Old Woman Blues, Next X-Factor Star?

Recently, on YouTube I came across this video of an old lady from Belarus playing the guitar with a lightbulb.

The guitar is out of tune, and you can only vaguely make out the melody, but I don’t care. I think this video is great. I can’t even tell if the passers by are giving her money because they like it, or out of sympathy- but it doesn’t matter.

Music is From the Heart

Look at the expression of that woman’s face, she really is playing from the heart. This is what real music is about- not the over-produced commercial stuff you hear on radio and TV, but real people, real emotions. The very fact that she is getting anything from lightbulb and a badly tuned guitar shows musicality. Don’t believe me? Well, you try doing the same. Right now. OK, so you needn’t use a lightbulb, a standard guitar slide will do. Can you get a decent melody from your guitar this way? One that you’d be happy playing in front of people.

Now, this leads me on to an exercise that can help you to use melodies in your soloing. Take a guitar slide (although, for these purposes just your average fretting finger will do…) and learn a scale on only one string. This’ll not only help you in understanding the scale and it’s intervals, but it will also allow you to think more melodically.

Soloing on Only One String

The idea behind working a scale out on only one string is that you can then improvise melodies on that string- and only that string! You have all the notes you need, but playing them this way forces you to think in terms of running “up and down” the scale. Remember a melodic line normally flows up and down, rather than jumping randomly between notes. A good rule of thumb, when writing a melody is: when you jump in one direction by a large amount, it’s usually a good idea to make the next step in the opposite direction. For example, if the first two notes in your melody go C up to an A (a major 6th up), try to make the next note lower- maybe a G (a major 2nd down). Similarly, if your first two notes are C down to G (a fourth down), try to make the next note higher- for example, a B.

Hearing Voices

Why does this work? Well, if you think, originally melodies were sung- and it’s alot easier to sing in “stepwise” movements along a scale than it is to sing in huge “leaps”. This is where we get our concept of melody from- the melody is the part we can sing (or hum) along to. So, when you’re aiming for melody in your solo try and hit chord tones that are closer together and it will sound alot more melodic. For example, over a V7 – I in C (G7 to C) you could play the third of G (a B) over the G7 up to the root of C (of course, a C) over the C major, creating an upwards step of only a semitone (very melodic)! Also you could play the 7th of G (an F) and go downwards by a semitone to the third of the C major (an E).

Conclusion

OK, so now it’s time for me to sum up this seemingly random post. What I’m saying is: real musical skill is being able to play melodically, from the heart. Even though I’ve gone into what seems like theory for the creation of melodies it’s really very simple- melodies work by small steps and chord tones. The hardest part to get right in a melody, and the thing that’ll really make your instrument sing, is you and your heart .

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December 14, 2009 at 4:22 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, How to, Music News and Opinions | 5 comments

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