How to Follow a Melody With Keyboards

Depending on your level of experience in playing the keyboard, finding and playing along with the melody of a piece will vary in its level of difficulty. The melody of a song is generally what gets stuck in your head, what the singer sings or the most prominent sound of the piece, if there are no words. You can follow the melody by single notes or whole chords.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Listen to the music of a piece and note what notes you hear most prominently. If the piece has many parts or orchestration, you may have to figure out what the different parts are. Generally, the bass, or lower tones, doesn't have the melody; the bass sound gives harmony to a song.

2. Pluck out each part on your keyboard. You can do this individually if you're just learning, or you can form whole chords based on the most prominent note of the piece. Many times in choral pieces, the soprano and tenor voices have the melody while the alto and bass provide harmony.

3. Follow the notes precisely when you play the melody. The purpose of playing the melody along with the lead guitar or the singer is to provide support for that voice. Many times a song has a lead-in where the melody plays before the singing begins.

4. Experiment with adding chords and variation to the music as you get more skilled at playing the melody. It takes a lot of practice to play with other artists. Give yourself time to learn.