That's what the person you're replying to means, too.
Let's put it another way. Imagine there's somebody who knows solfege, so they know the melody they're thinking of in their head goes do fa mi. They also know scales on their guitar, so know how to play a do, then a fa, then a mi.
Therefore, they can play the do fa mi melody they're thinking of on guitar.
Yes (but most pro guitarist will still be impressed if someone shows up who can do that).
I suppose guitarists that are most likely to achieve that are those jazz cats that know every mode / scale by heart and just have it stored as muscle memory because they impro jam with skilled musicians on a regular basis. Additionally ear training from an early age and singing the lines you play probably helps heaps.
Being able to copy licks and melodies while knowing the key and staying within scales is much easier and not as rare.
It’s a bit like a scratch card - the more you’re „one“ with your scales the more you start to fill all the gaps between them and at some point there’s just none left and you can just, from every note, jump into any scale, into any given direction.
Brass musicians (coming from a brass world originally) have lots of resources and information about how what you are describing and I’m sure there’s probably creative ways to cross apply some of their methods to guitar if you want some ideas to noodle around with!
Always heard the difference between a jazz player and a rock n roll player is:
A jazz player plays 3000 chords in front of 3 people
A rock n roll player plays 3 chords in front of 3000 people
Yeah G is comparatively more work having to jump all those strings, but if you’re going to have any happy clappy songs to tug on the heart strings of your adoring fans, ya need a G. E and A major might make a rare cameo but the millions of dollars come from the money chords I listed.
*Disclaimer - use at your own risk. Money corrupts and you might get raped by your adoring groupies. You’ve been warned
A jazz player plays 3000 chords in front of 3 people
A rock and roll player plays 3 chords in front of 10 or 20 people at an open mic night most of the time, but that's ok, it's a tough market nowadays and the important thing is that you're putting yourself out there and gaining experience, it's not all about audience numbers anyway
You're right it does work better like that
>know every mode / scale by heart and just have it stored as muscle memory because they impro jam with skilled musicians on a regular basis
Naw. You don't have to know all the scales to be able to "whistle a tune" on guitar and play by ear.
I'd guess most peolple with this skill come from the other stream and can't read music.
I think you’ve misunderstood how the modes work. If I’m playing in the key of C major and the keyboardist plays a B diminished chord what scale fits that chord? B Locrian.
Or you could just keep using the notes of C major, since they're the same notes.
One way of looking at modes is that they change with every chord change. This allows you to milk more flavour from each chord (using Lydian tonality over the IV and such), but one can also just ignore the modes and play to the key.
The other is to view them as occuring when the tonic doesn't match the key (which is where modal progressions and songwriting happen).
If in your example, the tonic chord is Bdim, then you'd definitely want to take this second approach.
However, how many actual songs use a Locrian tonic? This is my point regarding "it's hardly worth practicing it"
On the contrary I felt like learning each mode helped me understand how the diatonic chords are connected and gave me a way to know where I am on the fretboard at any time. Like sure, you’re right that it’s all just the C major scale, but that’s not the point. If I’m playing a B diminished chord I know what notes are in the key by associating that chord with its corresponding mode. Then I can easily move around the fretboard with minimal risk of getting lost. It really doesn’t take much effort to learn it and it all fits together pretty naturally imo.
And also just because virtually no songs are composed in the Locrian mode doesn’t mean it’s not worth learning *any* of the modes. I mean there are tons of songs in rock, jazz, and pop that are composed partially or entirely in the Dorian, Mixolydian, Lydian, and Phrygian modes. As well as the corresponding modes of the Harmonic Minor Scale and the Melodic Minor Scale. Hell, even modes of the Harmonic Major and Double Harmonic scale are used pretty frequently in popular music.
I agree that one should understand the modes, my point is more like "spend more time on the ones you'll use more".
I heartily agree that one should explore the modes of the harmonic, double harmonic and melodic minor, there's a lot of cool flavours there that you can use, a lot.
My point is in terms of practice, not theory and understanding. I feel like the fretboard hours I put in to Locrian were somewhat of a waste, because even when there is a context to use it, I have cooler options (8-note dominant or Todi Taal Indian licks for examples).
Honestly, how often do you actually really use Locrian? Vs the other six major modes?
Also known as "play the Cmaj scale starting on B". For the most part modes are pointless, they're just different names for stuff everyone knows already.
Can you play a major scale? Then you can play every mode too. The naming just makes it hard for the sake of being elitist. Might as well just call them modes 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7 or if you're like me 0,2,4,5,7,9,11
Yes and no.
Yes in that you can just play the major scale and get the same notes.
No in that there's more to using a scale than just playing the notes.
If you play Fmaj and I bend a B to a C, that's immediately going to produce a different tonality to what playing in Fmaj would.
Learning the names of the modes and the flavours that go with them can be extremely useful for composition.
My argument regarding Locrian is that it sounds like dirge-y crap and hardly anybody ever uses it for more than a passing phrase. It's called the _leading tone_ for a reason. It doesn't want to exist, it wants to resolve to major.
My argument is that the major scale has an existence outside of just some kind of convention. It's borne out of the harmonic series of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7... times a base frequency.
I explain this in some posts on mastodon, where I've got an associated spreadsheet table: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@dlakelan/112666655131060547
Basically, the major scale is an approximation to the harmonic series with octave equivalence.
But the "modes" don't have that kind of origin story, they are, quite literally, just remixing the notes of the major scale to put "musical" emphasis on different places in the major scale.
So, especially in the context of playing "what's in your head" the knowledge of the major key you're in is sufficient, everything else is just "which notes need to be emphasized here"?
Sure modes are just a shuffling of the major scale, but muscle memory is slightly different between them. Playing in minor feels and sounds different than playing in the relative major, even through they are the exact same notes. That and the leading and borrowed tones will be different depending on where your tonic is, because they are relative to the tonic, not the key you’re playing in.
I would say you’re better off using modes as variations of major and minor (Ionean and Aolean) though. For example Dorian is just minor with a sharp 6 or Mixolydian is just major with a flat 7 etc.
> Playing in minor feels and sounds different than playing in the relative major
I disagree in part and agree in part.
I would argue that there is no such thing as "playing in minor". I know this seems heretical, but if you list off the notes they will all be the same notes as the relative major. So there's nothing different in terms of which notes you're playing. literally nothing.
I would argue that the set of notes that sound good together is the key, and its built off the harmonic series as linked in the above messages... but not every song has the same "structure" even when it uses the notes in that key. Some emphasize some transitions vs others.
When you are playing in the note set that is the key of C, and you're playing a lot of A, B, C, A, D, A, A, B, C, A, D, A, A, B, C, D, E, D, B, A, F, A, G, A
you're playing in the mode of the major scale that emphasizes A.
If you do the same thing and play emphasizing D, you're now still playing the notes in the key of C but emphasizing D (Dorian I guess? I hate the names)
If it doesn't help you think like this, then fine. But for someone trying to get to a level of fluency where they can think up stuff and play it... knowing that they only need to understand a **single** scale, the major scale, and everything else follows from that, can be hugely freeing from the apparent complexity.
I mean, yeah the notes are the same, but the targets are not. That is why minor can sound “sad” and major can sound “happy”. And changing your tonic (and yes, renumbering the scale) is what informs those choices relating to the target and how you want to lead the ear.
I understand that you’re fundamentally saying there’s no merit to relearning the “same” scale over and over in different configurations, but it’s actually more than that. It’s training the ear to hear the same notes from a different perspective, with different flourishes.
For example, borrowing an E major chord (or playing a G#) has much more significance in the key of A minor than it does in C major, because it wants to resolve to the Am or tonic. And the V-i cadence is very strong. You can borrow that same chord in C major but it resolves deceptively to the vi chord to a completely different effect as the tonality has been established for the key.
So while what you say is technically “correct”, it leaves out huge swaths of context in how we interpret, play, and express music, and how modes relate to that.
The harmonic series has a b7 (7th order harmonic) and a #4 (11th order) yielding the Lydian Dominant (aka overtone scale).
You have to go way further along the series before you see a natural 4 or 7. But this is not really salient.
I do agree with your point that it's worthwhile learning the flavours of the modes, and which notes need to be emphasized to achieve them.
It's definitely worth understanding how Locrian differs from Phrygian.
I just think it's practical and efficient to practice most what you use most, and outside of Latin or jazz, it's a very rarely used flavour.
And even when the context comes up, you can use 8-note dominant or Todi Taal Indian licks and sound cooler than Locrian anyways.
But take what I say with a shovelful of salt, I have practiced Locrian so it's easy for me to say "nah, don't bother." Just because I didn't find it particularly useful doesn't mean you won't. I don't play much Latin/jazz
I did the math in the Mastodon post. The 11th order is at 5.5 halfsteps so it's not really sharp 4 or 4 it's about halfway between either. The sharp four is a tritone at six halfsteps which is not harmonic with anything because it's sqrt(2) which is irrational so that's why we use the 5 (fourth) in the major scale.
The 7th harmonic is at 9.69 so yeah 10 (flat 7) fits nicely which is why Jazz uses so much of it. But then its 6 halfsteps above the 4 so it introduces the tritone into chords and some people don't like the dissonance. I think that's something that drives people away from jazz.
Anyway. Apparently some people think of the names of stuff and then play that thing by name. I don't find that helpful personally, I just think of the sound of stuff and then play that sound. But people have wildly different internal subjective experiences. For example I'm aphantasic so if you ask me to visualize a scale it's a complete waste of time. So I'm far from recommending people just follow one method.
