When in Doubt, Play the Melody

My fiddle mentor of many years is the great Bobby Hicks, one of the absolute legends of bluegrass fiddle. When I would ask him how he knew what to play, he gave me his best Mr. Miyagi answer “if you play something, and it doesn’t sound right, then keep hunting til you get it to sound like just what you want.”

The problem was I didn’t know what I wanted it to sound like. I wanted to hit the basics: in tune, in time and with good tone. That’s the foundation of all great playing. But what would I play when the singer was done singing? What would I play for my second break on a fiddle tune?

The Melody, and Why you should learn it

The melody, in it’s most basic form, is the essence of a song, the ‘through line, the plot, the main theme, the thing that people walk away humming. It’s really fun to learn hot licks, and play fancy stuff that makes crowds stand up and listen. But playing the melody will make the audience remember. Would you rather make an audience clap once and forget everything you did or walk out humming what you just played?

My mentors always taught me to play for the 95% of the people in the audience that weren’t musicians. To play with good tone, in time, and with perfect intonation. To support the song, and to support the band.

I teach people how to identify what chord tone the melody starts on, and help develop the mental and physical pathways that allow you to quickly find the melody notes. There are specific exercises you can do to learn the fretboard of the fiddle, so that you can focus on what you are playing and not how you are playing it.