Learning Melodies

[vashondan]

How do you go about this? Do you pick it up by ear or have another strategy? Learning by ear seems like a good strategy overall but it takes me forever with a simple song. I won't stop working on this for my ear but what other ways are there to approach this?


Thanks!

[TH]

Ear is always my preference. Even though it takes longer, it lets me feel the piece as a whole. YouTube is great for me. I'll listen to lots of versions over and over until I know how it goes, what the changes are.
Having a good ear is really helpful in this way; to be able to say "Oh, the bridge goes up a minor third." Vocal versions seem to help a lot for some reason, and the words give a different feeling to the tune. Words or not, singing a melody helps. I have a lousy voice so if I can, so can anyone.
Then after I have the melody hummable, I'll learn the chords and the melody-separately but at the same time, as a two part exercise.
Even though you're asking about the melody, I find the underlying chords really inform the note choice of the melody. It's like the first line of Oh What A Beautiful Morning has an unusually characteristic note line, but with the chord beneath it, I hear it better.
There are dramatic parts, a peak in the form, repeated lines, a contour to the piece, so I learn it in sections. This way, I can see to myself "Here comes that long run up to high C" and the piece comes alive.
Before I went to music school, I never knew solfege, but when I was young, I learned to think of notes as numbers on a scale. So learning a piece that way, both as numbers on a key axis, and then as chord tones on individual chords helped me a lot.

Those are a few thoughts, and of course that's just me and you'll find your own way to do it. I hope this might help and good luck finding your way around!

David

[matt.guitarteacher]

Depends on what you're talking about. Can you basically sing the melodies but have more trouble getting them out of the INSTRUMENT, ....or is it the hearing itself? For most it's the "getting it out of the instrument" part, but they're 2 very different things

[vashondan]

It's getting it out of the instrument. I know that finding it on the guitar is good for ear training and don't want to shortcut that but wondered if there were other strategies as well.

[bako]

One idea is to create a graded curriculum for yourself of figuring out melodies easy to gradually more difficult.
Working on more challenging material is possible but will require time and patience at first.

Another approach: Pre-existing written music.

[TH]

Another approach: Pre-existing written music.

Interesting! I almost included in my post that I stay away from using written music until the last steps. I find notation splits my concentration, often not to the benefit of my ear.
Yes the heirarchy of pieces both by harmonic structure and melodic complexity is an excellent point.
There's also the difference I see in interpreting a piece by linear melody and by harmonic weight and then by phrase and then by form, all of which determines a different strategy of shifts and position changes for me.
There was a video I saw where the poster played a standard in one position. I thought, how very different from seeing the piece shifting by phrase.

I'm about to start a practice with some students to learn tunes. Tune choice and order are essential. Blue Bossa at one end, maybe something like Kurt Weil's Leibeslied at the other. Position shifts and ear training are part of the process for sure.

That's a really big question vashondan. Great problem with lots of answers.

David

[bako]

Music is a sonic art form and notation at best a nuanced symbolic representation.
We are in full agreement as to the best learning path to learning melodies but when
time and patience become a factor, why not use all available resources.

[matt.guitarteacher]

It's getting it out of the instrument. I know that finding it on the guitar is good for ear training and don't want to shortcut that but wondered if there were other strategies as well.

Yeah. The reason I asked is that that is it's own very specific issue, and isn't solved necessarily by ear training away from the instrument etc. Learning more of the fretboard - in various ways - teaches your ears to "see" pitches on the fretboard and teaches your fingers to "hear" where notes are or might be etc. It's mostly both at the same time.

Any work you do helps. Apart from randomly learning melodies, additionally practice some scale sequences, arpeggios, and interval patterns. They teach your ears/fingers where things are. Like you say, you already "know" the melody in your head. It's kind of like learning to type or something. You already know words. You need some work on actual sentences (like tunes), but in the beginning, it's more helpful to work smaller, simpler patterns like "asa sas ada dad" etc. That might be analogous to working on scales in thirds, fourths etc. or even just working on much simpler tunes (like children's songs or parts of them). Don't spend all of your time on exercises, but they're helpful in moderation.

I always saw a lot of recommendations to learn to play a simple tune in "every position". That kind frustrated me personally. I'd say mix in learning several simple tunes in one position as well, so that you begin to see the patterns and get a sense of place. You don't have to do everything at once necessarily. Then add an additional pattern etc.

Just some random thoughts. Learn the fretboard, and your ears already know the music...

[fasstrack]

By ear, from hearing it played or sung. Then I sing it to myself---a lot, to internalize it. Then I write my own lead sheet, staying very close to the original changes, with rare exception. (An arrangement is not a lead sheet to me). The lead sheet is the final point of the ear-tactile-visual nexus.


Anyway, that's how I do it...

[vashondan]

Well thank you all! Matt, I can see how there are number of ways that this muscle is developed. Thats great. I'll be working on it.

[smokinguit]

Ear is always my preference. Even though it takes longer, it lets me feel the piece as a whole.
David

I believe you actually learn a melody faster if your ears is developed to its maximum. I know some people that play stuff back in real time. I think you memorize faster that way too than looking at a piece of paper.

[WILSON 1]

You use MODES. Here are the first three notes of "Autumn Leaves" in A Dorian (key: G). The entire melody is included in the Dorian mode but for one note.

[p1p]

Studying intervals helps, for me

[matt.guitarteacher]

You use MODES. Here are the first three notes of "Autumn Leaves" in A Dorian (key: G). The entire melody is included in the Dorian mode but for one note.

Hey Wilson. The same is basically true for all modes of Gmaj/Emin. Right?

[WILSON 1]

For me Matt, it's acquiring the stops across the fretboard.

