Hoping to get Neil to add melody lessons to some of his previous lessons.

tedted3
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:09 pm

I have been a Target Member for awhile now. I don't think there is any other site out there nearly as good as this one. I'm not much on forums but I'm trying to figure out a way to convince Neil to add melody lessons to some that he has already completed. For example, "Wish you were here" and "Field of Dreams." He plays much more in the demonstrations than he teaches in the lesson. I'm only one member and maybe no one else is as interested as I am in this. Since this is the introduction place I quickly introduce myself. My name is Ted Reissing and I am 45 years old. I started playing about 4 years ago. I am totally addicted to playing and spend many hours a week at it.


suziko
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:01 pm

Hi Ted! Great to have you here at TG. It's my understanding that, ever since Neil posted his Chord Solo series, he is intending to add the melody to some of his earlier lessons. I do know that he went back and added the melody line to Wild Horses. I also would like to see more melody tab added to lessons, because it's fun to incorporate into a chord solo and is also useful when trying to sing accurately. Though, in truth, working out the melody for myself is probably even better practice, though obviously more work.

Hope you enjoy TG. I agree that it's a great site for guitar learning!

Suzi


dtaylor
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:04 pm

Hi Ted,

I too was hoping to be able to be able to learn that version of Wish You Were Here, I'm sure it's been explained elsewhere but I'll reiterate it here, that's not what Neil's teaching is concerned with. There is little to be gained from cold learning a note-for-note version like that, his aim is to give you all the tools necessary to create those chord-melody arrangements yourself. There is a great deal of theory and technique to be assimilated to reach that goal but it's all here and anyone can do it if they set their mind to it.
I think that is what sets TG apart from all other learning sites.
It's a long road but one I'm glad to have found.

Dean


schm040
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:54 pm



This is a great topic and I want share my experience as a guitar player showing an independent perspective.

I started out wanting to play country acoustic blues, much like the stuff Neil has been posting lately (so cool). I never really got lessons and pretty much just stagnated in a "tab reading cycle".

I took a leave of absence from work in the Summer of 09, and had some free time so I decided to join TG that July. At this time, at best I was still a fairly poor beginner level player in that I could barely hear anything by ear and really just stuck with the tab to get me by.

After about 2 months of really practicing hard and trying all of Neil's lessons (which I still do), I started to notice things clicking. I remember one night I was working on Rhiannon and something weird happened, I actually heard the music in my head before I played it. This may be normal for most players though I can honestly say that had never happened to me before.

Since then, with renewed confidence, and DAILY pratice on all types of lessons, I believe I get better every day.

As for your question about chord solos, I will echo what Suzi, dTaylor and others have said or implied, and that is, if you stay with your playing, the chord solos will come more naturally. This is not to say that I can do it easily right now, but I can say with confidence that I can come a lot closer than I could before I started in the TARGET program.

So, as part of my response to your question, I am going to "listen" to Neil's chord solo / fingerstyle arrangement on the play through section of the Wish You Were Here lesson and see if I can work out my own arrangement.

Thanks for the post, again this is an important topic, and your question has prompted me to take another step forward in my playing.

MattMassachusetts


tedted3
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:58 pm

I appriciate all the reponses to my request. I still have yet to here the music in my head. I can keep rhythm and count it. I have even given the chord solos a try and have had some success. However, I am extremely visually oriented and have become dependent on tabs. I especially like the way Neil puts in the rhythm notation with the tabs. I was hoping he maybe had tabs for some of his melody lessons that maybe he could post. Is there a way to ask him? I have been a member of Totally guitars for over a year but I haven't really learned how to use any of the features. Thanks again for your response and everyone elses.


dtaylor
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:06 pm

Neil did post the tab to the play-thru version of Rhiannon which contains the vocal melody.


suziko
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:28 pm

You could try PMing Neil to ask if he has any melody tab that he could share. I understand how easy it is to be dependant on tab, but it is really worth it to try to work out some of the melody by ear. It's something I've just started doing and though I still do it in a fairly grudging manner and it still takes me a long time, I know how helpful it actually is. And the more you do it, the easier it really does become. You could start with something that has a fairly easy melody (Heart of Gold, for example, is one that I figured out quickly). Look at what chord you're playing for certain words in the line, and then see what notes might fall in that chord. Generally your melody falls on the first 3 strings, though of course it can drop lower if the singer has a low voice.

As I mentioned, there is also TAB for a Wild Horses chord solo. I also looked at the fingerpicking tab for Here Comes the Sun and took the melody notes from that and have tried incorporating them into a strumming piece. If you start working on picking out the melody to a song you want to learn, and then incorporate what you learned in the chord solo series and what you learned from looking at (or learning) chord solos like Wild Horses and Here Comes the Sun, you will probably be able to put together your own chord solo for other songs. Believe me- if I can do it, you can do it.

Suzi


TGMatt
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:55 pm

Few comments to this thread..

Thx for replies and interaction to date

My feedback is as follows..

Neil makes all the melodies up as he goes, all of them...

Every time he plays a new song he makes it up..it is never the same twice..

He wants you to learn the methodology of melody, what the related theory and scales to the particular song and then apply yourself..

He keeps no tabs of the stuff he plays, as again he makes it up as he goes..and of course why would he need to..

We are going to add some more melody lessons retrospectively to songs, but not to all, as again, he wants you guys to learn the concept then play ..hence the release of chord solo's the course to teach you fundamentals and then in a few individual songs he again breaches it..

We will be releasing more songs with melody throughout the year...depending on Neil's interest..and this is a big part also, he has to be interested , feel like it is teaching something and moving things forward instead of being just a "by wrote" version he creates that you all copy...remember that every time that he creates a melody it is a new creation a new composition, not the original, as that is largely impossible ...with most songs anyway..

You can grab the Tabs to Neils Beatles songs from his album which have melody for you ...

Anyways hope that is useful somewhat to you..

Oh and welcome to TG and thx to all so far who chipped in


mark
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Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:32 am

Hi Ted

Are you aware that neil has done a series of lessons on how to do chord melody arrangements.
This will give you all you need to start makinh your own arrangements.

This is what I normally do.
Try and work out the melody for myself. This is time consuming and difficult for me but unless I give it a go I will never get any better at it.
After that I probably cheat and download a guitar pro of the song.
Normally you can find one with the melody line already in it.
This is good to check against what you have already worked out.

Once you have the melody line it is a case of blending it with a strum or finger picking pattern.
It takes a long time but in the end you have an original arrangement of the song and can be very satisfing.

Other things to do is to watch Neils versions over and over again and also other versions on youtube.

I know there is a guitar pro version of Wish you were here available with the melody line, so give it a go


tedted3
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Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:03 am

Thanks again for the responses. I have watched the chord solo lessons Neil did. I even attempted to try that with a book I bought at a guitar store of easy James Taylor songs. THe book has the melody tabs and chords written out. The song I was working on was "Country Roads." I probably didn't spend enough time with it though. The main song I was interested in from Totaly Guitars was "Field of Dreams." I watched it over and over again and I still can't seem to figure out the melody line. Would this be available on guitar pro? I have not gotten that yet. I remember Neil adding it to the site, but I never got it. Thanks again.

Ted


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