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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,944
PG Music Staff
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OP
PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,944 |
Here is a method that I use to figure out a melody in my head, without an instrument.
For example. Lets say we want to learn the melody to "fool on the Hill". We can all think of the melody playing, note by note. So how do we learn what those notes are?
As I hear each note of the melody, I think of another tone, which is the key of the song. So the current melody note and the root of the song create an interval. If you are able to identify what interval that is, the you know what the melody note is, and you can then move to the next note.
For example, as I hear the first note of fool on the hill, and the compare it to the root, I know that the interval is a major 3rd, and that the first note of the song is the major 3rd of the scale. If the song was in F, that why mean an A note.
So if you want to try it, sing the melody, but after every note, sing the key of the song too.
If it works, you should be able to figure out the melody of Happy Birthday in your head, without even knowing what key you are in, just remembering the scale tones relative to the song key.
I've never taken a sight singing class, and that's likely the type of thing that they teach you on the first day!
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502 |
Well, I do remember the first year music school theory classes that did include Interval Recognition Drills, which back then tied up two students at a time so that one could play the intervals while the other attempted to identify them.
Of course, Band in a Box solved that problem with the wonderful Ear Trainer, today a single student can work on learning to identify those all important intervals all by themselves and also in record time, its like playing a game. Ten to twenty minutes a day is all it takes and in no time that critical skill can be mastered.
There was another set of classes which was involved with taking Music Dictation. In this one, the prof would play a Melody on the piano and the students had to write out that melody on the staff paper. At first the Melodies were simple and the prof would also give us the Key in advance. After a few weeks of doing that just about daily, we were not told the key signature in advance and those who could hear the key would write it out as they heard it in the right key, but those who could not could write it out in any chosen key signature without losing points, the grading was on getting the melody right as to intervals, rhythm figures, etc.
IT IS ALSO IMPERATIVE TO KNOW THE MAJOR SCALE when doing these things. I'd say better than 90% of Western Music melodies are based on the Major Scale. The minor scale comes next, of course, I usually start a student off on that route by getting them to fully realize that the Natural minor scale is nuthin' but the 6 to 13 of the Major Scale.
IMO it is *always* critical to establish and know the Tonic (the Root of the key).
I'm always telling improvisation students that they should always be able to SING the tonic throughout a piece.
And then I'm also telling them not to PLAY it while soloing...
--Mac
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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 958
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 958 |
Hi Mac and Peter,
Peter's method is tried and true. Even if we don't recognize the intervals, we can sing the scale up from the root until we hit the note we want.
Mac makes a good point about the major scale, which seems to get lost among the countless and frequently exotic scales which - if the individual notes are seen as the "atomic" structures - have become the building-block "molecules" in jazz education.
While I don't think anyone can be taught to be a Sonny Rollins or a Freddie Hubbard, I do think that student improvisers can be taught to be better improvisers.
With kind regards,
Aleck
Sweetwater Creation Station. BIAB 2018, Mixcraft 8 Pro Studio, Izotope Nektar 2, Ozone 8, KEYBOARDS: Kurzweil Artis 7, Crumar MOJO, Hammond XK-3, BASSES (fretted & fretless by Ibanez, LTD, Warwick. GUITARS by Guild, Gretsch, Ibanez, Eastwood (12 string)
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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 22,527
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 22,527 |
IMO it is *always* critical to establish and know the Tonic (the Root of the key).
I'm always telling improvisation students that they should always be able to SING the tonic throughout a piece.
And then I'm also telling them not to PLAY it while soloing...
--Mac
That made me smile
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
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