ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Dec 15, 2013 14:59:02 GMT
Chris, you're young, and understandably impatient. You've started to learn stuff in an age of easily obtainable instant gratification with videos and tabs and all kinds of stuff instantly available. Most of these will, with a modicum of effort and unserstanding, enable you to play a particular piece, after a fashion, but they don't in themselves engender musicality or necessarily teach you transferable skills that enable you to work out stuff for yourself.
It sounds boring to say this, Iknow, but have patience, put the work in, and in time you will reap the rewards; not necessarily today, or even next year, but learning to play an instrument is a long-term thing that has no real conclusion - all of us are still learning, thank goodness.
If, as you say, you can hum the melody, you don't need anything to slow it down, just hum it more slowly. If your guitar note doesn't match what your hummimg, change the guitar note, or hum the tune higher or lower to match. It might be helpful if you work a phrase at a time until you can replicate it on the instrument, rather than a not eat a time.
Have to admit that I find retaining melodies the most difficult thing. I can listen to much poppy etc kind of stuff and know what the basic chords are by listening. Once I have those I find it easier to rememnber the melody, and then to find where within those chord it lies. Maybe that might help you?
Still not clear what your intention is though - are you trying to play this song as an instrumental fingerstyle piece? If you know the chords it is relatively simple to find where the melody lies within those chord fingerings...
Keith
(apols if this is a bit disjointed, but I stayed ,longer than I meant in the pub this lunchtime...)
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scotch
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Post by scotch on Dec 15, 2013 16:36:37 GMT
Ahh Patience my biggest foe.
I'm trying to make an arrangement. Reason being some songs i enjoy have i think could be a good Fingerstyle piece. I also want to learn songs by ear where it can be in an altered turnings. It's to have this skill where it can used anywhere within Music. Not just within playing guitar.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Dec 15, 2013 19:00:10 GMT
That's good thinking Chris. The music is really the important thing, the instrument and its technicalities are somewhat secondary. But the mechanics of making the instrument do your bidding so often gets in the way of the music. I come back to my listening obsession - listen to lots of music, all different kinds, and all different instruments. You obviously do that - I was really interested that you chose a piano based recording to work out as a guitar instrumental - good stuff. It helps to take every opportunity to play with other musicians of course, but especially those who play instruments other than guitars, and try to fit your guitar skills around enhancing what they are doing - really helps with ear-training, both in terms of melody and following harmonic changes. You might find it helpful to just try picking out a simple well known single note melody in standard tuning, eg Jingle Bells, which you must know - if you start with the open second string, B, you should find all the notes within easy reach. Play the B enough times and you have the first seven notes - try to find the note that sounds right to follow that, and so on until you have the whole tune as a single note melody. Keep your hand in first position (first finger hovering at first fret) and change to a different string when necessary rather than travelling up the neck (that can come later).It really helps to be able to find a note from one you already have as eventually you recognise the intervals between notes, and can hear them in other tunes, and find them on the guitar more easily. If you start on the open B, you will be playing this tune in the key of G, and it can be harmonised/accompanied most simply with G, C and D(7) chords plus an occasional A(7) - you don't have to play all of the chord, but it helps to know them to find a suitable bass note. Melody plus an occasional bass note, simple though it is, is effective. But then if you do finger the whole chord you have a choice of bass notes under your fingers, and can still easily reach all of the melody either because it's already there in the chord shape, or by adding/removing a finger as appropriate. Apols if this seems patronisingly simple; without us having met it's hard to judge the best way to help, but this little tune can make quite a satisfying start at arranging an almost ragtimey instrumental piece if you take it in stages. The hardest part is making a start, the next hardest part is sticking at it....I know, I'm impatient too! Altered tunings (and you don't have to stick to the "official" tried and tested ones) can be a neat way of attaining easily accessible bass notes to help an arrangement, and can allow for nice smooth ringing melodies played across the strings, but the same priciples as outlined apply. Hope there's something of help in there somewhere Chris. Keith
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2013 10:13:00 GMT
I agree with everything that the others have said, but I have to stress that - attentive and sympathetic listening apart - there's nothing that can aid playing by ear more than a solid theoretical and technical grounding. Knowing your scales and where they're to be found on a fretboard, exactly what notes chords are constructed from and how to navigate using their arpeggios gives you a head start when finding melodies, such that it eventually becomes completely intuitive.
I'll add that learning how to read notation also offers access to fakebooks, which give the basic notes of songs and common progressions. Many pros use fakebooks as a quick way to find the shape of a tune and work up head arrangements.
