Chord melody is a highly sought after skill by many guitarists, and it’s easy to see why. Being able to play melody and chords on a single instrument has immense creative possibilities in both trio and solo guitar situations.
But, if you’ve tried to learn chord melody, it’s likely you’ve been overwhelmed. There are so many approaches to chord melody that you’ve probably found yourself scratching your head from information overload. This is where this lesson comes in.
In this lesson, you’ll learn four essential tricks that you can use to create chord melody arrangements that sound great and are easy on the hands. Let’s get into it!
Stream Born To Be Blue (chord Melody Jazz Guitar Solo) By Olli Back
The first step to chord melody arranging is to learn the melody on the top 2 strings, where possible. This enables you to fit the chord voicings underneath the melody line.
You’ll probably have to shift the melody up an octave from what’s written to be able to do this, and you may also need to change the key to suit the range of the guitar.
, this melody already sits well on the fretboard in the original key of Ab major, but I’ve shifted it up the octave compared to what you would see on a lead sheet.
Quick Win: How To Play Chord Melody On A Jazz Standard
Before you transform this tune into a chord melody, there’s an important point I want to make clear to you right from the outset:
This way of thinking trips up many aspiring chord melody guitarists. They think that an effective chord melody needs to have every melody note harmonized with chords.
Though this is one valid approach to chord melody, it’s an advanced skill requiring extensive knowledge of chords and a high level of technique.
Solo Jazz Guitar
Create a great sounding chord melody by adding chords here and there to the melody line – Joe Pass’ chord melodies are a strong example of this.
To put things in context, Lenny’s approach to chord melody was how a pianist would play, with the ‘right-hand’ playing the melody and the ‘left-hand’ playing the chords.
Lenny’s solution around this issue was to pare down chords to their most essential tones, thus freeing up more fingers to play melody notes.
Jazz Guitar Standards: Chord Melody Solos: Multiple Authors: 9780786693207: Amazon.com: Books
If you play only the 3rd and the 7th out of a chord, this is enough to communicate the underlying harmony to the listener:
Even the root can be omitted and the chord will retain the given harmony. This is particularly true in a trio context – as the bass player is playing the root notes.
Here, you’ll play the 3rd and 7th for each chord in a C major ii – V – I progression. Play this along with the backing track provided.
Jazz Guitar Chord Melodies
As was mentioned above, 3rd & 7th voicings are effective with chord melodies because you only need two notes for each chord, leaving more fingers available to play the melody.
In those instances, the 3rd or 7th was already in the melody, so there’s no need to double up on a 3rd or 7th if it’s already there.
Also, notice that because these chord shapes are easy to play, you can quickly move between voicings while holding a sustained melody note – a neat effect.
Solo Jazz Guitar Standards
Although the 3rd & 7th voicing trick is a complete chord melody approach in itself, it might start to sound a bit samey after a while.
Although they’re not ‘textbook correct’ in outlining the harmony of a given chord, they imply the harmony enough to make sense to the listener.
Although you may not use quartal voicings for every chord, they’re a solid choice to create variety while keeping things easy on the hands.
The Melodic Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
If you have half-step approach notes in the melody (notes one fret above or below another melody note), chromatic approach chords are an excellent choice.
Something that’s missing, though, is tension in the arrangement. I have a solution for this – read on for the final trick…
Dim7 chords have many potential uses for chord melody, but the main one you’ll focus on here is using them to add tension to dominant 7th chords.
How To Play Jazz Guitar Chord Melodies
If the melody note is a b9, 3, 5, or b7 of a dominant 7th chord, you can use a dim7 chord shape with the melody as the highest note in the chord.
For example, if you have a bar of F7 with an A in the melody, since A is a 3rd of F7, you use a dim7 shape with A as the highest note. This sounds as an F7b9.
In the video at 14:49, I demonstrate how you get the arrangement to swing more by increasing the tempo, playing with chord placement, including chromatic approaches and jazzing up the melody line.
