of poems in school. I got it from them that it helps memorize a poem by writing it down. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Any way you do it -- you have to really make them lyrics your own. Instead of reading them from a phone or tablet.
I love this explanation by Marion Cowings (accompanied by -- always happily grinning -- Barry Harris student Eli Yamin).
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That's of course true. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
There are Swifties that can sing along for three hours.
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Well yeah Originally Posted by Bop Head
That's of course true.
There are Swifties that can sing along for three hours.
I suppose it helps if you like the song
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I do it really probably a stupid way. I simply get the fake book out and start reading the melody over and over. Then I add the chord melody and keep going over the tune as many times as I can. Then after a while it seems I am beginning to get it but I forget tune very easy if I don't keep playing them all the time. My reason for doing this is to get the tune in exact meter and it does help to keep my reading skills up. Adding the chords just seems to then put it all together but the tune form is as important. ABA or AB or whatever. The odd form tunes are the most difficult to get in order.
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Some have mentioned getting it by ear, but have not explicitly indicated why that method is so strong regarding memory.
Those that have composed songs by ear will have been pleased to notice how they are recalled much easier for much longer time without refreshment than songs learned from charts and sheets. When you deliberately learn a melody by ear you're using much of the same internal processes as when you are composing by ear. Like two sides of a coin, composing is eliminating many possibilities down to one selected instance, learning by ear is confronting one selected instance and identifying it from many possibilities. Both these processes are creative in a symmetric way, both are active internal processes that can form stronger musical recall than more passive external presentation of "more already figured out" material.
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