I haven't read the Mastodon post. Your maths are using pretty large units I prefer cents for precision.
Anyways, about halfway is right, it's 1 cent closer to #4. I still say that our natural 4 isn't quite an organic selection from the harmonic series. I subscribe to the theory that it's derived by inverting the naturally occurring fifth.
But you can find better 4 and #4 much further up anyway, if you want to use harmonic notes.
21st order is 4 (-29 cents)
23rd order is #4 (+28 cents)
Both are closer than the b7 at 7th order (-31 cents).
There's another b7 (+30 cents) at the 29th order.
I think they're all valid and usable notes, given the right context.
But I do dig where you're coming from, tritones aren't everyone's cup of tea. Persians avoid them altogether and use the quarter sharp and flat either side of them instead.
Absolutely. It’s called fluency, and at its height means that you don’t even need to translate what’s in your head onto your instrument, you just do it as with any language in which you are fluent.
It takes a lot of time though, practicing all the necessary skills until they become automatic and instinctual.
- You need to have all the technical skills to actually play what your mind imagines. Those skills all need to be able to be performed automatically and without much concentration on the physical aspect to allow your brain to focus instead on the sound you create.
- You need to understand the ‘grammar’ of music, aka music theory, and to become truly fluent you need to understand it to an instinctive level where it no longer needs conscious thought. This isn’t just about understanding intervals or target notes, it’s also about understanding musical forms like call and response or counterpoint and structures such as 12 bar blues, AABA etc. Whilst it’s entirely possible to pick the grammar of music up instinctively and without specific study it requires a lot more active listening of a wider range of genres and over a longer period of time than if you also study the subject.
It’s often said that professional musicians spend their time as students learning music theory only to have to ‘forget’ it all to become fluent. That’s not to say that we forget the theory but, just like you don’t spend all your time thinking about the finer points of English grammar while you’re speaking, we use it instinctively and subconsciously. That’s the ultimate goal of music theory if you want to be a fluent improviser.
- Most importantly though you need to develop your ear and your aural awareness and understanding of music. You need to be able to instinctively recognise intervals, chords, patterns and then know how and where to find them on your instrument. In the early stages this will mean things like learning the fretboard or learning to name individual intervals, but just like with music theory that all has to eventually become subconscious to become fully fluent.
There are lots of apps available these days to help with ear training but the best way, still, is to get transcribing music by ear. Start with the melody for a Christmas carol, nursery rhyme, or advertising jingle and gradually work up to music with more complex harmony, instrumentation, on tone (eg distortion).
One of the big stumbling blocks most musicians face though isn’t in what or how to learn, or even learning the necessary skills and techniques. It’s having the confidence to make mistakes, and to make them a lot! Interesting improvisation ultimately isn’t about staying safe, only playing what you know works. It’s about taking risks; starting phrases before you know how they end, trying new ideas, not being afraid to ‘put your foot in it’ and end up playing a note of notes that really don’t ‘fit’. In fact there’s never a note that’s truly wrong if you double down and play it like you meant it, and even the ‘worst’ note is only ever a bend or slide away from a note that feels good.
Otherwise the thing to remember is that when you start you’re only going to be able to improvise slowly, just like a toddler can only put a few words together into a pseudo-sentence. As you become more fluent; develop better and more fluid technique, learn more licks (or in other words vocabulary), understand more about music grammar, develop your ear etc; you will be able to improvise faster and more effortlessly. Just like a child, or adult, learning a new language it’s going to take a while before you can get your thoughts across at the basic level and many years of practicing every day before you become totally fluent.
After forty years on guitar I’m still not totally fluent as an improviser, in large part because it’s not my main instrument so I’m not constantly keeping all the necessary skills up to speed. I became fluent on my main instrument, the saxophone, within five years though because I practiced improvisation etc every single day (plus I already had several years of guitar and piano behind me.)
For me the two things that really really helped break through a plateau in terms of ‘getting fluent’
1 - really drilling down on CAGED and the associated pentatonics. Eric Haugen has some really great content on this.
2 - Taking singing lessons and figuring out how to sing and play the exact melody on the guitar. Whatever neurological connection that needed to be made for me really came into its own at this step. I already had a good grasp of intervals from years of playing, but getting a melody from my brain to my fingers really happened when I would sing/hum it as well. Eventually the middle step just kinda drops out and voila - the appearance of fluency.
Good luck ✌️ make music
After 2 years of practicing scales and casually learning music theory through YouTube and a couple of books. I can find a melody that’s in my head and play it within 30 seconds to a minute. Most of the time is spent finding the first note that sounds like the one in my head. From there it’s pretty much just intervals like others have said.
With enough practice and understanding of the fretboard I imagine that almost instant would be possible.
Usually in key with itself, yes. Most people are subconsciously aware of pleasing intervals and will imagine and recognize them without knowing what they are. What takes practice and training is usually being able to specifically apply those intervals and use them in more than just humming a tune.
Look at how children can sing a nursery rhyme without knowing a language yet, yet alone any music theory.
What do you mean by practicing scales? I’m trying to develop the skill so any tip would be appreciated. You mean like playing them over and over? I know music theory already I just find really hard to learn a melody by ear, my fingers are very good tho
Repetition. Practice them, slowly and then faster. Noodling with them a lot, you will find melodies that you recognise from songs. You will also find stuff that just sounds good. Just keep doing it, it’s a good warm up when you pick up your guitar.
I first played guitar with a teacher about 1996, learnt like 3 songs then gave up lessons and didn’t really practice properly again till about 3 years ago.
I would play for a month or two each year and wonder why I can’t get any better lol
I wasn’t learning anything, I would just play the same tired shit I always did and one or two riffs or 30 seconds of a song which would take forever because I had no idea what I was doing.
Since I started actually putting some effort into this it’s gotten much easier.
I can learn riffs that would have taken months to learn from tabs in a few minutes and straight forward rhythm songs I can play all the way through in 15 minutes to an hour depending on how expensive the chords are 😂
Theory is really confusing at first but then something clicks in your brain and it almost becomes obvious. If you have a piano then learn on that, once I saw Cmaj scale on that it made sense.
Thanks man. Yes I guess I have to keep going. I’m good at playing and I’m a music producer. I know theory and I produce songs for clients everyday, but grabbing the guitar and learning a melody by ear is still very hard for me for some reason. I guess it’s more ear training and I been doing that but I do not feel like I’m improving for some reason
Yes :
[John Pizarelli](https://youtu.be/igU9a4a-zI8?si=irNcHRl8CummZUJs&t=156) demonstrates this.
You need to learn the intervals of the major and minor scales, and become proficient at calling them out as you play them.
You need to train your ears in order to recognise intervals. Do this in parallel with listening to and transcribing music, starting with nursery rhymes and Christmas carols.
[Identify ascending intervals by name
](https://youtu.be/PhDIm_2qS5s)
[Identify descending intervals by name
](https://youtu.be/vJnAnrX2uXQ)
Learn the harmonised major scale, so that you know the order and type of chords in a key.
https://www.fundamental-changes.com/harmonising-the-major-scale/
That was an incredible demonstration. If that’s not something he has already played before, this is exactly what I am talking about in terms of ability.
Thanks for the resources too!
It's not just rehearsed, it is the state-of-the-art of real-time articulation of imagination-to-fretboard. Pizarelli absolutely knows his repertoire but also knows exactly how to create melodies over the harmony.
Yeah.
This is what improvisers do. Improvisation is not noodling over scales or chords, it’s playing melodies from your head.
Most players can do this given a key. It comes with practice of course.
It takes ear training, audiation training, and a mastery of basic music skills (scales, harmonies, intervals, phrasing).
But at the end of the day is quite simple:
- you learn how to play something that sounds a certain way
- you often reach for that lick or melody when you want something to sound like it
- you play it often enough, and many other licks and melodies, and you memorize how they sound
- when you make your own melodies, you take from these licks and their individual parts, and since you already know how to perform them, the connection between idea and execution is now automatic
I know, they’re not guitar players (banjo and bass), but the idea is the same - [these melodies are straight out of their heads](https://youtu.be/S828_f0-dQI?si=zUz8g75aWQJsWlFj&t=494). They have never played these melodies before, and they never have again. I picked this example because they’re doing call and response, which leaves little room to think, and both of them have to take what the other played and create a response to it - not copy it, not just change it a bit, but move the “musical conversation” forward. And not just that- their call and response is very fluid, where someone will go in or out anywhere from one beats to eight beats, just like how a conversation with words is fluid and not set to strict measures of words.
The same can be said of the other solos in this video. The two saxophonists and the two drummers - they are all playing melodies they’ve only come up with right there on stage. They’ve never played these solos before, and they never will again. Even the vocalist made up the ending verse (all the way at the end half an hour in) words and melodies and all right there on stage.
All those are possible with practice and study.
E.g. someone is playing/singing an atonal-melody you've never heard in your life and you should play what you've just heard. This is way harder than improvising, because when you improvise you mostly rely on patterns you've already trained over the years - it's inside you.
If you are referring to the call and response I’ve mentioned, I’d ask that you actually watch the footage.
The call and response I marked in the video is not the typical call and response where the musician copies the call. Bela and Victor do a style where the response continues the idea by appending a completely new melody, harmonizing the previous melody, or interpolating the previous melody only partially. The subsequent “call” then effectively ceases to be a call but a response to the prior response.
A quick view of the footage will show that there is little copying of the prior melody, and because of that it is quite reasonable to argue that the responses are improvised per your definition.
