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Posted by: Jim Seekford Oct 26 2013, 09:40 PM

I began singing the beginning of this melody walking around my house and before I forgot it, I picked up the old guitar. The bending sequence was pretty hard because my voice can do it so easily.

What's cool to discover is that the melody I sing is in A but almost all of my guitar work is in some kind of minor key and I have a hard time soloing over Major progressions. This is just the beginning of another road to work on but it is a cool one too.

Posted by: Taka Perry Oct 27 2013, 10:03 AM

Nice one man! I too find that if you turn a non-guitar melody into a guitar melody, you can get some interesting sounds and 'voices' going on.

Posted by: Darius Wave Oct 27 2013, 01:22 PM

Nice one Jim! This is exactly what I do when I try to write a song or solo. Just walking around my home and trying to sing before I'll take the guitar Very nice ideas comes directly from the head because it has no technique and fingers shapes limitations

Posted by: Jim Seekford Oct 27 2013, 11:28 PM

Thanks Taka I appreciate you taking a look at my video.




Same to you Darius!

Something else that I found by learning some melodies from my head is the new positions/patterns/tones and working on 1 string longer. Seems the voice can move very quickly note to note and make huge leaps smoothly. You need to use bending or sliding more than changing strings...


How do you guys go about putting a rhythm behind your new lead? Do you focus on the melody in your head and try to find common rhythm patterns and test chords based on the key or does the melody define the chords no matter what? Thanks again for the advice.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 28 2013, 09:58 AM

Hey mate There are two approaches here - I will talk to you about them in a video Stay tuned!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 28 2013, 04:22 PM

Cool idea mate! That's a good way of composing. My best melodies are create when I'm at uncommon places with my guitar or just me with my voice. That's when the great ideas appear to me.

Have you already recorded this idea with backing?

Posted by: Jim Seekford Oct 28 2013, 05:53 PM

Thanks! Not yet next time I sit down ill begin dissection then seeing where I'd like it to go. This is probably a middle section to a song. I'm also going to try sing my way through.

Posted by: Jim Seekford Oct 29 2013, 06:47 AM

https://soundcloud.com/jim-seekford-music/playing-inside-the-chords

Here is little track that I made in E major. I used my voice to walk me through the whole thing including the chords. The ending has a couple notes Id change but mostly it's there. Let me know what you think about this.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 29 2013, 06:57 PM

Hey buddy, check this out:

Posted by: Nava Oct 29 2013, 07:05 PM

Great tune Jim!
Enjoyed it a lot
One interesting way to approach a song/melody. I have also try to do the same but not change the song to guitar. I keep the melody and find chords to play it the way I want in my head.
But I will try this for sure Well done!

Posted by: Jim Seekford Oct 29 2013, 09:23 PM

Hey Cosmin thanks for the video, I will explore and set it to metronome. The sound cloud link above is something I created doing just that except I made the chords first. To be very honest with myself I never learned to think about the chords I solo over, so my playing is very hit or miss.


Nava! Thanks man I am glad you liked it. Are you referring the video or soundcloud file?

For years I have been saving vocal melodies with my iPhone but never learned them, I'm gonna dig them up for sure. I've also been doing a couple new things. 1 before picking up the guitar ill sing a note and try and guess where it is. 2 ill sing anything before playing for new ideas!

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 30 2013, 06:49 PM

Hehe Glad you liked the ideas mate I would be more than happy to help you with learning a thing or two in respect to the relationship between notes and chords - it's just like in life: some get along really well and others don't

Posted by: Jim Seekford Oct 31 2013, 01:31 AM

Certainly! I'm going to figure out what makes sense to me then try and incorporate it into an original song. I've been working on many different things on gmc and I'd like to make something as a starting line of my best. In a year id want a comparison, right?

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 31 2013, 09:45 AM

That's an awesome idea man Why not start like this - make a list of all your current recordings and make a dedicated thread in the Practice room, in which we can all monitor your progress. Once a month, post your recordings there - do it religiously so that on October 31st 2014, you can look back on things and see where you started from and where you will be then.

There's a GMC family member here - thefireball, which did this on a span of 3 years - look him up and ask him to send you the video.. it's nothing short of AMAZING