# Seeking Advice - My Plan to Improve Skills in Harmonizing



## mozilla2004 (Nov 1, 2020)

Hey Everyone

Can I get advice/feedback for my personal music goals?

At the moment, I'm a junior to intermediate level guitar player. I learnt chord function theory a couple of months ago. Since then, my goal is to harmonize any 1 minute melody line and be able to play it well on my guitar as quickly as possible.

As an example, I took a 60s song and I transcribed this 50 second melody:






After harmonizing it and practicing it on my guitar, this was the result:






As of today, it takes me too much time to go from hearing melody for the first time to playing a harmonized version on my guitar. On average, it could take me several days to generate results similar to the video above. The effort break down looks like this:

A. 15min to 30min - Identify all notes in melody
B. 1hr to 2hrs - Play the melody line well on my guitar (no chords involved)
C. 1hr - Decide which triads I want to use
D. More than 8 hours - In this final step, I'm refining the chords I want to use. For example, I'll try different voicing, try inversions, try 7 chords, try different chord shapes for easier playability, etc...

Based on these four steps, here's what I planned for my next steps (sorted in descending order of importance):

- For Step B - I need to practice playing scales. Most things I listen to seem to use a diatonic scale. If I have finger muscle memory for these scales, hopefully, I can play any new and moderately paced melody line within minutes of hearing it. 

- For Step C and Step D - I need to come up with exercises or a routine to practice "most commonly used chord shapes on fretboard".

Is my plan reasonable? Is there a better way to go about this? Have I overlooked something?

I wish I had musician friends to talk to. I'd like to know how quickly it takes them to harmonize melody and play it well right after hearing the melody for the first time. My guess is that experience musicians can do this in just a few minutes? Other intermediate-advance players might be abel to do it in just under an hour? I'm completely guessing...


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## DaddyDog (Apr 21, 2017)

You are doing very very well for someone who learned chord theory a couple of months ago! People spend years and years putting together the pieces to the music puzzle. Paul Pigat comes to mind. A few decades of gigging, plus a major in music at University of Toronto. On Patreon, he's being doing video lessons. There was one in there where he plays an entire melody by finding the note inside a chord in that key. It's mind boggling how fast he can do it.

Here's a sample of what Paul is capable of. He's from Vancouver.


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

mozilla2004 said:


> Hey Everyone
> 
> Can I get advice/feedback for my personal music goals?
> 
> ...


First of all, what you're doing is not super-easy for many guitarists. You're playing solo, or chord melody style, which always takes some figuring out.

The more chord voicings you have under your belt, the better equipped you are to play in that style. For myself, I like to have the root note in the bass a good chunk of the time (but not always). So having chord voicings above, below and close to that root note allows me to access any notes I might need for playing melody.

I think you have the right idea learning inversions. If you're not familiar with the CAGED voicings, those will help too.

In terms of how long? It doesn't matter. It takes as long as it takes. The more you do it, the faster it gets.

I'm not particularly good at chord melody. Oddly enough, I was doing some last night. Whenever I get a song stuck in my head, I try to "exorcise" it by messing with it on guitar rather than pull it up on YouTube. (I was singing "Time After Time" to my kids as part of a joke and it stuck.) 

I should mention @Jim Soloway is a master of solo guitar.

Also, check out Tuck Andress on YouTube. I saw Tuck and Patti many years ago and they were just amazing.


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## Always12AM (Sep 2, 2018)

It’s coming along really well.
You are learning in a very technical way that I’m envious of.

I have just been learning shapes and chords and inversions and trying to learn the transitions and connecting notes by ear.

I have a lot of respect for your patience.
Don’t be afraid to get a loop pedal and play around completely without any instructions to once in a while! Great work.


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## mozilla2004 (Nov 1, 2020)

Thanks to everyone for replies. I'm going to improve Step B first - to be fluent playing melody solo asap.

From the CAGED system, I find the C scale shape and the E scale shape the easiest to memorize. I am now picking random pop songs, movie themes, video game music etc... Identify the scale it is on. And be able to play the melody fluently in both the C shape and E shape scale. This is working out quite nicely so far!

Both the Paul Piggitt and Tuck Andress are crazy.... When watching, I quiclky ask myself, "WHen these guys make this music or when they improv, how much is EXPERIENCE and how much is predicted by theory?" By that I mean that sometimes when making music, I'd assume people think like this:

Im going to play this progression followed by this progression, because I've heard similar in the past, and I KNOW it will work out based on my experience
Im going t play this progression followed by this progression, even though I haven't done it before, based on chord function formula, the scale theory formula, the notes I'm allowed to play etc...it should work out (in other words, using the predictive powers of a musical algorithm/theory)

I'm sure it's always a blend of both....Right now, i'm lacking in both arenas, which is what makes this whole thing fascinating


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