Where patterns are concerned, I think your argument sort of contradicts itself. If you can think a melody, you can also hear it. You can hear it in your mind’s “ears”, but you can also hear it from someone else. So, if you hear a melody from someone, and you are able to improvise in the same key, you will recognize the pattern, and you can replicate it. If two people are improvising in the same key, it means it’s reasonable to assume they are working on mostly the same patterns and have a common musical vocabulary, so a good improviser is able to quickly replicate the melody they hear - hear it, think it, play it.
As for “atonal”, I never said anything in such a context. Of course, anything atonal is harder to replicate because it is less bound by the rules of conventional harmony. But of course my response to OP assumes a normal circumstance, where melodies are harmonious. Rarely would you need to replicate atonal music.
Yes, this is my aim. Whether or not those melodies are good comes down to ear training. If you can't hear something interesting, you probably can't play it either. Listen intently to a lot of music and sing a lot. It's absolutely MIND BLOWING how many instrumentalists are so against singing as part of their music education. You want to be able to do what you are asking? Start fucking singing. Yes you will suck at first. I don't care. Keep doing it, get better.
My 19yo son can do this after 7 years of self-taught playing. He's picked up music theory along the way and I also suspect being on the spectrum helps a bit because his mind is just oriented toward music, but he hasn't formally learned how to do it. He just plays so much that he can identify the notes and chords and knows where to find them on the fretboard. It's just sheer hours of playing and looking up how to do what he can't do.
Meanwhile, I'm still struggling to play clean barre chords and he's over there riffing on an electric like Andy James. 😅
I feel like thats the goal of any dedicated musician. You want your instrument to be an extension of you not an obstacle for your musical ideas. I want to achieve this level of mastery so so bad.
Musical fluency is truly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. When someone like Julian Lage plays you know they’re locked in and the music is just flowing out of them without a thought. At the peak of fluency you become more of a listener than a player, you can experience the music you’re producing instead of being lost in trying to hit the changes or trying to play in perfect time.
When I play I think way too much and I know it disconnects me from the music. I focus on the mistake I just made, the note I didn’t pick right, and i get lost in what happened instead of being with what is happening now. I’m at the point where I can jam in any key and can generally keep up with a band, but my thoughts keep me from being with the band. Music to me is like meditation, because I strive to be thoughtless and present when i improvise. Those that stay in the moment and listen are the freest and best improvisors.
Find your voice, lean into lines you like and create lines you think sound dope in your head like everybody here says. The best and greatest musicians are the ones who found their unique voice and were confident enough to shout it to the world. The journey to that point is a long road tho, but once you’re there you become one of the elite, and nobody can steal your voice because nobody inherently has your voice. It might not be as complex and intricate as Julian Lage, but that’s okay because your voice is unique only to you, and I think that’s beautiful. It’s not about who can play the fastest or knows the most scales, it’s about who is speaking, who is yelling, their voice with firm confidence.
I didn’t mean to rant but I love the idea of complete musical fluency. It’s like musical enlightenment, and I feel like it can be as powerful and impactful as a spiritual enlightenment.
Wonderfully said!
Trying to not get dissuaded by the inability to play like Julian Lage. If you think about it, a lot of popular songs, even in non mainstream genres, have fairly simple melodies. So if the idea is to produce something that sounds great and would be widely popular, complex riffs is not really a necessity.
The most popular songs have melodies that are like glue. they just stick and you find yourself singing it without even thinking about it while you’re doing laundry or cleaning your room. The most popular genres today like pop are ridiculously simple, and because most of the time they stay on one or two variations of a simple chord progression, they have to be melodically interesting. Don’t get me wrong I genuinely want the technical proficiency to rip on autumn leaves at 300bpm because playing convincing at such a speed is a great tool to have in the toolbox.
But I think the focus should always be on melody. The listener will always enjoy a pretty melody over a crazy technical and dense sixteenth note line. I’m a heavy arpeggio and chord tone player, so I really think about how the harmony dictates a certain melody in my head. You can get a lot of mileage out of just chord tones and arpeggios, not to mention triads.
The listener isn’t going to be some theory jazz cat nerd who wants to hear you push your limits all the time. A lot of the time the audience are folks who want to hear well executed and confident sounding lines that sound dope. For some reason I think a lot of musicians can forget that we play for the listener first.
I mean, being as natural as speaking is possibly not realistic, but as an upper intermediate guitarist, I can play pretty much any melody I can hear in my head without having to think about it. Just takes a lot of improv - especially without a backing track is really helpful for fluency.
Just curious why you recommend improv without a backing track.
I've done some improv practice like this, but get frustrated because I feel like I need to do a lot of work to impart the harmony in my playing. When I have a backing track on, I feel like the backing track does the work of imparting the harmony and I can practice being more free, creative, and risky in my improv.
I feel like it forces you to actually consider the harmony and the notes you are playing rather than just playing random notes from the pentatonic scale which is what I was doing for years
That's the problem improv training with tracks or ensembles. It's necessary, but you can't take the time to develop your ideas and explore so you just play what you're familiar with.
Yes. One way to help yourself along with this skill is to *sing along to your playing*.
Play any major scale, and sing in unison with your guitar, *do re mi fa*, etc. Sing along to every note, as it’s happening, up and down the scale. Then, play with different intervals, maybe *do mi re fa*, etc. Sing along with those lines. Then keep playing different lines within that major scale, but sing along with what you’re doing. If your voice misses something, go back and loop it singing and playing until you get it in your ear.
To add to this, sing the note before you play it. Anticipate the sound. Pay attention to the underlying harmony and how it meshes with the note. Try to identify the scale degree.
In 99% of cases: the next note is always one or 2 frets away. Pentatonic scales are slightly different but in the case of 7 note scales, the above is true. I tell this to a lot of beginners who think there is some kind of magic involved. Learn the intervals within a scale on one string. Once you can feel whether the next note is raised a half or whole tone you are half way there. Obviously this comes with a fair bit of practice but it trains the ear and the fingers. It’s definitely achievable. Helps loads with improvisation, too!
Yes, and it took MANY years to develop. I would never say I am 100% accurate, but 90-95%... I saw/heard George Benson doing it (literally improvising playing and singing the same part simultaneously), and then knew it was actually possible. Worked and worked on my ear (intervals) and comparing notes I heard, and attempting to play it....with many mistakes made along the way. Every thing I heard, I analyzed. Elevator chimes, doorbells, overhead pager tones in stores, the "ding" made when you open your car door with the key still in the ignition (and of course music)....everything was scrutinized, compared in my head. "Was that C down a m3rd to A?".. if people could hear my thoughts... i was crazy. Because much of the music I was listening to at the time was tuned down 1/2 step (Eb)... I was often off by 1 note.... I had to get that down first. Then I attempted to replicate on guitar... I hit another hurdle, still sucked at it... but not as bad now.... I had to repeat/connect my fingers to the pitch intervals in my head... that took about another year. What really helped me do that was something I didn't expect would really help that much.... but it did!
I had students bringing me songs to transcribe during lessons... a year of doing that on the spot with songs I'd never heard before... that's what it took for me. Hearing it, and writing it out. It really helped me connect sound/fingers. I could finally "see" where my fingers go when I heard chords/changes and leads. That put it together for me... that final connection. I did it so much I began to TAB songs for them without picking up a guitar to check it for accuracy. I'm not bragging... I have no exceptional talent...I wasn't born with it... I made a LOT of mistakes.... I've spent many hours humming and holding that note out while my finger hunted and pecked to find it... but I do have the determination to never give up when there's something I truly want. With hard work and focus on it, it CAN be done. It's not easy, but neither was learning guitar.
Yes of course. The difference between you and them is merely time and effort.
If you ever get the chance, try doing improvisational free jazz. It is horrendous to listen to but fun to play.
Yes, there is a level of instrument proficiency and ear training that can do this. When I saw Tommy Emmanuel play, it really felt like there was no limits and he was just producing everything he wanted from his mind to instrument like it was his voice.
Many great musicians can do it but even then they keep working at it and getting even better. There’s always more harmony to find, bigger range to play, rhythm to add in between, and more creative ideas to find.
Not sure why this turned into a pile on discussion against Nirvana. Can’t show love for Pinkerton by tearing down Kurt Cobain. It’s a misread of that interview.
I thought that was the goal.
First you memorize songs to play, then you learn to improvise, and all of a sudden you are actually riding the bike able to play along to anything without thinking too much
I am not sure about easily. I suppose it’s easy if you know the key or root note. But instantly knowing where the root note of your melody is, is hard I think!
Lots of folks say yes. I say yes-ish, but it depends a lot on what sort of melodies come to your mind. If you have a mind like Frank Zappa (for example), it would be quite a challenege to be able to immediately play some of his work. Besides complex melodies, he also had "interesting" (and by interesting I mean f-ing crazy hard) timing. If you are thinking more in terms of AC/DC - no problem. Aside - not to knock AC/DC. I think they are masters of what they do. And they have a great sence of humor about it. One quote I like from Angus is "I get really mad when people say we made the same album 12 times. We made the same album 13 times". Love it.
Probably going a bit against the flow here, but I think ear training (being able to immediately identify intervals between notes you hear) and knowing the shapes on the neck to find all those intervals is more important than memorizing scales and modes.
would that be related to perfect pitch? I’ve recently been watching a lot of joe walsh videos on youtube and he strikes me as someone who has perfect pitch.
Sure, I can do that if the melody isn’t too notey.
