Do you know your Melody from your Bass?
I
ask my students a similar question when they’re starting on a new piece or working on an old one.
The reason I ask this is to make sure they know where the melody notes are even if (or should I say when) they move through different voices on the guitar. Knowing the melody means you’ll always be able to keep the piece flowing as it should without giving notes that aren’t part of the melody too much emphasis.
Because the classical guitar technique allows us to play many notes at once we are able to do things other guitar players only dream of, however the cost is that we need to know which notes belong where, which notes to emphasis (or not) at the right time, and how to go about doing all of that on just six (or sometimes more) strings.
We’ve All Been There
I remember when my first guitar teacher Peter Thwaites asked me if I could identify the melody in a piece I was playing and actually I couldn’t. I could hear it and assumed I knew where it was, but when he asked me to isolate it and play it I could not do it.
I only knew how to play it as a collective whole i.e. without the bass and other notes around I couldn’t play just the melody and it was a revelation!
That lesson forever changed the way I went about learning and playing pieces. From that point forward I always made a point of working out the melody first, playing through it and committing it to memory.
Why is it important you ask? Read on…
Knowing the melody is important because
it represents the main plot - if the plot in a movie gets all wishy washy an audience can become confused or disinterested or both. A piece of music is exactly the same
we can make sure it stands out from the other notes using a variety of means
we can impress our teacher if they ask for it
The next logical question is “How can I make the melody distinguishable from the rest of the notes?”
Distinguishing the melody
There are several ways to make the melody stand out from the rest of the notes. Let’s take a look at a few:
Play it louder than the other notes (or my preference is to play the other notes more softly)
Use a rest stroke (heavy or light)
Change its tone by picking it at a different angle to the others
Pick with the same finger where possible
Try to play the melody notes on the same string wherever possible (an ideal)
Slightly delay it by playing it just before or just after a bass note (usually just after), but don’t overuse it because it can be quite unsettling if used too often. It’s better at the beginning of a phrase.
Above you will see four examples of where the melody notes are. I’ve magnified them so they’re easier to see and recognise. Usually melody notes are distinguishable from bass and inner voices by the stem pointing upwards. Bass and inner voices stems point downwards. The stem is the line that joins the head. In the case of minims and semibreves the other notes will usually give you the clue as to whether or not your minim or semibreve is part of the melody or not.
The pieces are:
Lagrima by Francisco Tárrega
Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega
La Paloma by Sebastian Yradier
Gran Vals by Francisco Tárrega
This video shows me playing through snippets of the melodies from Lagrima, La Paloma, and Recuerdos de la Alhambra. I give examples of how to recognise melodies and apply many of the techniques explained in the bullet points above.
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Let your fingers fly!
Josh