How To Make Your Songs “Sing” By Using Turns & Grace Notes

Here is a transcript of the video if you would like to follow along: Good morning. This is Duane. Today, I’d like to share a simple concept with you, and that is making the melody stand out by simply adding turns & grace notes in music now and then. A grace note and a turn, very simple concepts. A grace note is where you hit 1 note and you glance off 1 note as you approach another 1 like that.

Often, they’re on black keys like that but they can be on white keys as well. That would be a whole step grace note. That would a half step grace note. A turn is where you turn around the note like that. You can have a 3-note turn, 1, 2, 3 or you can have a 5-note turn, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1. Do further this. So many [inaudible 00:01:05] G that I learned years ago and you probably played it too. That’s a simple turn but just to make a simple 3-note turn. Let me just illustrate it in a pop song.

This song is called You Are Too Beautiful. This 1 I want you to notice. Instead of just going : That’s a simple grace note and here, I used the turn. If you’re just beginning that, just try that. Just 2 things. Slide off an occasional note. Now, don’t do it too much. It gets old if you do it too much and then just a turn. I like to use my index and third finger for a turn but you need whatever fingers working, whatever worked the best for you. You can use them on chords too like I played that D minor 7th chord and I slid off D flat to that. There, I applied 9th chord and slid off the E flat to E.

Now, watch me do it again. Very, very simple. Let’s take another tune. Let’s [inaudible 00:03:30] playing Moon River. That’s a : I started off with a turn. By the way, use your thumb on white notes whenever you can on your long fingers on black notes. There’s a grace note. I was a playing a third so I slid off the B flat and the D flat going up there. Again, turn, 5-note turn, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and then I played the G chord and I slid off the middle black. There, I used a whole step grace note. I played : Instead of playing just a third, I played 3 notes but they led up on the bottom note. That’s called a crash note actually like a crash grace note.

Sometimes, you can do a tremolo. You start off with a tremolo and a chord and then just run it up. You see, I’m sliding off those black keys with chords or octaves or just a single note as well as turn. Very simple concepts but it’s 1 way you can beautify a melody, make it more interesting but again, I kind of overdid it there because I was illustrating how you could do it but don’t do it that much but put then and now and it’s like salt and pepper, you don’t want to pour it all over your meat, potatoes. Just accent it.

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Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6VEghLwmuo
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