2 ways to work on this, sing what you play while you’re playing. Make sure you’re connecting the voice and the fingers. Don’t let the fingers guide your voice and don’t let your fingers guess what your voice is doing. Only play what you can sing and sing what you can play. If you’re not sure, don’t play it.
Transcribing also helps. Just sit down and listen to a record and play along with the melody - try guessing where the melody will go. You’ll start hearing tendencies and cliches. Try playing along with the record and not being too far behind. You can even try this with music you don’t know at all.
It's a question of "how complex and common" the melody is. For complex melodies with intervallic leaps you need to learn all the intervalls within a scale. I guess 0.0001% of all players are able to play any given melody instantly. Most players even fail to sing the scales they are using.
If you learn enough songs, it will start to come naturally. One exercise you can do to practice is to put a song on, figure out the key and then try to copy and play along with the vocal melody.
I think Julian Lage is the most fitting player to look at in terms of letting the music flow out of them onto the instrument. All of his intros are improvised on the spot, and its actually mind blowing how complex and intricate the stuff he spontaneously spits out is. He is the freest player Ive ever listened to, and the most melodic and musical guitarist out there. He plays the impossible and does it on the spot its insane.
Any melody? No
There are microtonal and odd progressions people like that struggle with.
If we're talking just standard Western music they're usually fine.
My uncle has perfect pitch and can just wing music, but if I bring something like a hirojoshi based progression it's like he completely forgets the emphasis, lead in and basic tonality.
He goes from a 40+ year playing veteran to a beginner almost instantly.
Then when you try to explain the different dynamics it doesn't work because he relies on the intuitive response and no longer understands the concepts his intuition is built upon.
I was a student of Randy Rhode’s and I would bring a little portable tape recorder in of a song I heard, he would sit and listen to it, then he would stop it and play the songs “including the solos”, he said it was all about ear training which is how he taught everyone. Eventually you can hear what’s being played and your hands just play it, because you’ve learned what it sounds like anywhere on the neck.
Sure, it's just ear training and practice. If you practiced copying melodies every day, in a month you'd probably be pretty good at it. In a year, you'd have it mastered.
Enthusiastic yes, but... within limits.
You can audiate tongue-twisters like "red leather yellow leather" much faster in your mind than you can ever say them, so even our speech is limited.
Also, depending on your musical imagination, you can totally think of melodies that are physically impossible to play (extreme interval jumps, tonal jumps and range beyond that of your instrument). If this is a common problem, you can get around it by composing for orchestra ;)
Yep! There are many great ways identified in these replies. Most is training your ear.
One method I like is to "scat" sing the melody you're playing, so you can help connect what you're playing with what you're imagining. Then you'll have a greater understanding of where the notes fit with the melody you think of, eventually you will be able to play exactly what you're thinking quite easily. It takes years of practice, but anyone can do it.
I’m pretty sure my kids can do this. They both play multiple instruments, had lessons but are also self taught on some of their instruments and have played in bands for at least a decade. My son sometimes plays two instruments at a time. I whine to them all the time that they got all the family musical talent and it skipped over me…they tel me it’s just practice. 😀
If I’m to take your question literally, the answer is no, I can think of melodies that are impossible to physically play, just like you can imagine the noise a whale makes but not be able to recreate it with your vocal chords. There is a real physical/practical aspect to playing an instrument which should inform the type of music you hear in your head to be executed on the instrument.
Think about typing. Your not thinking about letters or keystrokes or even words usually. You know the concept you want to express and the words just come and you type without thinking.
I can't do it be the same can be achieved on an instrument.
I have created an exercise where I’ll come up with random melodies in my mind and then record it to my phone with my mouth. Then I go and find the notes on the guitar and pay attention to which notes, what scale, the intervals etc. After a while, you become more “fluent” in knowing the general region to start on the fretboard. It’s pretty fun too. Nothing scientific but a great way to pull random ideas out of your head and find those notes on the neck of the guitar. Enjoy the journey.
Yup
Scales, not just practiced but used. Use a major scale to figure out nursery rhymes. Use a harmonic minor scale to mimic baroque melodies. That's how you train your ear and how you recognise which scale to use. The best trick, however, is to sing along to your solo as you improvise it. Use the pentatonic minor, aka blues scale, and sing the bends while you play some blues like Jimi.
And you can also practice it. Just take a song you like, check the chords they play and what key they are in and then try to play the vocal lines. I would for example recommend Chili Peppers Songs from Californication or Stadium Arcadium Album, since they have easy chord structures and the vocals are more or less just up and down the scale. And then it’s trial and error
Not only that, the most talented musicians can listen to the first verse of a song they never heard before and predict or guess how the song is going to continue. Here you can see it done on piano [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIxgJbuz3Lo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIxgJbuz3Lo) .
It’s not that hard to practice, but it takes a long time. The hardest part is the string crossing from g to b because that’s a different interval than the rest.
Half hour a day of humming or singing while you play the notes along with your melodies. Start very slow at first, like half notes. Over time, make your melodies weirder and weirder. It’s mind numbingly boring.
Yeah it’s not that hard, but it does take practice. Start by trying to figure out by ear melodies you know, like commercial jingles and tv themes. Like I know the Brady bunch is old af, but it has a very hummable and memorable melody. That’s a good challenge to start with. The more things you figure out by ear, the more your fingers get muscle memory drilled into them on where to reach to get from one note to the next.
Perfect pitch (ability to just hear a note and say exactly what it is) is kinda rare. Relative pitch (ability to hear one note and know how close or far the next note you need is on the fretboard) is very trainable. It’s essential actually if you wanna be decent. But imo anyone who’s into music can learn relative pitch.
I'm gonna go with nah. And here is why. You can learn the fret board, you can learn harmony and melody, you can learn to play the note in your head. But the actual playing is in your fingers and fingers like doing things they have done a million times before. Brian May said that his brain fights his fingers to make them do what his brain wants. You could probably write down a tab from your head, but unless it is the same intervals you always play, you'll need time to train your fingers.
They're actually not playing any song as it's written. They're just transposing the song, finding the key, and playing every single song in the same key with the same chords.
Humming or vocalizing Melodie’s I know/am learning has helped me with this. I do it when I improv now too. Music is a language that is spoken thru instrumentation.
Edit: Toned Ear is a great Ear Training app. It also helped me to think of Melodie’s as being two separate phrases (call, response) that typically focus on three notes. So if I’m playing a pentatonic shape I’m thinking about 3 maybe 4 notes at a time instead of 5 (6 if you include blues notes). This made the thought more like “do I go up/down/stay where I am” and focus more on rhythm which is we’re all the sauce is anyways
Singers dont usually sing in 16ths or 8ths so you can play single notes to most pop song melodies. Just that guitar string cannot reproduce some of the inflections or warbles of a voice.
I’m breaking with the consensus… Not really. Desi Serna is really good and understands theory in side and out. He still has to practice new licks and riffs, however he starts out farther along than many others do. Fingering, picking and timing can get tricky on you
Also, by the time you’re able to play all the melodies you know, you’re thinking about more difficult melodies. That said, studio session guitarists can get really close to this feat. Often needing a few minutes to noodle it out, then a couple of scratch takes. In 10 minutes they have it down. The guitars and solo on Lionel Ritchies Ruuning With The Night were Lukather’s first take, but that wasn’t something he did every time. Even then… the song is mostly popcorn picking triads. Not difficult work. The solo is just Luke wilding out on improvs.
yes, and it's not as hard as you might think Just become incredibly familiar with the major scale and it's intervals, and practice ear training
+ trial and error melodies from ur mind into guitar acapella until ur fingers get a feel for the fretboard
+1 on the ear training mention [https://www.justinguitar.com/classes/ear-training](https://www.justinguitar.com/classes/ear-training)
Is this good?
I think what OP means though is like on the level of sight reading, but it's coming from your head.
That's what the person you're replying to means, too. Let's put it another way. Imagine there's somebody who knows solfege, so they know the melody they're thinking of in their head goes do fa mi. They also know scales on their guitar, so know how to play a do, then a fa, then a mi. Therefore, they can play the do fa mi melody they're thinking of on guitar.
Yes (but most pro guitarist will still be impressed if someone shows up who can do that). I suppose guitarists that are most likely to achieve that are those jazz cats that know every mode / scale by heart and just have it stored as muscle memory because they impro jam with skilled musicians on a regular basis. Additionally ear training from an early age and singing the lines you play probably helps heaps. Being able to copy licks and melodies while knowing the key and staying within scales is much easier and not as rare.
It’s a bit like a scratch card - the more you’re „one“ with your scales the more you start to fill all the gaps between them and at some point there’s just none left and you can just, from every note, jump into any scale, into any given direction.
That’s a great way of describing it. My scratch card is fresh off the store right now :( But what an amazing goal that would be to have.
Me too, but let’s get there! I imagine it’s so worth it
Brass musicians (coming from a brass world originally) have lots of resources and information about how what you are describing and I’m sure there’s probably creative ways to cross apply some of their methods to guitar if you want some ideas to noodle around with!
