Question about melodies

Shredder69

New Metal Member
Mar 3, 2003
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0
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Sorry if this is dumb, but when I write melodies and harmonies and such, i have a hard time figuring out the correct chords to play behind them, (usually power chords), is there a specific way to figure out which chords are correct to play behind a melody? i'm assuming to just play the chords to whichever key the melody is in, but i don't know hardly any theory, so i never know which key they're in anyways, anyone have any suggestions?
 
There are two possibilities:
Either you have the perfect pitch or not. That's the thing.
If not you really should learn some theory. But I think it is easy to find out in which key you play. Play some melody and try to find out which tone ends it in the best way. It's usually the note you started with.
 
thanks everyone so far, except for the "learn some theory" guy. i'm just getting help, thats all
 
It takes a while to learn the circle of fifths, then it takes some time to be able to apply it appropriatly.

For harmonys though, I find that it helps to know all the positions for major/minor scales. Then I learned harmonic, then like one position from the rest. Although...I smoked alot of pot after highschool and have forgotten a lot of them now. :zombie: Live and learn.

Check out http://www.musictheory.net/ My music theory teacher suggested that to me awhile ago.

_chris_
 
I don't know any theory and I don't have any problems at laying down a melody on top of some other stuff and I am not that great of a guitarrist as well, neither do I practise any scales... I found, however, the advice of Marty Friedman on one of his instructional videos to be quite good, "Don't do scales, just experiment by following fret-after-fret in any order, until you hit something that sounds good" (he didn't say it this way, I don't have the video with me right now...)
 
it's easy actually. find the root note to the melody. the note you start on is the first chord. try out chords relative to that key.
 
a definite way forward could be to learn some the pentatonic shape, although this could also get you stuck in the pentatonic rut. however, learn the pentatonic shape, find out what key you're in and play the appropriate scale over a chord progression of that key and you're away. obviously you'll need to do a bit of theory for this... but it's not essential - for example Dave Navarro doesn't know any theory and he gets away with it. Also useful to remember that a minor chord is closely related to the major chord 3 semi-tones up. e.g. Em and Gmaj. so consequently the pentatonic scale of Em has exactly the same notes as that of Gmaj.