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excercise(s) for melodic playing
- Thread starter ameshokostreet
- Start date
I found that very irritating.
Oh yeah, it's more a novelty than anything else, but the dude knows more about melodic phrasing than the average bassist, that's for sure.
Ok, I was trying to avoid this "discussion" again. But it looks like there is no choice.
Melody is a succession of "notes" in a musical sense. Static motion is melodic. Likewise, drums are a melodic instrument, in fact I would and have argued that any sound is a melody.
If you want to talk about what is pleasing, you have to be able to give a non-interpretational definition of what is and isn't pleasing and therefore what is and isn't melodic. You can't do it in a musical sense.
What is pleasing is subjective to the listener. In fact even what is considered consonant and dissonant has been subject to change over time.
Ok, I understand that the OP wants to have an understanding of a certain approach to playing a melody, but really the only way to learn how to do this is to learn as much about music theory as possible, to listen to as much music as possible and to transcribe and interpret as many "melodic" pieces of music as possible. This is really the only way to have an understanding of what melody means to them. What is "melodic" in the sense the OP is asking is really only answerable once the OP themselves has an opinion about the matter.
There are really no exercises you can do that will teach you to be "melodic" on their own.
- May 30, 2000
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- Creator of: iGigBook Sheet Music Manager
Does this mean that you believe that learning to play and sing melodies will not assist you in being more melodic as opposed to not doing these things?
Do you want to be a parrot or have an original voice...I guess that is the question that comes to my mind on this topic?
I think it is fine to listen to others, but I question the point of mimicking others in an over the top way...i.e., working and working to exacly mimic their solos...that's xerox...not creativity. If you can't even hum your own melody to something...why would copying someone else's "humming" help you develop this ability to develop an original solo?
Come up with your own little melodies...play them...and play WITH them...don't be rigid...don't box yourself in. Listen to others, but you need to get your own voice. Why would you want to sound like everyone else?
Need a specific exercise...I find layering bass parts with my Zoom H4 recorder can be a fun exercise for playing with melododic parts and harmony.
That's my 2 cents.
I think it is fine to listen to others, but I question the point of mimicking others in an over the top way...i.e., working and working to exacly mimic their solos...that's xerox...not creativity. If you can't even hum your own melody to something...why would copying someone else's "humming" help you develop this ability to develop an original solo?
Come up with your own little melodies...play them...and play WITH them...don't be rigid...don't box yourself in. Listen to others, but you need to get your own voice. Why would you want to sound like everyone else?
Need a specific exercise...I find layering bass parts with my Zoom H4 recorder can be a fun exercise for playing with melododic parts and harmony.
That's my 2 cents.
No, because there is no such thing as "more" melodic. Melody is not quantifiable. Melody and consonance are NOT synonyms, and even if they were, as I said before consonance is subjective. Can you tell me that a P4 interval played melodically is more or less melodic than a P5 interval? Notice the use of the term "melodically" in bold.
Learning to sing and play melodies assists the learner in becoming familiar with things like relative pitch and being able to identify the movement of a melody. It doesn't teach them a "correct" response to something that is subjective anyway.
Do you want to be a parrot or have an original voice...I guess that is the question that comes to my mind on this topic?
I think it is fine to listen to others, but I question the point of mimicking others in an over the top way...i.e., working and working to exacly mimic their solos...that's xerox...not creativity. If you can't even hum your own melody to something...why would copying someone else's "humming" help you develop this ability to develop an original solo?
Come up with your own little melodies...play them...and play WITH them...don't be rigid...don't box yourself in. Listen to others, but you need to get your own voice. Why would you want to sound like everyone else?
Need a specific exercise...I find layering bass parts with my Zoom H4 recorder can be a fun exercise for playing with melododic parts and harmony.
That's my 2 cents.
Being original is fine. Trouble with what you are saying is that being original only happens when you have a good understanding of context and are able to identify how your approach is different to other approaches. The only way to do this is to have experience and an understanding of what others have done.
The irony is that the people that tend to "box themselves in" are the ones that don't have that understanding of the context of what they are doing.
Let me put this in another light. A surgeon has a maverick approach to treating a certain disease. Would you trust that doctor more or less if you knew that that doctor already knew how to approach that treatment and was successful in that treatment by conventional methods, or do you think they would be better off if they ignored learning the conventions altogether and just went at it.
Point taken...but I think that it is quite easy to get lost down the "parrot" route. Nothing wrong with that approach if you want to be a cover band member. (And there is nothing wrong with being in a cover band....don't get me wrong.) But if you want to do something different...at some point you need to be like a kid with finger paints and get your fingers dirty in a creative way even if it ain't pretty. Being technically sound is great...but at what point do you decide you know enough to earn the right to start experimenting on your own with melody? I would argue that you earned that right to start experimenting as soon as you hummed your own tune. I guess I'm saying...do you have music inside...or does all the music you play come from outside? I think some comes from inside...why not try to find it as part of your training. I'm not saying to ignore the fundamentals...I just think you can get a little weird while your learning those fundamentals as part of your music exploration. This **** is supposed to be fun, ya know.
It's not being a parrot it's called building a vocabulary. You learn words and phrases as a child to eventually speak for yourself. Music or just about any skill in life you study the past masters and eventually use those ideas/skills in your own way. Herbie Hancock said it best.... You steal from the best then forget it all and play.
oh i see. many thanks for all your help guys. wow many different opinions on this subject. i guess right now i should start stealing more melodic ideas and try to give it my own flavour am i right? its difficult for me to come up with a melody out of nothing on my own. so id like to ask does creativity come with practice or is it some sort of talent?
You don't have to re-invent the wheel to design a car. Knowing what has been done before you came on the music scene and what techniques are need to do that will be valuable tools in your creativity.
The Beatles started out as a cover band. There may be more melodic bass players than Paul McCartney... but that list is mighty small, mighty small indeed.
Another point. Creativity has little to do with what you know, its more a part of who you are, how you approach problems and your vision of what is good. Technique and knowledge are the fuel for that creativity... if you have it. If you get lost going 'down the parrot route' then you probably don't have what it takes to be uniquely creative, and in that case its better to be a good parrot.
Speaking of wheels we have just come full circle. I would say Paul McCartney is as melodic as the next bass player since there is no objective way to quantify melody. What I would consider is his particular approach to counterpoint as well as antecedent and consequent phrasing and how it was interpreted by particular melodic parameters within the tonal structure of the music.
This is a far more useful line of analytical thinking and will lead to a far greater understanding than considering how he is arbitrarily "more melodic than most players".
Just FYI. This is kind of fun to watch. He does all the parts for the song "Ever Present Past." Bass. Drums. Guitars. There are 4 videos in all.