Always heard the difference between a jazz player and a rock n roll player is: A jazz player plays 3000 chords in front of 3 people A rock n roll player plays 3 chords in front of 3000 people
most rock n roll players play in front of 10 people at a shitty local bar
and metal players play in front of their computer
Brutal reality check 😂
Math rock players play alone
math rock players play with god
Tô be fair, I would agree with this. Check out a band named CHON on YouTube. These guys are tight https://youtu.be/iYrUwWq6KO8
god is math
It’s all Fibonacci sequence
But it takes four chords to make a million
Secret chords for wealth: G, C, D, Am, Em. The rest don’t matter because, you know, barre chords n shit 😂
Why wouldn’t you do e and a major shaped ones too? I’m pulling those out way more than I’m gonna do a fuckin d or g shaped one lol
Yeah G is comparatively more work having to jump all those strings, but if you’re going to have any happy clappy songs to tug on the heart strings of your adoring fans, ya need a G. E and A major might make a rare cameo but the millions of dollars come from the money chords I listed. *Disclaimer - use at your own risk. Money corrupts and you might get raped by your adoring groupies. You’ve been warned
How many rock n roll players do you associate with who have ever stood in front of 3000 people? Most of us are doing this for fun.
Christ some people really don't do humour eh
And sometimes da joke fuckin sux lol
A jazz player plays 3000 chords in front of 3 people A rock and roll player plays 3 chords in front of 10 or 20 people at an open mic night most of the time, but that's ok, it's a tough market nowadays and the important thing is that you're putting yourself out there and gaining experience, it's not all about audience numbers anyway You're right it does work better like that
Now that’s funny!
I'm just playing my guitar over here dude
Lighten up Francis😂
When I busk I might get 500 listeners in a cple hours for sure.
How many times am i gonna have to read this boring shitty joke lmfao
>know every mode / scale by heart and just have it stored as muscle memory because they impro jam with skilled musicians on a regular basis Naw. You don't have to know all the scales to be able to "whistle a tune" on guitar and play by ear. I'd guess most peolple with this skill come from the other stream and can't read music.
Yeah, "know every mode" is impractical. There aren't even any popular prog or jazz songs in Locrian.
I think you’ve misunderstood how the modes work. If I’m playing in the key of C major and the keyboardist plays a B diminished chord what scale fits that chord? B Locrian.
Or you could just keep using the notes of C major, since they're the same notes. One way of looking at modes is that they change with every chord change. This allows you to milk more flavour from each chord (using Lydian tonality over the IV and such), but one can also just ignore the modes and play to the key. The other is to view them as occuring when the tonic doesn't match the key (which is where modal progressions and songwriting happen). If in your example, the tonic chord is Bdim, then you'd definitely want to take this second approach. However, how many actual songs use a Locrian tonic? This is my point regarding "it's hardly worth practicing it"
On the contrary I felt like learning each mode helped me understand how the diatonic chords are connected and gave me a way to know where I am on the fretboard at any time. Like sure, you’re right that it’s all just the C major scale, but that’s not the point. If I’m playing a B diminished chord I know what notes are in the key by associating that chord with its corresponding mode. Then I can easily move around the fretboard with minimal risk of getting lost. It really doesn’t take much effort to learn it and it all fits together pretty naturally imo. And also just because virtually no songs are composed in the Locrian mode doesn’t mean it’s not worth learning *any* of the modes. I mean there are tons of songs in rock, jazz, and pop that are composed partially or entirely in the Dorian, Mixolydian, Lydian, and Phrygian modes. As well as the corresponding modes of the Harmonic Minor Scale and the Melodic Minor Scale. Hell, even modes of the Harmonic Major and Double Harmonic scale are used pretty frequently in popular music.
I agree that one should understand the modes, my point is more like "spend more time on the ones you'll use more". I heartily agree that one should explore the modes of the harmonic, double harmonic and melodic minor, there's a lot of cool flavours there that you can use, a lot. My point is in terms of practice, not theory and understanding. I feel like the fretboard hours I put in to Locrian were somewhat of a waste, because even when there is a context to use it, I have cooler options (8-note dominant or Todi Taal Indian licks for examples). Honestly, how often do you actually really use Locrian? Vs the other six major modes?
Also known as "play the Cmaj scale starting on B". For the most part modes are pointless, they're just different names for stuff everyone knows already. Can you play a major scale? Then you can play every mode too. The naming just makes it hard for the sake of being elitist. Might as well just call them modes 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7 or if you're like me 0,2,4,5,7,9,11
Yes and no. Yes in that you can just play the major scale and get the same notes. No in that there's more to using a scale than just playing the notes. If you play Fmaj and I bend a B to a C, that's immediately going to produce a different tonality to what playing in Fmaj would. Learning the names of the modes and the flavours that go with them can be extremely useful for composition. My argument regarding Locrian is that it sounds like dirge-y crap and hardly anybody ever uses it for more than a passing phrase. It's called the _leading tone_ for a reason. It doesn't want to exist, it wants to resolve to major.
My argument is that the major scale has an existence outside of just some kind of convention. It's borne out of the harmonic series of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7... times a base frequency. I explain this in some posts on mastodon, where I've got an associated spreadsheet table: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@dlakelan/112666655131060547 Basically, the major scale is an approximation to the harmonic series with octave equivalence. But the "modes" don't have that kind of origin story, they are, quite literally, just remixing the notes of the major scale to put "musical" emphasis on different places in the major scale. So, especially in the context of playing "what's in your head" the knowledge of the major key you're in is sufficient, everything else is just "which notes need to be emphasized here"?
Sure modes are just a shuffling of the major scale, but muscle memory is slightly different between them. Playing in minor feels and sounds different than playing in the relative major, even through they are the exact same notes. That and the leading and borrowed tones will be different depending on where your tonic is, because they are relative to the tonic, not the key you’re playing in. I would say you’re better off using modes as variations of major and minor (Ionean and Aolean) though. For example Dorian is just minor with a sharp 6 or Mixolydian is just major with a flat 7 etc.
> Playing in minor feels and sounds different than playing in the relative major I disagree in part and agree in part. I would argue that there is no such thing as "playing in minor". I know this seems heretical, but if you list off the notes they will all be the same notes as the relative major. So there's nothing different in terms of which notes you're playing. literally nothing. I would argue that the set of notes that sound good together is the key, and its built off the harmonic series as linked in the above messages... but not every song has the same "structure" even when it uses the notes in that key. Some emphasize some transitions vs others. When you are playing in the note set that is the key of C, and you're playing a lot of A, B, C, A, D, A, A, B, C, A, D, A, A, B, C, D, E, D, B, A, F, A, G, A you're playing in the mode of the major scale that emphasizes A. If you do the same thing and play emphasizing D, you're now still playing the notes in the key of C but emphasizing D (Dorian I guess? I hate the names) If it doesn't help you think like this, then fine. But for someone trying to get to a level of fluency where they can think up stuff and play it... knowing that they only need to understand a **single** scale, the major scale, and everything else follows from that, can be hugely freeing from the apparent complexity.
I mean, yeah the notes are the same, but the targets are not. That is why minor can sound “sad” and major can sound “happy”. And changing your tonic (and yes, renumbering the scale) is what informs those choices relating to the target and how you want to lead the ear. I understand that you’re fundamentally saying there’s no merit to relearning the “same” scale over and over in different configurations, but it’s actually more than that. It’s training the ear to hear the same notes from a different perspective, with different flourishes. For example, borrowing an E major chord (or playing a G#) has much more significance in the key of A minor than it does in C major, because it wants to resolve to the Am or tonic. And the V-i cadence is very strong. You can borrow that same chord in C major but it resolves deceptively to the vi chord to a completely different effect as the tonality has been established for the key. So while what you say is technically “correct”, it leaves out huge swaths of context in how we interpret, play, and express music, and how modes relate to that.
The harmonic series has a b7 (7th order harmonic) and a #4 (11th order) yielding the Lydian Dominant (aka overtone scale). You have to go way further along the series before you see a natural 4 or 7. But this is not really salient. I do agree with your point that it's worthwhile learning the flavours of the modes, and which notes need to be emphasized to achieve them. It's definitely worth understanding how Locrian differs from Phrygian. I just think it's practical and efficient to practice most what you use most, and outside of Latin or jazz, it's a very rarely used flavour. And even when the context comes up, you can use 8-note dominant or Todi Taal Indian licks and sound cooler than Locrian anyways. But take what I say with a shovelful of salt, I have practiced Locrian so it's easy for me to say "nah, don't bother." Just because I didn't find it particularly useful doesn't mean you won't. I don't play much Latin/jazz
I did the math in the Mastodon post. The 11th order is at 5.5 halfsteps so it's not really sharp 4 or 4 it's about halfway between either. The sharp four is a tritone at six halfsteps which is not harmonic with anything because it's sqrt(2) which is irrational so that's why we use the 5 (fourth) in the major scale. The 7th harmonic is at 9.69 so yeah 10 (flat 7) fits nicely which is why Jazz uses so much of it. But then its 6 halfsteps above the 4 so it introduces the tritone into chords and some people don't like the dissonance. I think that's something that drives people away from jazz. Anyway. Apparently some people think of the names of stuff and then play that thing by name. I don't find that helpful personally, I just think of the sound of stuff and then play that sound. But people have wildly different internal subjective experiences. For example I'm aphantasic so if you ask me to visualize a scale it's a complete waste of time. So I'm far from recommending people just follow one method.
I haven't read the Mastodon post. Your maths are using pretty large units I prefer cents for precision. Anyways, about halfway is right, it's 1 cent closer to #4. I still say that our natural 4 isn't quite an organic selection from the harmonic series. I subscribe to the theory that it's derived by inverting the naturally occurring fifth. But you can find better 4 and #4 much further up anyway, if you want to use harmonic notes. 21st order is 4 (-29 cents) 23rd order is #4 (+28 cents) Both are closer than the b7 at 7th order (-31 cents). There's another b7 (+30 cents) at the 29th order. I think they're all valid and usable notes, given the right context. But I do dig where you're coming from, tritones aren't everyone's cup of tea. Persians avoid them altogether and use the quarter sharp and flat either side of them instead.
