Finding the Melody of a song.

Hi all.

I am trying to work out how to find the notes of a song ( i.e. the notes the singer uses ),

I can do some but it takes me ages to find even a simple melody.

Does anyone else have any tips on this?

I'm trying to do "I want to break free" by Queen. I have listened to the song over and over but TBH I'm getting nowhere.

I can do the chords to most songs and i am using my Looper to play the chords then trying to play the melody over it. ( up to now sounds pretty bad ).

Google is not much help for anything other than chords.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Keep on rockin'

Mike

Do you feel you can sing the song accurately? If it were me, I would start by singing and holding the first note and then fingering different notes on the guitar until you find the right one. It should be obvious when you hit it (and also if you are under or over pitch). After you do that with a few notes, you'll probably be able to idenify the key and scale/mode the song is in (if you haven't already identified the key using internet resources). If you know the key and scale, that will narrow down the range of likely possibilities for the notes. The 7th and 8th notes should be easier than tne 5th and 6th notes which should be easier than the 4th and 3rd, etc.

Originally Posted by: Mike_x1x

I am trying to work out how to find the notes of a song ( i.e. the notes the singer uses ),

I can do some but it takes me ages to find even a simple melody.

Does anyone else have any tips on this?

I'm trying to do "I want to break free" by Queen. I have listened to the song over and over but TBH I'm getting nowhere.

That's where the music notation is invaluable. Lots of sites sell the sheet music. And I'm sure your local music store has or can order it.

https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0063972

Have fun with it!

Originally Posted by: ChristopherSchlegel

That's where the music notation is invaluable.

+1

Hi Mike!

[br]Two years in, for me the key and rhythm progression/chords can frequently be worked out by listening to the original recording of a song -complexity dependent, but for melody, at this juncture I still rely upon the generosity of someone else's transcription (see post #2), sheet music, or quality instructive vid (third guitar here. Edit: this is a better illustrative example) rather than transcribing note by note by ear myself, a skill I'm yet to develop to the level of competency required to achieve that with confidence, accurately and other than painfully slowly.

You'll note in that sheet music example I presented extracted from this compendium, it also [u]contains notation for the vocal melody[/u].

Transcribing melody note by note? Appreciating that it might be of a higher priority for you, but [u]for me[/u], my pragmatic approach is that it's an 'all in good time over time' conjunctive skill in development project as at this juncture of my musical and guitar education, it'd just be a frustrating [u]obstacle[/u] taking an inordinate amount of time away from areas I should be focussing right [u]now,[/u] as I perceive the structured learning curve.

Right now, I'm focussed upon triaging my concentration and time towards developing those other skills guitar no-one else can do for me. As always, with respect YMMV.

[br]Cheers,

manX

hi all

thanks very much for the replies, i will give itanother try, ( when wife's out as I cannot sing to save my life) .

will let you know how it goes.

Mike

Originally Posted by: Mike_x1x

Hi all.

I am trying to work out how to find the notes of a song ( i.e. the notes the singer uses ),

I can do some but it takes me ages to find even a simple melody.

Does anyone else have any tips on this?

I'm trying to do "I want to break free" by Queen. I have listened to the song over and over but TBH I'm getting nowhere.

I can do the chords to most songs and i am using my Looper to play the chords then trying to play the melody over it. ( up to now sounds pretty bad ).

Google is not much help for anything other than chords.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Keep on rockin'

Mike

I am not a wizard at figuring things out by ear but you do have to train your head to hear notes.

However, one key thing not mentioned here is that in most all instances, like a guitar, the singer is singing within a scale. Singing in key. So if the song or section is in the key of G, it's likely that the singer is singing within the G scales.

Maybe major, maybe minor but they're in key. Knowing the key and a modest working knowledge of scales will help you work through what notes within the scales the singer is using.

Trial and error to be sure but you have the general roadmap already.

to be able to do that you can follow a course on eartraining but it is not easy. What that does is at first learns you to recognize intervals, harmonically and melodically; this means 2 notes played together and in arpeggio style, then triads in the same way, then inversions and so on until you get to the most complicated chords played on a piano with the notes short together or spread over the entire keybord. If you can finish a course like that ( takes about 2 years of dailly practice ) then if someone tells you the key of a song or musical piece you will be able to transcribe it without any instrument at hand, only your ears. Very good tool if you want to be a composer ( but gets boring after a few months to learn this ) but else there are plenty of transcriptions on the net and I would advice you to get a program called Guitar Pro to download and see the tabs and even right them yourself and play them with real sounds, not midi sounds.

Herman