If all melodies always started on the root note of the underlying chord, it would very quickly become very boring and predictable. A similar reason applies to lead guitar solos - starting phrases and licks on the root note will always work but soon become monotonous.
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Thanks for your helpful reply Richard. 
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Iāve been focusing on playing melodies for a few weeks now and Iām now beginning to see how melodies align with the shapes that define the keys in each position.
Don Macleans Song Vincent is a great example. The lyrics āstarry, starry night, paint your palette blue and grey etcā¦.ā form a repetitive pattern that can be easily reproduced in different positions.
In the key of G the verse can be played in a range of positions using the caged system to locate the appropriate pattern.
I guess it highlights how the singer is using the notes within the key to stay in tune, which makes sense to me.
I like the old slow tunes as they suit my current skill level. The Platters āOnly Youā, The Great Pretender ā, and Patsy Cline āCrazyā are great material for melodies, some slides, bends hammer on pull offs can give a great āfeelā to the melody. I may try recording something to see how it sounds.
Happy melodying
Dave
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This lesson was so cool. Iām in the midst of recovering some of my younger day skills and have been working on my cross picking. This lesson has been an epiphany. The melody defines the song in bluegrass, or americana, even where the chord progressions and timing are the same or similar for many different songs. When playing along with a tune, as rhythm or even improvising a bit, it is the melody the defines the sonic space; it determines where certain notes āareā and, just as importantly, where those notes āarenātā. This one lesson has made this old dog learn a totally new trick and has pushed me to be a better cross picker than I was 50 years ago.
The thing thatās so nice about Justin is that he seems to know exactly when to break with the syllabus and throw in a lesson designed to make you āthinkā.
God bless you Justin Sandercoe and all who sail in you. John
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The Horror. The Horror.
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Really struggling with this, āLet It Beā I was sort of nearly there but was a bit all over the place.What I wrote down I kept revising and was not sure off. Hallelujah I found a bit easier, but did not get all the notes .
Any advice on this please?
Hi Adrian @AJSki2fly
This is tricky stuff and for most people this wonāt be ready in a few weeksā¦at the moment I have
Folk Hammer-ons & Flick-offs
this will be in my top bar to revisit after a few years for an hour or so 
ā¦ this entire module is mentioned in the lesson ālet it Beā and I was just working on it (let it be) this morningā¦ since the lesson here is at the end of Module 3 is almost time for you , maybe take a look here?
I hope this helps a little ,because it will not be easy 
Have fun,
Greetings
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Thanks Roger, I was wondering if I was having a personal problem "Let It Beā as it sound so simple 
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Hi, looking at songsterr and also using my ear looks like Justin got the first note for let it be wrong. Looks like it should start on G and repeat for all of āwhen i find myā then goes to A on āselfā.
Justin started on E for āwhen Iā then goes to G on āfindā. Still sounds okay but maybe not correct? I am still new to this so not clear but seems to me it starts on G.
Does this even matter? What are your thoughts. Thanks
I here it as G G G G A, same as you, when listening to this beatles youtube version of the song.
Iām not sure why Justin is stating an an E. Itās possible that he was listening to a different recording of the song.
Does it matter? Yes, no, maybe. Songsterr versions are not always completely accurate. Lots of covers are not quite right. It can still work. There are plenty of videos along the lines of āwhy does no one ever play this riff correctly!!ā
e.g.
Keep working at it and you will get better. Some things are hard to play note for note but a simplified version can still work. Thatās my take.