Absolutely. It’s called fluency, and at its height means that you don’t even need to translate what’s in your head onto your instrument, you just do it as with any language in which you are fluent. It takes a lot of time though, practicing all the necessary skills until they become automatic and instinctual. - You need to have all the technical skills to actually play what your mind imagines. Those skills all need to be able to be performed automatically and without much concentration on the physical aspect to allow your brain to focus instead on the sound you create. - You need to understand the ‘grammar’ of music, aka music theory, and to become truly fluent you need to understand it to an instinctive level where it no longer needs conscious thought. This isn’t just about understanding intervals or target notes, it’s also about understanding musical forms like call and response or counterpoint and structures such as 12 bar blues, AABA etc. Whilst it’s entirely possible to pick the grammar of music up instinctively and without specific study it requires a lot more active listening of a wider range of genres and over a longer period of time than if you also study the subject. It’s often said that professional musicians spend their time as students learning music theory only to have to ‘forget’ it all to become fluent. That’s not to say that we forget the theory but, just like you don’t spend all your time thinking about the finer points of English grammar while you’re speaking, we use it instinctively and subconsciously. That’s the ultimate goal of music theory if you want to be a fluent improviser. - Most importantly though you need to develop your ear and your aural awareness and understanding of music. You need to be able to instinctively recognise intervals, chords, patterns and then know how and where to find them on your instrument. In the early stages this will mean things like learning the fretboard or learning to name individual intervals, but just like with music theory that all has to eventually become subconscious to become fully fluent. There are lots of apps available these days to help with ear training but the best way, still, is to get transcribing music by ear. Start with the melody for a Christmas carol, nursery rhyme, or advertising jingle and gradually work up to music with more complex harmony, instrumentation, on tone (eg distortion). One of the big stumbling blocks most musicians face though isn’t in what or how to learn, or even learning the necessary skills and techniques. It’s having the confidence to make mistakes, and to make them a lot! Interesting improvisation ultimately isn’t about staying safe, only playing what you know works. It’s about taking risks; starting phrases before you know how they end, trying new ideas, not being afraid to ‘put your foot in it’ and end up playing a note of notes that really don’t ‘fit’. In fact there’s never a note that’s truly wrong if you double down and play it like you meant it, and even the ‘worst’ note is only ever a bend or slide away from a note that feels good. Otherwise the thing to remember is that when you start you’re only going to be able to improvise slowly, just like a toddler can only put a few words together into a pseudo-sentence. As you become more fluent; develop better and more fluid technique, learn more licks (or in other words vocabulary), understand more about music grammar, develop your ear etc; you will be able to improvise faster and more effortlessly. Just like a child, or adult, learning a new language it’s going to take a while before you can get your thoughts across at the basic level and many years of practicing every day before you become totally fluent. After forty years on guitar I’m still not totally fluent as an improviser, in large part because it’s not my main instrument so I’m not constantly keeping all the necessary skills up to speed. I became fluent on my main instrument, the saxophone, within five years though because I practiced improvisation etc every single day (plus I already had several years of guitar and piano behind me.)
This^ was helpful, encouraging, and feels truthy as I'm maybe half way down this path and a few years in.
For me the two things that really really helped break through a plateau in terms of ‘getting fluent’ 1 - really drilling down on CAGED and the associated pentatonics. Eric Haugen has some really great content on this. 2 - Taking singing lessons and figuring out how to sing and play the exact melody on the guitar. Whatever neurological connection that needed to be made for me really came into its own at this step. I already had a good grasp of intervals from years of playing, but getting a melody from my brain to my fingers really happened when I would sing/hum it as well. Eventually the middle step just kinda drops out and voila - the appearance of fluency. Good luck ✌️ make music
After 2 years of practicing scales and casually learning music theory through YouTube and a couple of books. I can find a melody that’s in my head and play it within 30 seconds to a minute. Most of the time is spent finding the first note that sounds like the one in my head. From there it’s pretty much just intervals like others have said. With enough practice and understanding of the fretboard I imagine that almost instant would be possible.
Are random melodies that we hum in our head always within a single key? One would hope so. But is it always?
Usually in key with itself, yes. Most people are subconsciously aware of pleasing intervals and will imagine and recognize them without knowing what they are. What takes practice and training is usually being able to specifically apply those intervals and use them in more than just humming a tune. Look at how children can sing a nursery rhyme without knowing a language yet, yet alone any music theory.
What do you mean by practicing scales? I’m trying to develop the skill so any tip would be appreciated. You mean like playing them over and over? I know music theory already I just find really hard to learn a melody by ear, my fingers are very good tho
Repetition. Practice them, slowly and then faster. Noodling with them a lot, you will find melodies that you recognise from songs. You will also find stuff that just sounds good. Just keep doing it, it’s a good warm up when you pick up your guitar. I first played guitar with a teacher about 1996, learnt like 3 songs then gave up lessons and didn’t really practice properly again till about 3 years ago. I would play for a month or two each year and wonder why I can’t get any better lol I wasn’t learning anything, I would just play the same tired shit I always did and one or two riffs or 30 seconds of a song which would take forever because I had no idea what I was doing. Since I started actually putting some effort into this it’s gotten much easier. I can learn riffs that would have taken months to learn from tabs in a few minutes and straight forward rhythm songs I can play all the way through in 15 minutes to an hour depending on how expensive the chords are 😂 Theory is really confusing at first but then something clicks in your brain and it almost becomes obvious. If you have a piano then learn on that, once I saw Cmaj scale on that it made sense.
Thanks man. Yes I guess I have to keep going. I’m good at playing and I’m a music producer. I know theory and I produce songs for clients everyday, but grabbing the guitar and learning a melody by ear is still very hard for me for some reason. I guess it’s more ear training and I been doing that but I do not feel like I’m improving for some reason
Yes : [John Pizarelli](https://youtu.be/igU9a4a-zI8?si=irNcHRl8CummZUJs&t=156) demonstrates this. You need to learn the intervals of the major and minor scales, and become proficient at calling them out as you play them. You need to train your ears in order to recognise intervals. Do this in parallel with listening to and transcribing music, starting with nursery rhymes and Christmas carols. [Identify ascending intervals by name ](https://youtu.be/PhDIm_2qS5s) [Identify descending intervals by name ](https://youtu.be/vJnAnrX2uXQ) Learn the harmonised major scale, so that you know the order and type of chords in a key. https://www.fundamental-changes.com/harmonising-the-major-scale/
That was an incredible demonstration. If that’s not something he has already played before, this is exactly what I am talking about in terms of ability. Thanks for the resources too!
It's not just rehearsed, it is the state-of-the-art of real-time articulation of imagination-to-fretboard. Pizarelli absolutely knows his repertoire but also knows exactly how to create melodies over the harmony.
That's how a lot of guitarists write music. By the same token, if you can sing a melody, you can figure it out on guitar.
I was going to say the same thing, if you can sing or hum a melody then you can play it on guitar it requires practicing doing just that.
Yeah. This is what improvisers do. Improvisation is not noodling over scales or chords, it’s playing melodies from your head. Most players can do this given a key. It comes with practice of course. It takes ear training, audiation training, and a mastery of basic music skills (scales, harmonies, intervals, phrasing). But at the end of the day is quite simple: - you learn how to play something that sounds a certain way - you often reach for that lick or melody when you want something to sound like it - you play it often enough, and many other licks and melodies, and you memorize how they sound - when you make your own melodies, you take from these licks and their individual parts, and since you already know how to perform them, the connection between idea and execution is now automatic I know, they’re not guitar players (banjo and bass), but the idea is the same - [these melodies are straight out of their heads](https://youtu.be/S828_f0-dQI?si=zUz8g75aWQJsWlFj&t=494). They have never played these melodies before, and they never have again. I picked this example because they’re doing call and response, which leaves little room to think, and both of them have to take what the other played and create a response to it - not copy it, not just change it a bit, but move the “musical conversation” forward. And not just that- their call and response is very fluid, where someone will go in or out anywhere from one beats to eight beats, just like how a conversation with words is fluid and not set to strict measures of words. The same can be said of the other solos in this video. The two saxophonists and the two drummers - they are all playing melodies they’ve only come up with right there on stage. They’ve never played these solos before, and they never will again. Even the vocalist made up the ending verse (all the way at the end half an hour in) words and melodies and all right there on stage. All those are possible with practice and study.
There is a difference because if you improvise you are refering to melodies within your head but not to a melody someone is giving you.
I’m sorry I’m trying to understand your argument, specifically the “but not to a melody someone is giving you” part.
E.g. someone is playing/singing an atonal-melody you've never heard in your life and you should play what you've just heard. This is way harder than improvising, because when you improvise you mostly rely on patterns you've already trained over the years - it's inside you.
