Ears ahead of Fingers

[stanron]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy125

All the hours I put into ear training have paid off. I can name intervals quite accurately. But I'm stumped when it comes to applying my aural skills to the fingerboard. I can quickly play any interval starting with any note on the fifth or sixth string. But trouble comes when I attempt to play a melody, that is, a series of intervals. Where do my fingers go after the first interval? I find myself counting half steps, whole steps, etc., and I end up playing the melody haltingly. It's frustrating because I can hear the intervals and name them in my head, but I can't play them, beyond the first interval, fluidly on the guitar. What's the barrier I gotta break to get there? I hope I've explained my problem clearly.

Single note (or unharmonised) melodies are the best place to start for what you want. There are two skills required. First you have to be able to duplicate the tune in your head. This is a memory skill and will develop with practice. Secondly you have to be able to translate music you hear (in your head or in the real world) into notes on the guitar.

If the ear training you have been doing is identifying the intervals between two given pitches it wont help you with either of the above two skills. What might help, a bit, would be if you re-did the exercises with your guitar in hand and tried to find the notes on your guitar, and having found those two notes, then find one or more chords which contain those notes and maybe find them on other strings as well.

The way I would recommend to learn the skill of linking notes you hear to notes on the guitar is to play a chord on the guitar, think or sing a short bit of melody that fits with the chord (two, three or four notes to start) and then hunt around for those notes in or near the chord you played. When you feel comfortable with that look up some basic 7 note scales (not pentatonic) and see how they help with the strum, hum and play exercise.

[Fuzzy125]

I'm in a different time zone and on my way to work. So don't have time to say much now, but I do want to first thank everyone for their input. It's a relief to hear I'm headed in the right direction; I just need to keep at it and work with my guitar, not away from the guitar. And after rereading all your responses, I think I gotta throw chords into the equation. That may also be a piece of the puzzle I'm missing. Oh, I will work through the Freight Train exercise that Rick has thoughtfully provided when I get home from work tonight. Much obliged.

And yes, I gotta get around to downloading the functional ear trainer! But if I work with that, should I skip harmonic interval training, which I was planning on doing next?

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy125

…And after rereading all your responses, I think I gotta throw chords into the equation. That may also be a piece of the puzzle I'm missing

Hi Fuzzy...
I teach guitar, and some students apply melody over chords first, being able to ascertain and identify the melody-notes/intervals while playing the progression.

Others need to pick out the melody first and then overlay them with the chords.

Either way will get you there, and both ways require you to identify and know the melody notes.