I can feel fairly confident that the composer didn't wonder too far from the diatonic, at least in the head of a GAS song.

So if , say in this situation, I like the 5 th pos. @A and see the tune in G6 I'm Dorian until something develops.

In this case the D# (and it is in the melodic line) which gives us the G aug 5 synthetic scale.

[WILSON 1]

[rpjazzguitar]

As far as I can tell, I learn melodies the same way a non-musician does. You hear a song a few times and you can remember it. Lyrics help. It's also easier to remember a great melody than a lesser one.

Once you can sing the line, the next issue is whether your fingers go to it without difficulty.

I don't know if that process can really be quickened. It takes time with the guitar in your hands, playing all kinds of stuff, and eventually it starts getting automatic.

That said, maybe there's an efficient path by thinking of it as a kind of ear/finger training issue.

I think there is software, like EarMaster, maybe, that has a dictation module. The computer plays a line, and then you play it. I think that sort of thing might help. The more time with it the better.

It's hard to imagine a more efficient use of practice time. Jazz is, fundamentally, about thinking of a line and being able to play it immediately.

I evaluate new students by picking a random fret, string and finger and telling them to start there and play Happy Birthday. This just seems fundamental to me.

[sjl]

I think I've wasted so much time playing scales and arpeggios. I think the best method for open the fretboard and the ear is to play melodies by ear and transpose them all over the fretboard.
Melodies are pitch collections indeed just as scales or arpeggios. Using a licks from others were not helping my playing; but since I think them as pitch collections or rhythm artifacts,..., I can get so much from thieved lines.

[WILSON 1]

I evaluate new students by picking a random fret, string and finger and telling them to start there and play Happy Birthday. This just seems fundamental to me.

Well that is just plain genius, IMHO. Your student will fall into a mode and then the correct stops will be seen all over the board, in positions (think CAGED). After that it's a matter of "seeing" the alterations.

This is the closest thing to sequential reasoning, concerning learning the guitar, that I've read in a long time on this forum.

[p1p]

I think I've wasted so much time playing scales and arpeggios. I think the best method for open the fretboard and the ear is to play melodies by ear and transpose them all over the fretboard.
Melodies are pitch collections indeed just as scales or arpeggios. Using a licks from others were not helping my playing; but since I think them as pitch collections or rhythm artifacts,..., I can get so much from thieved lines.

This is what I used to think until I started embracing studying scales etc thoroughly. There's too many benefits to discard this, mostly just knowing your instrument inside out.

[Jonah]

I think I've wasted so much time playing scales and arpeggios. I think the best method for open the fretboard and the ear is to play melodies by ear and transpose them all over the fretboard.
Melodies are pitch collections indeed just as scales or arpeggios. Using a licks from others were not helping my playing; but since I think them as pitch collections or rhythm artifacts,..., I can get so much from thieved lines.

If you analyze almost any jazz standard melody you will find that it is almost always constructed of arps and scalar embelishmenst of chord tones...
Just get through a dozen of tunes that way and you'll see how all you learned from scales and arps find its place in the melody...
Besides it gives you a lot for impro.. it is very good excercise in hearing rythm/melody/harmony relations...

I believe we often overestimate methods and tools we practice and expect too many miracle from it.
Arps and scales practice is what it is... teach you to find arps and scales on the fretboard so that when you come at these elements in melody you would easily excute them.

[sjl]

I take your advice but for me is like studying the letters or the words

[christianm77]

I find learning a melody thoroughly is really time consuming and difficult.

I have been playing jazz for 25 years.

I know people will talk about scales, fretboard mapping, ear training, etc, but that's only half of a two part process.

1) learning the melody so you have a really strong impression of it in your musical memory.

Takes a long time for me. Perhaps I am musically stupid, but I don't think I am entirely alone. Lyrics help. This includes, phrasing, rhythm etc. This always takes longer than I think.

Step 2) is absolutely impossible if you haven't done step 1) properly, and is a lot easier if step 2) is mastered and you aren't simply drilling muscle memory without any aural context. Don't go one phrase at a time. All that will do is amusically train your muscle memory, making the melody less connected to your ear, probably less musical and easier to forget.

So put the guitar down for these early stages. Sing the song, however badly. You have to know it as well as Happy Birthday, or there's no point progressing to 2).

2) putting it on the guitar

Can be difficult if you haven't sunk time into positional scale playing.

Being able to play the same melody in multiple positions is an important exercise, too. Ear training in scale degrees (not intervals) is a great skill for melodic dictation, and you can map scales this way. I also think you develop an instinct for where the notes are even without formal ear training, and sometimes it's important to tune into this.

In fact practicing a melody in one position until it is second nature, is still - embarrassingly - a necessity so I don't *%*! it up completely in performance. In fact, I often find myself, shall we say, paraphrasing melodies. The bandstand has a way of telling you when you don't really know what you think you do.

Summary: learning the melody properly is the hardest thing in music for me (!) Sometimes I think I should not practice anything else, cos it's clearly the thing I'm weakest at.

Stop moaning, and do the work instead of looking for short cuts. Just because something seems like it should be easy, doesn't mean that it is. (See also - playing in time. Music, eh? What a troll.)

Also guitarists are by and large, crap at melodies (I count myself in this category). Even some otherwise good ones... cos it's not generally our job... But great standards players can always play the melody really well.

Oh, BTW, everything I said also applies to solos.

[yaclaus]

How do you learn the melody? From paper or by ear? I learn melodies more easily when I play them by ear And even if I learn it by ear it's very important for me to understand its relation to the chords and the beat!

[mr. beaumont]

Just to double up on what others have said, learning to SING it first is always the best way for me.

I have learned to play heads I cannot physically sing at tempo though...But still by either slowing down at first, or learning to scat them rhythmically at least.