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scotch
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Post by scotch on Jan 12, 2014 22:28:03 GMT
Been trying quite alot of Ear Training. Bit stubborn me so can't seem to move onto another topic until I can get a better grasp of sounds.
Still hut a wall. Learning to play chords of songs. Again still get it wrong after 10 listens. Hopefully a miracle will come along.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 12, 2014 23:14:40 GMT
It's that patience thing again Chris. Training your ear isn't something you can accomplish in a few weeks and then consider it done. It's a lifetime of gradual improvement, though 90% of it could come in a year or two. It doesn't happen by miracles. It happens by dogged, determined hard work. Sorry. But don't give up! No point waiting till you think you've cracked "ear training" before you move on. Everything you play/work out is ear training and will add to your experience of recognising what is happening in a piece of music. Ten listens is a drop in the ocean if you're just starting to try to work out chords by ear for the first time. Don't give up. For the tricky ones take one chord at a time, or if there's just one chord you can't quite crack - try to find a single note on your guitar that sounds good in that place. That note is likely to be a part of the chord. Then try all the chords you know with that note in. It helps if you can identify the sound of the chord as being major or minor in nature as this halves the possibilities you need to try. Yes, there's more than just major and minor chords, but you have to start somewhere! And most of the others are just additions of a note or two to a simple chord, occasionally a subtraction. Stick with it Chris - learning any instrument is a series of "walls", and false summits - no matter how long anyone has been playing, there's always more to learn. There's no destination, so enjoy the journey. Keith
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scotch
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Post by scotch on Jan 12, 2014 23:31:16 GMT
Thank you Keith. Kind of made me feel better.
Guitar wise very ear dependent wise at the moment. Spending majority of time trying to work on Vocals. But will keep at it.
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leoroberts
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Post by leoroberts on Jan 13, 2014 8:24:53 GMT
Hopefully a miracle will come along. sometimes that's exactly what happens ... you're trying to work out what the chord is, your fingers mess up on the fretboard and instead of playing an Am you find you're playing an Am9 (though you don't know that's what you're doing) and ... bingo ... you realise that's exactly the right chord. Some people call them mistakes; I reckon they're miracles
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Post by fatfingerjohn on Jan 13, 2014 9:41:48 GMT
With the group of 'oldies' I'm trying to teach this is an area which I'm trying to work on now that they've got some basic chords under their belt and it has surprised me how hard it is. I've definitely fallen into the trap of assuming that because I've been playing for years and have a decent 'ear' that it is not an issue. But many are totally devoid of where to start. So, instead of spoon feeding the chords to a song I'm making them work through it with me. The best way to me seems to be to break it down into slow methodical steps. The main ones that I'm trying are
1. Do they know the melody? If not, choose a song that they do. Its hopeless unless you know the melody line very well. Choose a simple song!!!! Don't try to learn on Bohemian Rhapsody! Rather, two chord Tom Dooley!!
2. Decide what key to play it in; choose a key that you are most familiar with regarding number of chords you know; probably G or C.
3. Decide what is the FIRST chord! Not as easy as it sounds as many songs don't start on the root chord of the key. e.g. a simple song like 'If I had a Hammer', if played in G, then the G chord comes in on the word 'Hammer', not 'If'. (I know a few songs where the root chord doesn't appear until part way through the chorus!)
4. Before working through the song to get the rest of the chords, juts go through the melody line and write down WHEN there is a chord change! This has proved quite hard for some but they are getting there. Until you can 'hear' when the chord change is, its pointless trying to find what chord it is.
5. THEN try to put the right chord to each change. Use simple trial and error. Odds on, unless its a more complex song, it will be one of 3 or 4 major chords and 1 or 2 minor ones. You'll soon get some sort of ear on the main progressions in a key and what they sound like.
6. Do it one chord at a time until it is right. Then write it down. Don't just rush through the whole song guessing them all.
It is best to start off with some VERY simple songs (even if you don't like the song; you don't have to play it afterwards, just use it to learn from) until, the above comes naturally. Only then can you confidently tackle the finer points involving 7ths, 6ths, sus etc and the more complex songs.
Like everything you learn, just go logically and slowly through the process; it may be boring but it will be rewarded!
Keep at it!
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scotch
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Post by scotch on Jan 13, 2014 9:43:28 GMT
Very strange.
songs I could instantly pick up and play it straight away and melody I pick up very easily. Then others I can play for hours and i make very minimal progress.
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