continuing chord melody self-paced

Introductory Notes

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed working through Intro to Chord Melody and are ready for more fun. As you work your way through this self-paced course, you may refer to the Syllabus provided below for recommendations about pacing yourself and organizing your practice of the included material. Feel free to adapt and adjust as feels appropriate for you, your goals for your practice, and your day-to-day assessment of your own progress.

I mentioned in the previous course that I imagine two different kinds of students attracted to this course: sing’n’strum and instrumental players. I would encourage you to check in with yourself — are you still in the same category as before? There’s no right answer, of course, just staying true to you personal goals and interests for your playing. However, this a good moment to decide, before you dive into new material. Either way, the material provided in this course aims to continue helping you improve both your playing and your musicianship, no matter your personal focus.

Keep in mind that the materials provided give you a lot of options for your practice - you do not need to take on everything if it doesn’t feel right! Pick the things that feel most aligned with your goals, and remember you can always return the material again later to go a level deeper. Think about what challenge will fill that sweet spot between boringly easy and frustratingly difficult.

Please make use of the video tutorials and play alongs on the Chord Melody Practice Page in your practice. If you encounter an exercise in the Syllabus below that you would like to see a demonstration of, let me know! I am always working on new videos and am happy to provide more concrete examples of what I describe.

Enjoy! Best wishes, Avery

© 2020 Avery Hill, Song by Song LLC 1

Continuing Chord Melody for Ukulele with Song by Song™

Avery Hill, Instructor | www.learnsongbysong.com

http://www.learnsongbysong.com

https://learnsongbysong.com/intro-to-chord-melody/

Syllabus

Week 1 • A new scale! Learn the the Am Scale (p. 5)

• Take note of note placement on music staff and/or tablature system, as well as on the fretboard. Play up and down the scale without rhythm, naming / singing the notes as you go. Try playing the scale up and down looking just at your fretboard.

• Exercise: Add rhythm to your scale practice by plucking each note 4 times at a steady beat (A A A A - B B B B … ). Each day, lessen the number of plucks by 1 (3 plucks, then 2 plucks, then 1). This helps your fingers master the “choreography” of the scale while gradually bringing in the walls of rhythmic context.

• Exercise: Play through the three note “slide” exercise, following the notes on the staff on the way up the scale. Can you figure out on your own what notes go down the scale?

• Learn Scarborough Fair (p. 6) • Use the play along on the Practice Page to learn how this song goes, as a whole. If you’re

not familiar with the song, just listen a few times through and sing along. If you aim to play this song as a sing’n’strum with an embedded solo, use this play along video to practice just the sing’n’strum portion of the song, as well as to note where melody lines will be incorporated.

• When you’re ready to dive into the melody, start with the Intro Melody. Note the note names, rhythm, and fingering before playing it through a few times. Listen for it: What part of the verse melody is this intro taken from?

• Depending on your comfort level with playing melody, you might also take a first look at the Solo Melody (p. 7). Again, use the videos on the Practice Page to follow along with your music and/or play along with just the melody line.

Week 2 • Warm up with the Am Scale (p. 5)

• Exercises: Review exercises from last week and add in the third “leap frog” exercise. As with the “slide”, follow the notes on the staff on the way up the scale. Can you figure out on your own what the notes are going down the scale?

• Aim to play through these exercises looking just at your fretboard. • Play Scarborough Fair (p. 6)

• Play with me sing’n’strum style on the play along video. • Review the Intro Melody - play with me again sing’n’strum style, adding the Intro Melody

at the beginning of the song, and at the end as an Outro. • Take a closer look at the Solo Melody (p. 7). Note the four phrases that make up this

melody. Take note of the notes, rhythm, and “finger choreography” most efficient for you: • m. 1-5 | m. 6-10 | m. 11-15 | m. 16-end (Psst! This is the Intro Melody!)




• I would recommend learning and practicing these phrases in three different ways: • First, loop them on their own until you get a good sense of what that finger

choreography will be for you. This may take a day or two. • Once you feel good about these phrases on their own, combine them. Loop the

first phrase 2-3x, then add the second and loop together 2-3x, then add the third phrase, etc. This is a great focus for one day’s practice.

• The next day, go through the same exercise, but begin with the fourth phrase and work your way back to the beginning of the solo.

• Important Note: You can learn the melody by itself before adding in the chords, or you can start with the chord shapes added right away. Adding the chords changes your finger choreography in some places, so there is some relearning required. However, waiting to add them allows you to get the melody in your ears and keep the technical challenge of the song more minimal. There’s no right way here, just things to keep in mind as you decide on the appropriate challenge for you.

Week 3 • Warm up with Scarborough Fair (pp. 6-7)

• Depending on your focus, warm up by playing through the entire sing’n’strum rendition, or run the solo instrumental 2x through.

• Review / continue your work on Scarborough Fair • Depending on your goals and your rough spots, work on your performance of this song

as a whole. Make sure you’ve got nice tone and a moving tempo. • Optional Chord Arpeggio Flare: Watch the video on the Practice Page about adding in

some arpeggios between phrases. These are not technically difficult, as you’re just picking out notes in the chord, but they are an additional element to consider, and, as we know, the space in our brains for new things is precious!

• Learn F Scale (p. 8) • This is a split scale, in that there’s no scale from low F to hi F that we’ll travel along.

However, you can still use the basic exercise of plucking each note 4x, then 2x, then 1x up and down each half of the scale. Or, try playing all the notes of the scale from low G to hi C.