Jazz Guitar Chord Melody Lesson
Voilà! With these 4 chord melody tricks, you now have a toolset to arrange any standard into a chord melody, with minimum stress.Chord Melody is Melody with Chords, so you take a melody and then you add chords to it. This is a way to play both harmony and melody of a song and you can do a lot of different things with chord melody arrangements and really add a beautiful other dimension to the song you are playing, making it a solo performance.
I am going to go over 3 things that are really important if you want to make your own chord melody arrangements and that you will also find in the arrangements and playing of people who are great at chord melody like Joe Pass and Ted Greene.
If you want to harmonize a melody then you need to add harmony under the melody. For the guitar This makes it more practical to play the melody on the top strings.
Five Chord Melody Tips And Stuff For Jazz Guitarists Of All Levels
I would suggest aiming for having as much of the melody as possible placed on the E and B strings. That way it is a lot easier to add a chord under it and most of the time you can even use the same voicings you usually do for comping.
Be practical! Go for the arrangement that is playable. It will get you further and it is important that you can perform your arrangement as a piece of music, not just a technical exercise.
As an example of a melody that moves a lot here is a harmonization of Fly Me To The Moon. Notice how I only use chords when the chords are changing.
Jazz Guitar Lessons • Moon River Chord Melody • Rhythm Guitar, Vocal Melody, Tab, Video Lessons
In many ways this is almost the most important thing to keep in mind: You are playing a melody and adding some chords when that is possible. Not playing chords and occasionally hinting at a melody that is also there.
The main thing to practice here is to get used to emphasizing the top note in the chord, a skill that you will also find very useful for comping and chord soloing.
The way to work on this is to learn to play the chords while not so much making the top note louder but more making the chord softer. This is both easier and will sound more natural. Another thing that is important is that you want to have some dynamic range to phrase the melody.
Playing Jazz Guitar Chord Melody
If you want to explore another chord melody arrangement to work on these skills then you can check out this lesson: Easy Autumn Leaves Chord Melody and Quick How-to-Play!
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video orsend me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.
Please subscribe to myYouTube channeland feel free to connect with me viaInstagram, TwitterGoogle+orFacebookto keep up to date with new lessons, concerts, and releases.Misty is a great jazz ballad composed by piano player Errol Garner. He first recorded Misty as an instrumental on his album Contrasts (1955). Later, vocals were added to the song by Johnny Burke. Since then, numerous jazz musicians recorded their own versions, such as Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, George Benson, Larry Coryell, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and many more.
The Complete Jazz Guitar Method: Beginning, Intermediate, Mastering Chord/ Melody, Mastering Improvisation Jazz Guitar
Misty is a lot of fun to play on guitar and ideal to try out new solo ideas because of its tempo and chord changes.
I use hybrid picking on this recording. This means I hold a pick between my thumb and index finger and use my other fingers to play chords. I use the pick to play the bass notes of chords, and the melody between chords.
I explain some chord choices and substitutions under the sheet music. If you’re not sure how to arrange jazz standards in this fashion, check out our course Complete Chord Melody.
The Beatles For Jazz Guitar Von The Beatles » Noten Für Gitarre
Pickup bar: these 2 chord voicings come from Barney Kessel’s arrangement of Misty. The first one is a Bb7b9, the second one a Bb13b9.
Bar 2 & 10: the chord played over the Eb7 is a Gdim7 (=Edim7), a common substitution that gets the b9 into the Eb7.
Bar 31: here I delay the resolution to the Eb6 by playing the bIImaj7 (Emaj7). This is also a common way to end songs.
Easy Chord Melody For Jazz Guitar: 9781973638841: Brizzola, Carlos: Books
The annotations above the guitar tabs explain which scales or arpeggios I use. The number in brackets corresponds with the explanation below the sheet music.
(2) Here I play the
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