Sapore di sale - Chord Melody

Community Recordings Audio-Video Of You Playing
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Variety is the spice of life

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What a beautiful arrangement of a classic song Sylvia. Yes of course with more practise it can be improved on but as I sit here in the Greek sunshine it makes for relaxed holiday listening :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:.
Well done, and as always, lots of smiles. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Hi John, yes this is played in the soundtrack of Sapore di mare, a movie from 1983 which is not by the great Vittorio De Sica but one of the actors is Christian De Sica, his son :slightly_smiling_face:

@Willsie @CD02 @C_McG @twistor59 Thanks for listening and letting me know that you liked it! I much appreciate it :smiling_face:

That might well be my old smartphone poor quality camera :laughing:
Thanks for checking it Richard :smiling_face:

That’s the perfect listening situation :heart_eyes::lobster::sailboat::beach_with_umbrella: Enjoy your holiday Gordon! Btw …you’re always on holiday! Lucky lucky you! :smiling_face: I’m really glad you liked it!

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It’s only a guess, but as I have this, too, sometimes for some pieces (looking at you, Yesterday), it might be also a possibility for you. My fingers often tense up right before a difficult spot in the piece as my brain thinks “Oh, now comes the difficult part” and there goes the flow… :sweat_smile: Playing this part in isolation in practice helps and there is not that much tension in that very moment, but putting it all together again… :melting_face: The only thing helping me with this is time and repetition within the context. That means first, I try playing these spots isolated and then adding a little context, like one or two bars before and after the difficult one. But it’s so slow…

Not sure if this is also something that’s happening to you, but as you are very good at observing yourself, you will figure it out and might get it flowing. But actually, it is sounding sweet already anyhow. :slight_smile:

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Sylvia. I feel it’s my duty to travel and report back to the Community the different types of music/instruments in use in different parts of the world.
I posted this clip a few days ago on my LL, so in case you missed it here it is again. It’s a Greek bouzouki being played at the hotel bbq. Apparently it’s a member of the lute family.

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Your approach to learning new music is inspiring. Love the melody.

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Yes, this is what happens to me as well!

I do this too and it does take time as it also requires to check if the technique is good or it requires improvement, which is often the case for me…in this video for example the main hicup happened because of not having my fingers ready to land where they had too.

Thanks Lisa for sharing your experience :smiling_face:

:grinning_face_with_big_eyes: that’s a very important task Gordon! It is astonishing when you think how many different kinds of instruments exist! Thanks for cheering us up with your videos, I loved the flamenco one :heart_eyes:

Well this is such a masterpiece of the past over here, it’s a melody that soon brings you in a better place. Thanks Jeff, I much appreciate your comment.

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Simply beautiful Silvia. :person_bowing:

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Really nice Sylvia. Sounded so sweet.

I’m embarking on similar path. Really enjoying your work.

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Thanks for your kind words about my work Mike :smiling_face:

What are you working on, if I can ask? I find making the melody sing out clear from the flow of chords extremely satisfying!

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Sure you can ask :blush:. I’m presently really using a few songs as exercises as I attempt to pull off melodic notes while Travis picking.
The songs are Imagine, where it has such an immediately recognizable melody, and Turn The Page by Seger. Babe by Styx is one I’d really love to learn.

I’m learning so much, such as making the melody note stand out by not stepping “above it”. Also the collision of not colliding with it by singing over it.

So perhaps a bit different from your pure chord-melodies I’ve so enjoyed listening to but certainly overlapping techniques.

Are your efforts incorporating Travis Picking techniques (thumb taking responsibility for the rhythmic bass and fingers finding the melody)?
You play smoothly, which is where I need to improve perhaps the most. The muscle memory of the Travis Picking I have down pretty well.

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Hi Mike, thanks for your reply, I like to know about different approaches :smiling_face:

I think, but please take this with a pinch of salt as it’s a student’s thought, that our approaches are different in this way:

  • you start from the Rhythm and try to get the Melody out of it
  • I start from the Melody and try to understand how it works Rhythmically and I invent a few simple Rhythm fingerpicking patterns that can serve my Melody well.

What I feel I need to improve now for that smoothly to be really smooth is my fretting hand technique.

But back to you…even if our approaches are different I have this strategy to share which I’m sure can help you in being smoothier.

  • You need to work out your melody by ear, just a little phrase at a time - go slow and re-work it out many many times until you feel your ear can tell your fingers where to go (do not bother at all about the fingering at this point, just focus on your ear).
  • Once you are aware (and can feel) where your melody is on the fretboard, try to play the melody phrase with the right timing (you know it by listening and tapping to the original recording); tap your foot if you can.
    Working on chuncks or short phrases works great.
  • Once you are aware of (and you can feel) the accurate timing of your melody, well…getting it out of your picking patterns should feel way easier.

This is interesting but I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

No, not at this point…my efforts are ehm :roll_eyes: (cough) just “homemade” and self-taught…but somehow they work :sweat_smile: I know I’ll have to put the effort toward a “Rhythm first” approach, get deeper into Justin’s Folk Fingerstyle patterns (what I actually do is inventing my patterns) and I was also thinking about a couple of Courses from Joe Robinson or Mike Dawes (both awesome guitarists I know from Justin)…I just have to get deeper and understand which one fits best my level and needs.

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Thanks so much for the recommendations. They make a world of sense. Yes, phrases at a time, and slow for sure. A bit at a time goes a long way!

From my extreme limited experience, what I mean here is that you do not want a note in a given bar to be higher than the note or notes you are attempting to emphasize in the bar. The human ear will gravitate to the higher note and perhaps minimize, or wash out, the intended note.

I watched another of your AVs, Can’t Help Falling In Love (fabulous job by the way) and I don’t think our approaches are all that much different.

When I get a better grip on “Imagine” (or one of the other songs I’m toying with), I’ll either post it here, or I’ll send you a private link via “message” but I have a way to go before the song gets to anybody’s ears except me and my dog Roxy (#1 fan) here in my basement.

Keep up the good work. Isn’t it fun to create your own arrangements? !

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Well I’m glad I asked, this is something I never considered but that makes much sense to me, although it’s something I wouldn’t be able to apply straight away at this point of my journey…something I will surely consider when I’ll be able to perform more refined arrangements.

I’ll be very happy to listen to your works once you’re comfortable enough to record and share!

Yes, I just love it :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: In fact I made another one :sweat_smile: I posted it in my LL, but I’ll post it in the AVOYP section as well!

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