Hi Ben, I am in level 2 on Unclouded Day. If I were to apply your system to learning any other song, I would first have to write the lyrics and find where the chord changes are in those lyrics. Then I would have to put the words in the measures they should be in. How do I find where to correctly put the measure lines between what words? Hope this makes sense.
Thanks,
Ken
Discuss the Banjo lesson: Unclouded Day Build-A-Break
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Welcome to the forum, @khydinger! Glad to have you here!
Measures are determined by note values rather than lyrics. In “Unclouded Day” the time signature is 4/4, meaning 4 beats in a measure, a quarter note has one beat. Every four beats, a new measure begins. If you look at the tabs, you can see that there are four beats in each measure, regardless of the lyrics. For example, the word “beyond” falls at the end of measure 3 and beginning of measure 4. So, on other songs, you should figure out the time signature of the song to help you determine the location of the measures. I hope this all makes sense. Good luck, and, again, welcome to the forum!
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Howdy @khydinger!
The goal is ultimately to not have to figure it out with tab but by ear…that will come! To answer your question (which @cboling did well), it takes quite a bit of musical knowledge. In fact, more knowledge than would be required to just learn by ear. It would be more helpful to be able to chart the song chords using either the Nashville Number System or chord letters: https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/the-nashville-number-system-beginner
It’s much simpler than worrying about measure lines and beats. Check out that lesson and let me know what you think!
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@khydinger go do the Nashville Number System lesson! It is probably one of my favorites on the site! It changed the manner in which I thought about scales, notes, and the relationship of different keys! Highly recommend that one!
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