Top harmony

Lesson on "Cloudy Days" Melody

The melody of Cloudy Days was largely based on the minor pentatonic or blues scale. You may have noticed there was a flat fifth that appeared a few times.

Important Techniques

You probably also noticed that when I repeated the melody, I thickened it using what you might call top harmony. This is an important technique with the blues scale, commonly used in jazz and blues.

Repeats of the Melody

Both times the melody is repeated, you'll notice they are written with some extra notes. These extra notes are above the melody.

• Normally, with a harmony line, you would add notes below the melody to avoid distraction.
• With top harmony, you add an unchanging note above.

Example of Top Harmony

For instance, if your melody is in A minor, you could add an A on top of all those notes. It still sounds like the bottom notes of the melody.

• You don't have to play the A every single time.
• You can just play some of the notes with A on top, specifically the main melody notes.

Another Common Position

Another position, which is very common, is to add the fifth on top. So, if your melody was this, you could add an E on top.

• Notice that I'm not playing the E on every note, only on the main melody notes.
• You'll hear me use that in the solo I recorded, the improvised solo as well.

Practice Suggestions

Try both ways of playing the melody with the backing track. In your solo, not only add the blue fifth as a passing note, but also experiment with top harmony.

Conclusion

Remember, Cloudy Days is an 8 bar minor blues, very similar in fact to Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers.

Check out the PDF for other examples of 8 bar blues.