Tips for learning melodies?

vince

Do you guys have tips for learning melodies? I feel like I'm constantly troubled and frustrated by learning melodies by ear. For example I feel like the melody of "It had to be you" isn't that hard but I just can't get it. Often I try to listen to the same tune played by my people (and on many instrument) to try to capture it, but it's still an long and painful process each time.

chip3174

Hi Vince,

I know what you mean, it is hard to pick out melodies sometimes. For me, I was always good at chords, scales, arpeggios, or licks but sometimes playing actual melodies proved more difficult.
In many ways, the more melodies you can learn the better you'll play jazz--not that practicing the other things aren't good--but melodies will teach you everything..

here's what I do to solidify melodies in my ear/mind/guitar:

1. Learn to sing the melody, with the lyrics if there are any. You can do this at anytime of day with or without the guitar.

2.Play the melody on the guitar--find any visual shapes that might occur that will help you remember how it lays on the fingerboard.

3. Sing and play the melody at the same time.


Once you've done the above, after a few tunes you'll start to find that you'll hear other melodies easier. Then see what things the melodies do that can aid you in improvisation.

Hope that helps and Happy New Year!
Chip

Bones

I like Django's take on It Had to be You so I transcribed it and use that version as a baseline.

Lango-Django

yup, this is a problem for me, too.

(Plus I don't know if this was just a matter of style and not technique, but I've even noticed that Django himself preferred to make the briefest allowable statement of the melody he could possibly get away with... and seemed to like to play "around" the melody and not right on it! But man, he could make a melody chorus sound so great, especially when he would hang one of those exquisite string bends for a whole note or a half note. This, combined with his beautiful warm Selmer tone, made it seem as though he was some sort of magician sitting up on a cloud somewhere high above the cares of this petty little world!)

In my own case I'm fairly decent at finding the correct notes unless there's a big interval jump, and then I often find myself guessing... Maybe somebody can recommend a good ear training course for addressing that issue? And I'm getting better at finding the note a half tone below the "right" one and then bending up to the right one, which is an appropriate GJ technique, and always sounds real nice on Selmer-style guitars.

At a party one time, I met an interesting guitar player--- this guy could ONLY play the melody. He hardly knew any chords, and he couldn't really improvise a solo, but man he could totally nail the melody of any song anybody suggested! Weird, no?

This may sound crazy, but one thing that seems to have helped me is to try and play the melody just using one string. It'll seem kinda hard at first, but you'll be surprised how your fingers learn to do it. the good thing about this method is that it's possible to cheat a bit by sliding up to high notes! Try it with "It Had to be You".

same deal with playing a melody or riff using octaves---it's nice to stay on the same two strings if at all possible because jumping to a different two strings can often cause a train wreck!

I think Django must've practised this a fair bit because he seemed so comfortable improvising with octaves.

Bones

Hey Lnngo,

Yeah, check out Djangos string bend on the very beginning phrase of It Had to be You.

That is so cool and was what made me want to transcribe his version.

Tele295

For standards like "It Had To Be You," find a version with the vocals on it. It's easier to remember the melodies with words, and then add the embelishments on top of the basic melody. When I play "It Had To Be You," I think of Harry Connick singing it in the film "When Harry Met Sally"