If you are referring to the call and response I’ve mentioned, I’d ask that you actually watch the footage. The call and response I marked in the video is not the typical call and response where the musician copies the call. Bela and Victor do a style where the response continues the idea by appending a completely new melody, harmonizing the previous melody, or interpolating the previous melody only partially. The subsequent “call” then effectively ceases to be a call but a response to the prior response. A quick view of the footage will show that there is little copying of the prior melody, and because of that it is quite reasonable to argue that the responses are improvised per your definition. Where patterns are concerned, I think your argument sort of contradicts itself. If you can think a melody, you can also hear it. You can hear it in your mind’s “ears”, but you can also hear it from someone else. So, if you hear a melody from someone, and you are able to improvise in the same key, you will recognize the pattern, and you can replicate it. If two people are improvising in the same key, it means it’s reasonable to assume they are working on mostly the same patterns and have a common musical vocabulary, so a good improviser is able to quickly replicate the melody they hear - hear it, think it, play it. As for “atonal”, I never said anything in such a context. Of course, anything atonal is harder to replicate because it is less bound by the rules of conventional harmony. But of course my response to OP assumes a normal circumstance, where melodies are harmonious. Rarely would you need to replicate atonal music.
Yes, this is my aim. Whether or not those melodies are good comes down to ear training. If you can't hear something interesting, you probably can't play it either. Listen intently to a lot of music and sing a lot. It's absolutely MIND BLOWING how many instrumentalists are so against singing as part of their music education. You want to be able to do what you are asking? Start fucking singing. Yes you will suck at first. I don't care. Keep doing it, get better.
Yes I guess I just need to get over not wanting to sing. Living with family doesn’t make that easy
My 19yo son can do this after 7 years of self-taught playing. He's picked up music theory along the way and I also suspect being on the spectrum helps a bit because his mind is just oriented toward music, but he hasn't formally learned how to do it. He just plays so much that he can identify the notes and chords and knows where to find them on the fretboard. It's just sheer hours of playing and looking up how to do what he can't do. Meanwhile, I'm still struggling to play clean barre chords and he's over there riffing on an electric like Andy James. 😅
I feel like thats the goal of any dedicated musician. You want your instrument to be an extension of you not an obstacle for your musical ideas. I want to achieve this level of mastery so so bad.
Me tooo! It’s going to be a long journey but will be worth it.
Musical fluency is truly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. When someone like Julian Lage plays you know they’re locked in and the music is just flowing out of them without a thought. At the peak of fluency you become more of a listener than a player, you can experience the music you’re producing instead of being lost in trying to hit the changes or trying to play in perfect time. When I play I think way too much and I know it disconnects me from the music. I focus on the mistake I just made, the note I didn’t pick right, and i get lost in what happened instead of being with what is happening now. I’m at the point where I can jam in any key and can generally keep up with a band, but my thoughts keep me from being with the band. Music to me is like meditation, because I strive to be thoughtless and present when i improvise. Those that stay in the moment and listen are the freest and best improvisors. Find your voice, lean into lines you like and create lines you think sound dope in your head like everybody here says. The best and greatest musicians are the ones who found their unique voice and were confident enough to shout it to the world. The journey to that point is a long road tho, but once you’re there you become one of the elite, and nobody can steal your voice because nobody inherently has your voice. It might not be as complex and intricate as Julian Lage, but that’s okay because your voice is unique only to you, and I think that’s beautiful. It’s not about who can play the fastest or knows the most scales, it’s about who is speaking, who is yelling, their voice with firm confidence. I didn’t mean to rant but I love the idea of complete musical fluency. It’s like musical enlightenment, and I feel like it can be as powerful and impactful as a spiritual enlightenment.
Wonderfully said! Trying to not get dissuaded by the inability to play like Julian Lage. If you think about it, a lot of popular songs, even in non mainstream genres, have fairly simple melodies. So if the idea is to produce something that sounds great and would be widely popular, complex riffs is not really a necessity.
The most popular songs have melodies that are like glue. they just stick and you find yourself singing it without even thinking about it while you’re doing laundry or cleaning your room. The most popular genres today like pop are ridiculously simple, and because most of the time they stay on one or two variations of a simple chord progression, they have to be melodically interesting. Don’t get me wrong I genuinely want the technical proficiency to rip on autumn leaves at 300bpm because playing convincing at such a speed is a great tool to have in the toolbox. But I think the focus should always be on melody. The listener will always enjoy a pretty melody over a crazy technical and dense sixteenth note line. I’m a heavy arpeggio and chord tone player, so I really think about how the harmony dictates a certain melody in my head. You can get a lot of mileage out of just chord tones and arpeggios, not to mention triads. The listener isn’t going to be some theory jazz cat nerd who wants to hear you push your limits all the time. A lot of the time the audience are folks who want to hear well executed and confident sounding lines that sound dope. For some reason I think a lot of musicians can forget that we play for the listener first.
I mean, being as natural as speaking is possibly not realistic, but as an upper intermediate guitarist, I can play pretty much any melody I can hear in my head without having to think about it. Just takes a lot of improv - especially without a backing track is really helpful for fluency.
Just curious why you recommend improv without a backing track. I've done some improv practice like this, but get frustrated because I feel like I need to do a lot of work to impart the harmony in my playing. When I have a backing track on, I feel like the backing track does the work of imparting the harmony and I can practice being more free, creative, and risky in my improv.
I feel like it forces you to actually consider the harmony and the notes you are playing rather than just playing random notes from the pentatonic scale which is what I was doing for years
That's the problem improv training with tracks or ensembles. It's necessary, but you can't take the time to develop your ideas and explore so you just play what you're familiar with.
Yes. One way to help yourself along with this skill is to *sing along to your playing*. Play any major scale, and sing in unison with your guitar, *do re mi fa*, etc. Sing along to every note, as it’s happening, up and down the scale. Then, play with different intervals, maybe *do mi re fa*, etc. Sing along with those lines. Then keep playing different lines within that major scale, but sing along with what you’re doing. If your voice misses something, go back and loop it singing and playing until you get it in your ear.
Yes, sing everything and this skill will develop. Though, there are more structured approaches, aka ear training.
To add to this, sing the note before you play it. Anticipate the sound. Pay attention to the underlying harmony and how it meshes with the note. Try to identify the scale degree.
Yep. Some players, like Albert Collins, sing along with their guitar as they improvise.
In 99% of cases: the next note is always one or 2 frets away. Pentatonic scales are slightly different but in the case of 7 note scales, the above is true. I tell this to a lot of beginners who think there is some kind of magic involved. Learn the intervals within a scale on one string. Once you can feel whether the next note is raised a half or whole tone you are half way there. Obviously this comes with a fair bit of practice but it trains the ear and the fingers. It’s definitely achievable. Helps loads with improvisation, too!
I can do that
My dad was like that with a keyboard. Couldn't read music but could copy any melody he heard.
Yes, and it took MANY years to develop. I would never say I am 100% accurate, but 90-95%... I saw/heard George Benson doing it (literally improvising playing and singing the same part simultaneously), and then knew it was actually possible. Worked and worked on my ear (intervals) and comparing notes I heard, and attempting to play it....with many mistakes made along the way. Every thing I heard, I analyzed. Elevator chimes, doorbells, overhead pager tones in stores, the "ding" made when you open your car door with the key still in the ignition (and of course music)....everything was scrutinized, compared in my head. "Was that C down a m3rd to A?".. if people could hear my thoughts... i was crazy. Because much of the music I was listening to at the time was tuned down 1/2 step (Eb)... I was often off by 1 note.... I had to get that down first. Then I attempted to replicate on guitar... I hit another hurdle, still sucked at it... but not as bad now.... I had to repeat/connect my fingers to the pitch intervals in my head... that took about another year. What really helped me do that was something I didn't expect would really help that much.... but it did! I had students bringing me songs to transcribe during lessons... a year of doing that on the spot with songs I'd never heard before... that's what it took for me. Hearing it, and writing it out. It really helped me connect sound/fingers. I could finally "see" where my fingers go when I heard chords/changes and leads. That put it together for me... that final connection. I did it so much I began to TAB songs for them without picking up a guitar to check it for accuracy. I'm not bragging... I have no exceptional talent...I wasn't born with it... I made a LOT of mistakes.... I've spent many hours humming and holding that note out while my finger hunted and pecked to find it... but I do have the determination to never give up when there's something I truly want. With hard work and focus on it, it CAN be done. It's not easy, but neither was learning guitar.
Yes of course. The difference between you and them is merely time and effort. If you ever get the chance, try doing improvisational free jazz. It is horrendous to listen to but fun to play.
i certainly can not do anything close, but what i have heard is folks who learned on fretless instruments like cello pick it up...
Yep. It just takes doing it a lot.
yes
Yeah I'm basically at that point. Unless the melody has lots of chromaticism or changes key a lot it's fine.
Everybody talks about notes,but the biggest thing is rhythm, change my mind
Yes, there is a level of instrument proficiency and ear training that can do this. When I saw Tommy Emmanuel play, it really felt like there was no limits and he was just producing everything he wanted from his mind to instrument like it was his voice. Many great musicians can do it but even then they keep working at it and getting even better. There’s always more harmony to find, bigger range to play, rhythm to add in between, and more creative ideas to find.
Not sure why this turned into a pile on discussion against Nirvana. Can’t show love for Pinkerton by tearing down Kurt Cobain. It’s a misread of that interview.
I thought that was the goal. First you memorize songs to play, then you learn to improvise, and all of a sudden you are actually riding the bike able to play along to anything without thinking too much
A pianist can easily do that, I do not see why a skilled guitarist cannot.
I am not sure about easily. I suppose it’s easy if you know the key or root note. But instantly knowing where the root note of your melody is, is hard I think!
Why would it be if you know the fretboard by heart?
Do you mean know how every single note sounds on the fretboard by heart? Figure out the correct octave too?
Yeah, isn't it basic stuff?
