Lesson X - Picking Out A Melody

The purpose of this section is to become skilled in learning to recognize a song’s key signature and then pickout the melody. Learning the  song’s  chord progressions will be the subject of the next lesson.

• Warm up by playing the higher of the two major scales found within Finger Pattern #1. The root note of this higher scale starts  with  1st finger on the 3rd  string. Play the major scale in different keys by sliding the 1st finger to different  postions on the 3rd string. Be able to name each scale signature before you play it , For example with 1st finger on 5th fret of 3rd string, the scale signature is C major,
•  Hum a few simple childhood songs and learn to pickout the melody. Include “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “Happy Birthday”. Then, hum some more popular songs or sections of more popular songs and pickout the melody. Do each song in various keys and determine your favorite key.This is a very important step in learning to pickout the melody of any song. Repeat this step for as many songs as possible.
• Click a desired song from the song list below to get the dedicated page for that song, Then click the music icon to play the song,
• Listen to the song several times for the purpose of learning to hum it.
•  Stop playing the song. Hum the song and try to pick the melody of the whole song or  any small section,  Repeat for the rest of the songs below,
•  Select a song from the list below  and get the dedicated page. Click the music icon to play the song. First find the key signature and then learn to pickout the song.

Congratulations. You have learned a very important guitarist skill.