Learn The Melody! You Will Improve Massively. Guitar Daily Ep 443

[@markyablonski1290]

Thanks so much, Nick. That was excellent intro stuff, by the way. I have played guitar on/off rough, patchy progress and development due to various sundry and non-sundry reasons. Anyway, I am trying to learn jazz and jazz-adjacent tunes (Steely Dan stuff) slowly and methodically with a lot of patience and internal encouragement. A friend, a kinda teacher, told me years ago to learn the melody, similar to what you are saying here, but added that I should learn the lyrics, too. He said it's important to know what the song's about, and the lyrics will help mnemonically remember the melody. Plus, I've been learning about voice leading; they say that knowing the melody helps when setting up the chords for comping.

[@NickGranville]

Agree with your ‘kinda teacher’ - melody informs everything so it’s worth spending the time learning it. And That's a great approach - I find learning the lyrics definitely helps with phrasing, because words have a certain length, and prescribes how the melody should be played. Take it slow and let it all sink in - trust me, it’s worth it. Cheers

[@simonwilliams7608]

I've kinda been missing my daily fix a little bit, so I've been going through the back catalogue, so to speak, and today I ended up on this episode. I think think this is one of my favourites, because it can be easy to forget how important it is to be able play the melody before getting into improvising. Most of my favourite musicians - people like Sting, Knopfler, Gilmour, Santana (especially Santana, Carlton etc are primarily about melody. And, getting away from guitar, I often think of Stephane Grappelli as a perfect example of improvising within and around the melody.

[@NickGranville]

@@simonwilliams7608 thanks Simon! Lots of videos coming soon from NAMM and I’ll resume daily’s when I’m back in NZ. Cheers

[@simonwilliams7608]

Yeah. I think it was you that put me onto the idea of trying to play the melody of that Sade song, "Is it a Dream" like she sings it. I have never got close, but it's taken me down some interesting paths - both in terms of playing and in terms of trying to make presets that use the expression peddle as a bit more than just volume... like maybe introducing a bit of tremolo at the same time.

[@NickGranville]

Great work Simon! Cheers

[@ZalMoxis]

I think this is one of the hardest things I've always struggled with and lacked in my playing..... coming from a perspective of not grasping a good place to start from.....

[@NickGranville]

@@ZalMoxis just start simple. What I mean by that is learn some Melodies that you’ve been hearing all your life and are well, simple. As your ear develops can get more complex. It honestly does make a big difference learning the Melodies. Cheers