So far, we have looked at all the Major Scale notes up to the 5th, and bigger jumps in the melody are uncommon, so it makes sense to work hard on this much.

The vocal (and hand!) exercise I recommend here is super effective at building your knowledge of the intervals in your ears and translating them into simple shapes on the instrument.

On The Guitar

With a Root 6, 5, 4, or 2, there are 3 patterns that I would call, Back, Middle, and Forward of the root. They're all important, though. I probably find the Back pattern is the least used in my playing - it shouldn't be, but it is!

From Root 3 is a little easier under the fingers (starting on finger 1 always feels better!), so I often find myself in this shape when trying to find a melody in a hurry!

Singing The Intervals In Order

Start by playing each of the intervals one after another and then back down so play R 2 R 3 R 4 R 5 R 4 R 3 R 2 R as shown on Root 5:

Once comfortable, then sing along with your playing. When you're confident with that, try singing and playing the root and then jumping the vocal up the interval and then checking on the guitar, again doing all the intervals in order. This will strengthen your ear to hear the different intervals.

Random Intervals

When you're confident with the above, you should start pushing it more by playing and singing a root, then deciding on a random interval and trying to sing it. When you're ready, check on the guitar.

Start in one part of the neck and run all the intervals from the one root note, but as you get more confident, you could try moving the root note every time and singing a different interval each time - a lot more challenging and will expose any weaknesses that you should work on.

🚨 Reminder: Don't forget to have fun! :)

Practice

If you're confident with all the intervals so far, I suggest working on this one for a week or two to replace specific intervals, but continue your Play What You Hear exercise for 5 mins a day!