• New note! Bb is found on the 1st fret of the A string. • Mystery Melody Exercise: To continue familiarizing yourself with the F Scale, try sight-

reading the Mystery Melody. How soon do you recognize it? Optional Challenge: What other melodies can you pick out in this key?

• Learn Au clair de la lune (p. 9) • Look over and then play through each part, Uke I and II of this short piece. If it helps, say/

sing the notes out loud, both before and as you play. • Exercise: Use the audio recordings on the Practice Page to play as a duet! For example,

play the Uke II recording while you play the Uke I part, and vice versa. Alternatively, you may also choose to play either part along the chord accompaniment recording.




• Optional challenge: Once you feel fairly comfortable with the individual parts, try playing them together with my arrangement of Au clair de la lune on p. 10. Notice how the fingerings in the tablature indicate you’ll be playing some notes on different strings than you usually would. This is because you can’t, for example, play A and C on the same A string, so we have to “bump” the open string note to the next string over. In this example, we play C on the 2rd fret of A as we usually would, but we play A on the 5th fret of the E string.

Week 4 • Warm up with Scarborough Fair (pp. 6-7) • Review Au clair de la lune (pp. 9-10)

• If you didn’t try the 2-part challenge last week, maybe try it this week. • Learn In the Bleak Midwinter (p. 11)

• Just the solo melody for this one. As with previous songs, you can learn the melody by itself first, adding chords later, or dive right in with both parts together.

• I encourage you to watch the play along video on our Practice Page. It will help familiarize you with the melody (especially if it is new to you), and gives you a chance to watch my hands and fingering.

• If you are doing the complete chord melody solo, note the Bb chord, which may be new to you. Luckily, we can work around the full shape by playing one of two different shapes, depending on the melody notes around it. One shape is found in m.3, played on the G-C-E strings, leaving off the A string (as in, don’t play it). The other shape is found in m.9, played on the C-E-A strings, leaving off the G string.

• Exercise: Once you feel good about what you’re playing, play along with the video on the Practice Page and/or to the chord accompaniment audio recording!

Extra Song Challenge: Greensleeves (p. 12) • For the holiday season! As with our previous songs, pick out the melody alone, or try

integrating chord and melody together. Use the play along video to watch for fingerings, and to learn the song, in general. Note that you’ll need to play the full Bb chord for this one! When you’re ready, play along with the video and/or the chord accompaniment recording on the Practice Page.

Moving Forward • Try playing through both songs without the practice videos, and continue to smooth out any

rough spots as needed. • Keep fresh in your repertoire the songs you like best by playing them through daily, either at

the beginning or end of your practice. • What opportunities might you have to playing these pieces for an “audience”? No matter

how informal, preparing to play for someone is a great goal to work toward.




Continuing Chord Melody for Ukulele

1. A Minor: New Key, New Scale

A Natural Minor Scale

A B C D E F G A A G F E D C B A

The key of A minor is what we call the “relative” minor of the key of C - that means, as you might have noticed - that it uses the same notes as the C Scale. The notes are even in the same order, but with a different beginning and end point to the scale. This A minor scale is called the natural minor precisely because it uses all the notes from the C Scale without changing them. (We’ll leave that to the harmonic and the melodic minor scales!)

Exercises Flex your scale muscles the same way we did for the Key of C:

• Pluck each note 4x as you go up and down the scale, then decrease each time (3x, 2x, single notes up and down)

• Play the three note “slide”:

• Play “leap frog”:


Scarborough Fair Traditional, likely derived from “The Elfin Knight” - this arrangement by Avery Hill (2020)

Waltz time - Each chord = 3 beats - Waltz strum or pick or thumb-strum

Intro Melody:

Intro: Am G Em7 Am Am Am Am

Am Am Em7 Am Am Verse 1: Are you goin’ to Scarborough Fair? Am Am D Am Am Parsley, sage, rose-mary and thyme Am G Am Em7 Em7 Re-mem-ber me to one who lives there Am G Em7 Am Am Am Am She once was a true love of mine

V2: Tell her to make me a cam-bric shirt __ / __ Parsley, sage, rose-mary and thyme With-out any seam or need-le-work __ / Then she’ll be a true love of mine

V3: Tell her to find me an acre of land __ / __ Parsley, sage, rose-mary and thyme Be-tween the sea foam and the sea strand __ / Then she’ll be a true love of mine Instrumental: Verse chords Repeat Verse 1 Outro (Intro melody optional): Am G Em7 End Am © 2020 Avery Hill, Song by Song LLC 6

Optional Chord Arpeggio “Flare” On held chords, such as in measures 4-5, 9-10, etc., try adding a light arpeggio. Here are two possible examples:

A -0-----------0-----------0-- A -------------2-----------0-- E -0---------0-----0-------0-- E -0---------0-----0-------0-- C -0-------0-----------0---0-- C -2-------2---------------0-- G -2-----------------------2-- G -4---0---------------0---2-- Bt:1 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 1 Bt:1 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 1

Important Note: Depending on how the next phrase begins, you may not play through the entire arpeggio in the graph above. See what sounds best!


2. Key of F: Another New Key, Another New Scale From James Hill’s Ukulele in the Classroom - Book 1

Key of F Mystery Melody Play this melody and see if you can identify it.

Challenge: What other melodies can you pick out in this key?


Practice Melody Here’s a warm up melody to try. Can you read the notes without tablature?


Practice Melody Challenge: Try playing both melodies together!


3. Focus Song: In the Bleak Midwinter

Chords you’ll need to play this song:


4. Challenge Song: Greensleeves


continuing chord melody self-paced

Documents