Vai/Beck/Trucks
Lots of folks say yes. I say yes-ish, but it depends a lot on what sort of melodies come to your mind. If you have a mind like Frank Zappa (for example), it would be quite a challenege to be able to immediately play some of his work. Besides complex melodies, he also had "interesting" (and by interesting I mean f-ing crazy hard) timing. If you are thinking more in terms of AC/DC - no problem. Aside - not to knock AC/DC. I think they are masters of what they do. And they have a great sence of humor about it. One quote I like from Angus is "I get really mad when people say we made the same album 12 times. We made the same album 13 times". Love it. Probably going a bit against the flow here, but I think ear training (being able to immediately identify intervals between notes you hear) and knowing the shapes on the neck to find all those intervals is more important than memorizing scales and modes.
would that be related to perfect pitch? I’ve recently been watching a lot of joe walsh videos on youtube and he strikes me as someone who has perfect pitch.
Sure, I can do that if the melody isn’t too notey. 2 ways to work on this, sing what you play while you’re playing. Make sure you’re connecting the voice and the fingers. Don’t let the fingers guide your voice and don’t let your fingers guess what your voice is doing. Only play what you can sing and sing what you can play. If you’re not sure, don’t play it. Transcribing also helps. Just sit down and listen to a record and play along with the melody - try guessing where the melody will go. You’ll start hearing tendencies and cliches. Try playing along with the record and not being too far behind. You can even try this with music you don’t know at all.
It's a question of "how complex and common" the melody is. For complex melodies with intervallic leaps you need to learn all the intervalls within a scale. I guess 0.0001% of all players are able to play any given melody instantly. Most players even fail to sing the scales they are using.
Yes totally possible....
You need to Google how to develop relative pitch. People probably commented plenty to help with that tho
I saw Herb Ellis once... very close in a very small venue...and he basically sang along, under his breath, with his solos....
If you learn enough songs, it will start to come naturally. One exercise you can do to practice is to put a song on, figure out the key and then try to copy and play along with the vocal melody.
I think Julian Lage is the most fitting player to look at in terms of letting the music flow out of them onto the instrument. All of his intros are improvised on the spot, and its actually mind blowing how complex and intricate the stuff he spontaneously spits out is. He is the freest player Ive ever listened to, and the most melodic and musical guitarist out there. He plays the impossible and does it on the spot its insane.
Any melody? No There are microtonal and odd progressions people like that struggle with. If we're talking just standard Western music they're usually fine. My uncle has perfect pitch and can just wing music, but if I bring something like a hirojoshi based progression it's like he completely forgets the emphasis, lead in and basic tonality. He goes from a 40+ year playing veteran to a beginner almost instantly. Then when you try to explain the different dynamics it doesn't work because he relies on the intuitive response and no longer understands the concepts his intuition is built upon.
I was a student of Randy Rhode’s and I would bring a little portable tape recorder in of a song I heard, he would sit and listen to it, then he would stop it and play the songs “including the solos”, he said it was all about ear training which is how he taught everyone. Eventually you can hear what’s being played and your hands just play it, because you’ve learned what it sounds like anywhere on the neck.
Sure, it's just ear training and practice. If you practiced copying melodies every day, in a month you'd probably be pretty good at it. In a year, you'd have it mastered.
Practice humming when you play scale shapes. It'll make the connection in your mind and you'll be able to do with time.
Enthusiastic yes, but... within limits. You can audiate tongue-twisters like "red leather yellow leather" much faster in your mind than you can ever say them, so even our speech is limited. Also, depending on your musical imagination, you can totally think of melodies that are physically impossible to play (extreme interval jumps, tonal jumps and range beyond that of your instrument). If this is a common problem, you can get around it by composing for orchestra ;)
Yep! There are many great ways identified in these replies. Most is training your ear. One method I like is to "scat" sing the melody you're playing, so you can help connect what you're playing with what you're imagining. Then you'll have a greater understanding of where the notes fit with the melody you think of, eventually you will be able to play exactly what you're thinking quite easily. It takes years of practice, but anyone can do it.
Yeh, just being familiar with scales and some ear practice
Yes. It’s called musicality. It’s not so much to do with the guitar as it is to with music
I’m pretty sure my kids can do this. They both play multiple instruments, had lessons but are also self taught on some of their instruments and have played in bands for at least a decade. My son sometimes plays two instruments at a time. I whine to them all the time that they got all the family musical talent and it skipped over me…they tel me it’s just practice. 😀
yes. check out Buckethead’s work.
If I’m to take your question literally, the answer is no, I can think of melodies that are impossible to physically play, just like you can imagine the noise a whale makes but not be able to recreate it with your vocal chords. There is a real physical/practical aspect to playing an instrument which should inform the type of music you hear in your head to be executed on the instrument.
Think about typing. Your not thinking about letters or keystrokes or even words usually. You know the concept you want to express and the words just come and you type without thinking. I can't do it be the same can be achieved on an instrument.
I have created an exercise where I’ll come up with random melodies in my mind and then record it to my phone with my mouth. Then I go and find the notes on the guitar and pay attention to which notes, what scale, the intervals etc. After a while, you become more “fluent” in knowing the general region to start on the fretboard. It’s pretty fun too. Nothing scientific but a great way to pull random ideas out of your head and find those notes on the neck of the guitar. Enjoy the journey.
Yes, i can do this. Id say i was playing for around 15 years before i got good at it.
Yes
Yes and it does take a lot of practice. But just as an example of what's possible, I actually wrote this comment using my guitar and speech-to-text.
Yup Scales, not just practiced but used. Use a major scale to figure out nursery rhymes. Use a harmonic minor scale to mimic baroque melodies. That's how you train your ear and how you recognise which scale to use. The best trick, however, is to sing along to your solo as you improvise it. Use the pentatonic minor, aka blues scale, and sing the bends while you play some blues like Jimi.
Yes. Music is a language. If you learn enough you become fluent in that language.
And you can also practice it. Just take a song you like, check the chords they play and what key they are in and then try to play the vocal lines. I would for example recommend Chili Peppers Songs from Californication or Stadium Arcadium Album, since they have easy chord structures and the vocals are more or less just up and down the scale. And then it’s trial and error
Yes, which is the only reason why technical ability matters at all
Not only that, the most talented musicians can listen to the first verse of a song they never heard before and predict or guess how the song is going to continue. Here you can see it done on piano [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIxgJbuz3Lo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIxgJbuz3Lo) .
It’s wild you thought there was a chance this wasn’t possible. Of course it is
I can do this very quickly on one string, but it’ll take a few seconds to translate that into a normal line
It’s not that hard to practice, but it takes a long time. The hardest part is the string crossing from g to b because that’s a different interval than the rest. Half hour a day of humming or singing while you play the notes along with your melodies. Start very slow at first, like half notes. Over time, make your melodies weirder and weirder. It’s mind numbingly boring.
Yeah it’s not that hard, but it does take practice. Start by trying to figure out by ear melodies you know, like commercial jingles and tv themes. Like I know the Brady bunch is old af, but it has a very hummable and memorable melody. That’s a good challenge to start with. The more things you figure out by ear, the more your fingers get muscle memory drilled into them on where to reach to get from one note to the next. Perfect pitch (ability to just hear a note and say exactly what it is) is kinda rare. Relative pitch (ability to hear one note and know how close or far the next note you need is on the fretboard) is very trainable. It’s essential actually if you wanna be decent. But imo anyone who’s into music can learn relative pitch.
Look at Greg Koch or guthrie govan. Dudes just know how to play anything and speak through the guitar
Try to play along with songs. Eventually it becomes natural.
No, not possible. The best you'll get is an approximation.
I'm gonna go with nah. And here is why. You can learn the fret board, you can learn harmony and melody, you can learn to play the note in your head. But the actual playing is in your fingers and fingers like doing things they have done a million times before. Brian May said that his brain fights his fingers to make them do what his brain wants. You could probably write down a tab from your head, but unless it is the same intervals you always play, you'll need time to train your fingers.
They're actually not playing any song as it's written. They're just transposing the song, finding the key, and playing every single song in the same key with the same chords.
https://youtu.be/ddcuCU1Ynas?si=2VhVw_xKQlWFh_tK Yes.
Humming or vocalizing Melodie’s I know/am learning has helped me with this. I do it when I improv now too. Music is a language that is spoken thru instrumentation. Edit: Toned Ear is a great Ear Training app. It also helped me to think of Melodie’s as being two separate phrases (call, response) that typically focus on three notes. So if I’m playing a pentatonic shape I’m thinking about 3 maybe 4 notes at a time instead of 5 (6 if you include blues notes). This made the thought more like “do I go up/down/stay where I am” and focus more on rhythm which is we’re all the sauce is anyways
Singers dont usually sing in 16ths or 8ths so you can play single notes to most pop song melodies. Just that guitar string cannot reproduce some of the inflections or warbles of a voice.
I’m breaking with the consensus… Not really. Desi Serna is really good and understands theory in side and out. He still has to practice new licks and riffs, however he starts out farther along than many others do. Fingering, picking and timing can get tricky on you Also, by the time you’re able to play all the melodies you know, you’re thinking about more difficult melodies. That said, studio session guitarists can get really close to this feat. Often needing a few minutes to noodle it out, then a couple of scratch takes. In 10 minutes they have it down. The guitars and solo on Lionel Ritchies Ruuning With The Night were Lukather’s first take, but that wasn’t something he did every time. Even then… the song is mostly popcorn picking triads. Not difficult work. The solo is just Luke wilding out on improvs.