Picking Up A Song With Only The Melody

[dabeastleash]

I know this may sound like a foolish question , but I can pick up a melody but just can't find the chords to put with it, can someone help me with this problem??

[Fenix]

That is the dumbest question i have ever...

Just kidding.

Actually what you should be looking for is the bass-line in the song. More often than not, the bass line gives you an idea of what the basic chord progression of the song is. Using the melody is another way of doing it, but  can be more difficult than just listening for the bass line. The melody can be doing a lot moer than the bass and can be deceptive.

[T-Block]

I know this may sound like a foolish question , but I can pick up a melody but just can't find the chords to put with it, can someone help me with this problem??

Anybody can pick up the melody, it's only one note at a time and it's the thing most people remember about a song.  Like Fenix said, try picking up the bass as well.  That will help u even more than the melody.

In school we learned how to chord using the melody only, but the process is very complicated.  Plus, that was only creating a piece from scratch using the melody, not figuring out a song already recorded.

[under13]

Its actually very simple. Most of the time, all I do is play a major (or minor) chord related to the melody note. So If I'm in Ab, and i'm holding an Ab up top, more times than not, I'll be supporting that with an Eb and a C, or something else in that scale, that fits.

Maybe thats the wrong way. I dont know. I never really studied chord structure or whatever yall call it. And I dont think about that kinda stuff when I play