Lesson #063, Playing the Melody and Improvising with Rolls Around the Melody I

Hi Everyone,

We are going to work a little bit on the song Bile em Cabbage down. We are going to work on the melody of this song and start to put the rolls and left hand techniques into the chorus of this song.

Let me say first that the chorus in this version that I played and sang was the first thing I sang.........bile em cabbage down...make them hoecakes brown... the only song I like to sing... is bile em cabbage down. That was the chorus. Most bluegrass songs do not start with the chorus, but in this version of this folk song, the chorus comes first and thats what we are going to be working with for right now, because the chorus fits perfectly into the eight measures we have been working on, and also will fit very nicely over the quitar track I layed down for you.

The melody of a song or tune is just that. The melody is the notes that a composer used to create it. Its important to try to play the melody of a song, because thats what the song is about. The melody is the choice of notes of its composer.

Any melody of a song or tune comes from scales. I'm going to be talking alot about scales in future lessons. They are very very important in music. Never feel intimidated of learning scales... its all quite simple and we are going to start out very slowly and make our way from there when the time comes. Lets get into some melody now.

David