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I put off the grade 3 transcription lessons until I started grade 4. Now I can focus most of my effort on transcription on the weeks that I do grade 3 consolidation. I noticed that a lot of people had problems with this lesson. My advice is to not to be distracted by all the chord melody playing or embellishments like slides or vibrato that Justin puts into some of his playing in the lesson. I think he is just trying to show what could be done after you transcribe the melody. This is a specialized transcription lesson, so all that is needed for the melody transcription is to transcribe the vocal melody (what is being sung in the song) for these songs, note by note. I mostly focused on finding the notes or sounds in the first four frets. Even though I like fingerstyle, I used the a pick, since you only need to play one note at a time and I am faster with the pick. I also used the suggested first couple of notes that Justin gives and wrote the fret numbers on my blank TAB sheet. I then sing or hum a few notes of the melody (full disclosure, I mostly just listen to the song in my head or imagination), find the next note or two and write out the number(s) on the TAB sheet. Then I play back what I have written out to make sure it sounds correct. It takes time, which is why Justin recommends setting aside at least 30 minutes for a transcribing session. I am setting aside four 30 minute sessions this week for this one lesson. I donāt worry about annotating the rhythm, but at some point I think it would be cool to put into GuitarPro. Since the melody repeats for every verse and chorus of most songs, I only transcribe the first verse and chorus. I donāt worry about the lyrics, just the melody notes. I will admit that this is probably easier for me since I am a singer and who also played a lot of melody parts in my earlier years using old guitar methods that start by teaching you how to play melodies. If you donāt have a lot of experience with this, then this might be a lesson that you try a little and then come back to later, like I did 
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About six months ago I struggled to transcribe chords in another lesson, and basically got nowhere with that. Now, itās the same with melody. For me it seems to be a case of trying interval after interval until one sounds OK, and then finding it is wrong anyway. Each note is a new struggle. I feel that some of these lessons forget how hard this process is for some people, and just jump way too far ahead. Justin shows that he can do it, but doesnāt explain how. It is pretty disheartening to be stuck like this, without knowing what to do.
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@MarkPeters Hi Mark, I have found ear training and working out melodies by ear very challenging too, at the very beginning it seemed quite impossible. Itās already a few years now that I try and I am improving but I tried to find new strategies as recognising the intervals became a bit frustrating. This is what Iām doing at the moment and it seems to work well for me. I take a little tune in the key of C or G, knowing the key and which Major Scale you need is a great shortcut and you immediately know where your good notes are on the fretboard. Then instead of trying to guess the interval I keep on humming the note I want to find out and at the same time I play the Major Scale starting from the first note, which gives the tonality; if youāre in the key of C for example start from C and slowly play each note of the scale and listen carefully until the right note will match with your hummed note. It might not be easy at the beginning holding the note with the humming while going up the scale but then when the sound matches with the right degree of the scale is Yessss!!! You instictevely recognise it! I hope it helps, let me know if you try how it goes.
Iām not sure Justin would suggest or approve of this strategy using the Major Scale but I need to find out my melodies somehow!
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@Silvia80 Silvia, this evening I took your suggestion, and tried to work out the tune of the hymn āJerusalemā, using your humming method. Assuming the scale of C major, I was able to get most of the notes including, surprisingly, the two accidentals on the words āpleasantā and ācloudedā. I did get a couple of notes wrong, but overall I am quite pleased about this. Thank you very much for taking the trouble to help.
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@MarkPeters Uh Iām happy to read this! 
There are days when I canāt focus properly and my ears just refuse the task and identify the notes is difficult and on other days I can find the notes easilyā¦but always a few would not be correct, Iām not able to be that accurate yet! Onlyā¦there are not accidentals in the key of C Maj I think 
ā¦but in music rules are often broken.
Some days will be harder because your ears are tired. Itās best to do ear training early in the day when the mind is fresh. Not that Iām any good at it, I remember Justin saying that somewhere.
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@Silvia80 Exactly, a song in C major would not be expected to have accidentals, so it was good to be able to identify that there are some in this song - this tells me I was listening closely and not just picking out notes prescribed by the key.
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Have you checked the lessons out in this playlist?
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL46BF323DFB881712&si=0DY7mkpM_jZTPEgV
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Thanks for the link. No, I donāt recognise any of those lessons. I may give them a go if I feel like I need more challenges, but for now I prefer to learn new material from tab; it invariably has fewer errors than my own efforts, and is considerably faster.
My various comments on transcription are not cries for help; rather, they are feedback on what I consider to be less useful lessons, simply because:
- the method is unclear
- tab gives better results.
This is the truth. There have been so many days that I was simply too brain tired after work to practice, think about whatever concept I was learning, and thereās no way I could transcribe. I had to put it off until the weekend.
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