krm27

I'm pretty new at songwriting. My method so far is to work out a chord progression / strum pattern / speed that resonates with me, and I try to figure out what the progression evokes emotionally in me that is causing that resonation. It is generally some past or present theme from my life. Sometimes as I play a chord progression and I think "I like that," a certain hook line will enter my head, which gives me a bit of a head start in terms of knowing what the theme of the song is.

So, anyway, once I work out the chords / strum pattern the way I think sounds best, I try to write lyrics that fit the space, and tell a story using the theme I came up with. Once I have the lyrics written, I just sing them over the chord progression and edit them as needed if the spacing or rhyming did not work out quite right (I'm finding out that less is more, generally.)

I was talking to a musician friend yesterday who asked me to play the melody for the latest song I have been working on in this way. I realized I could not play the melody. I can sing it over the chords, but I've never tried to play it on guitar.

I suppose I can figure out the melody by recording myself singing and then figuring out (by trial and error on guitar) what notes I'm singing. But I am usually short on time, and was wondering if there was a faster way, like a program that would listen to what I sing and then spit out the series of notes I just sang. That would be useful.

Thanks,

~Ken

fenderdude06

Use a guitar tuner

gateway01

piano

song, play up until note is found.

or guitar tuner.

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hamza hashmi

using a guitar tuner, though its crude but it does the job. use ap tuner, it gives the octave no youre in.

20Tigers

I think something like Celemony Melodyne, or Autotune might do that.

The best is to figure it out by ear though. If you know the chords you are probably singing one of the notes in the chord so in your trial and error - start there and follow the melody from there.

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ali.guitarkid7

^ What he said.


But also, this is the wrong forum for this. This is only for lyrics.

AngryGoldfish

Moved to correct (I think) forum.

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HotspurJr

Sing with your guitar in your hands. Match the pitches you sing.

If you can't do this quickly, then this is something you really, really need to work on and will play huge dividends to all areas of your playing.