Building Chords or Edukate me!!!!

Today while thrift storing I stumbled on a big stack of old sheet music, stuff from the 20's, 30's and 40's. Alot of it says "ukulele notation" on the covers but that is another post.

I picked up a bunch of the gCEA stuff as the other tunings confuse me (yea I know step up or step down but it's hard enough for this old brain to remember gCEA Chords).

Well one of the songs is just the notes with no chord/tuning notation, it is in the Key of Eb.
The song is "Hawaiian Butterfly" from 1917
Here is a link to pic's of the sheet music
http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/album.php?albumid=211

My ????? is how do you build chord shapes from melody notes? Can you do this?
Is the melody note the root?

I know the first line is the melody line, the second is the rhythm and the bottom is the bass line.

In using the second line would I go to a fretboard map and the Eb scale to figure out what the notes/chords are?

Or am I way off base.

We need that Sesso Theroy Board!!!!!!

Thanks to anyone that helps out I am sure there are others that need this help but just don't know it!!!!!!!

you can figure out the chords by reading the notes in the piano accompaniment (well i assume its for piano). after you've done that you can choose to pick the melody, and strum chords at the important areas, or some people even just strum a chord every first beat (which is kiiinda lazy but hey), you could try to play the chords with the melody up top which makes it easier to distinguish from the accompanying chords you'll play.
if you've got time you can figure out the right notes with trial and error rather than going through a scale chart, but it probably takes a long time

alternatively you can always make your own scale chart


something like that
Hope it helps but since i'm tired i can't guarantee you'll get much from this post that you didn't already know

freedive135 said:

My ????? is how do you build chord shapes from melody notes? Can you do this?

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Not really. The chords support the melody but there are typically many possible choices of chord at any point in the melody.

freedive135 said:

Is the melody note the root?

Click to expand...

It may be but not all that often. The bass line is often, but not always, on the root of the chord.

freedive135 said:

I know the first line is the melody line, the second is the rhythm and the bottom is the bass line.

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Sort of. The top line is the vocal line. The other 2 are for piano. The top of these 2 is for the right hand and the bottom for the left hand. They do mostly correspond to what you said.

freedive135 said:

In using the second line would I go to a fretboard and the scale map to figure out what the notes/chords are?

Or am I way off base.

Click to expand...

You look at the bass line and the notes vertically and figure out what chord they make in the context of the current key. There's no need to involve a fretboard and I'm really not sure what a scale map is.

To help you on your way the first 2 bars, once the vocals start goes:

Eb / Edim / | Fm / Bb7 |

Some of the notes on the part aren't in the chords. They are called passing notes. You have to recognise which notes are part of the chords and which are passing notes. I'm not sure how to explain how to do that. It becomes obvious with experience I think.

Thanks for the help on this...
I miss typed it should be "Fretboard map and the Eb Scale".

Yes the Eb scale can help tell you what chords you might expect. The chords from the scale of Eb are likely. So

Eb(Maj7), Fm (7), Gm(7), Ab(Maj7), Bb(7), Cm(7), Dm7b5 are likely. The bottom line is likely to contain the root note.

Of course this breaks down almost immediately on the second chord of Edim which isn't in the scale. At least the bass line has the root.

Songs often go into a different key (modulate) for the bridge even though the key signature doesn't change so you need to watch for that.

Dibblet said:

Of course this breaks down almost immediately on the second chord of Edim which isn't in the scale. At least the bass line has the root.

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I think we used to call that a "passing diminished". It's a way to link the Eb to the Fm (or any two chords that are a whole step apart, for that matter).

It can be thought of as a rootless C7(b9) chord, and as such sets up a nice, pseudo-dominant (i.e., down-a-fifth) resolution to the Fm. In fact, you could substitute a C7 there and it would still sound pretty good.

From the Fm, you're also moving down a fifth to the Bb, and then down another fifth to the Eb (root chord). That sort of cascading "down a fifth" movement--whether literally true, or "faked" via a passing diminshed, tritone substitute, etc.--is very common in songs of that era.

JJ