Chord Melody 101 Suggestions?

[ssjk]

Anybody have a recommendation for books/links/lessons for a few older guys wanting to try something that's not old rock or country?

We are intrigued by chord melody stuff but don't really want to just memorize a couple of songs from tab.

I'm a pretty capable player with both fingers and a pick, but woefully lacking in theory. And while I can play most chords in different positions, jazz chords and voicings are a new world for me.

Any suggestions for something that starts with the basics but moves pretty quickly, and that assumes we can already play other things pretty easily?

Free is nice but not required.

Thanks

[Dave Hicks]

Christmas carols might be a good place to start, since the melodies are pretty familiar (even though you probably want a broader repertoire). Bruce Emery (Skeptical Guitarist) has a book called Christmas Fingerstyle Guitar, Plain and Fancy that has real simple and somewhat more complicated arrangements of 18 carols at 3 different levels.

D.H.

[tbeltrans]

In my efforts to learn to arrange and play chord melody, these resources were by far the best for me:

It all starts here for me:

https://www.robertconti.com/product/...assembly-line/

Then you want to learn how it all really fits together:

https://www.robertconti.com/product/the-formula/

Then, how to spruce it up into a performance:

https://www.robertconti.com/product/...s-turnarounds/

All along the way, it is helpful to get a feel for how Conti uses the exact same material he is teaching on his own arrangements:

https://www.robertconti.com/cat/play...-melody-today/

https://www.robertconti.com/just-jaz...hord-melodies/

https://www.robertconti.com/signatur...-arrangements/

These are the materials that really worked best for me studying on my own. Different people will respond to different means of instruction, while others may go off completely on their own and learn by learning chord melody off of recordings. Since these are often solo guitar recordings, it is generally easier to learn by ear when you don't have a bunch of other instruments cluttering up the recording.

With Conti's materials above, you will start right away using the chord voicing vocabulary he use both for his own performances and for all the arrangements and lessons listed. He is very logical and consistent in his teaching, with nothing suddenly coming out of left field leaving you to wonder how he got from what he was just teaching, to something really advanced. Also, he doesn't dumb it down in terms of sophisticated sound, so you are always playing music that you would ant to hear as a listener rather than triad arrangements of nursery rhymes.

Tony

[jseth]

Get a hold of Mickey Baker Book I... the first lesson is 25 very cool jazz-y type chords, and, within the first 5 lessons, there are a bunch of other 3,4 and 5 note voicings for different melody chords.

I first got this book in the mid-70's and have learned a lot of useful chords and voicings from it that I use nearly every time I play... still haven't finished the whole book, either!

It's definitely "old-school" - even some of the names for a few chords are different than you'd learn at, say, Berklee College of Music, but the sounds are the same!

This would give you a great starting point for fitting different chords to notes in a melody. It is a painstaking process; just do one note at a time and you'll get there... but you will have a blast with all those chord forms!

[ssjk]

Thanks everyone. That should keep us busy.

[mr. beaumont]

I'd second the Baker for learning common useful voicings...you might also just google "drop 2 and drop 3 voicings for guitar" and spend some time with those...the goal in the end is to be able to put any note on top of any chord...and that can show you a lot of possibilities.

The Conti method does just that-- harmonizes pretty much every single note. You'll see that's not practical after a while, but he's trying to show possibilities.

The best thing you could do is get some chords down and then start arranging tunes for yourself...your first couple might suck, but it'll teach you more than any book.

One more thing-- if you don't know the notes on the fretboard cold, now's the tune to start learning. Don't have to treat it like a prerequisite, but start writing things out and memorizing sections of the neck...it makes this process so much easier.

Or heck, pick a tune and we could go through it here. I love doing this stuff.

[AZ715]

You might find Jared Borkowski's YouTube videos and website to be just what you are looking for. He has developed a system and series of lessons for creating chord melody arrangements of any kind of music you wish. His focus is primarily on jazz, but he does demonstrate with other genres, as well.

Just search Sound Guitar Lessons on YouTube, and go from there.

Good luck!

[tbeltrans]

As can be seen i this thread, there are many ways to approach learning to play chord melody.

Yet another approach that builds on Mr. Beaumont's advice is this:

Learn the notes all over the fretboard as he advises.

Learn how to "spell" chords (i.e. their formulas.

Put these two pieces of knowledge together and start finding your own voicings on the fretboard.

With this capability, you can then use a lead sheet (contains melody and chord symbols written above it) to find the melody in various places on the guitar, transposing if needed to fit on the top two or three strings, and then voice chords underneath.

When using chord spellings, you will find that there are often more notes in a given spelling than strings on the guitar. Much of the time, you will want to use 3 and 4 note voicings instead of all the strings resulting in a very dense sound. Learn what notes to leave out.

The simplest are the "shell" voicings that consist of root, 3 (b3), 7 or b7. Learn these and you can add whatever "color tones" (9, 11, 13) you wish to these. This is but one suggested approach that works well.

There are plenty of youtube videos on this sort of thing.

From there, you can start experimenting with adding movement so it isn't just chord to chord chunking along. Listen to various players for how they do this with arpeggios, single line runs, diads, etc.

This is definitely not something you learn in a week or a month or a year, but instead an endless process, which is really part of the enjoyment - there is always something to learn.

Tony

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

As can be seen i this thread, there are many ways to approach learning to play chord melody.

Yet another approach that builds on Mr. Beaumont's advice is this:

Learn the notes all over the fretboard as he advises.

Learn how to "spell" chords (i.e. their formulas.

Put these two pieces of knowledge together and start finding your own voicings on the fretboard.

With this capability, you can then use a lead sheet (contains melody and chord symbols written above it) to find the melody in various places on the guitar, transposing if needed to fit on the top two or three strings, and then voice chords underneath.

When using chord spellings, you will find that there are often more notes in a given spelling than strings on the guitar. Much of the time, you will want to use 3 and 4 note voicings instead of all the strings resulting in a very dense sound. Learn what notes to leave out.

The simplest are the "shell" voicings that consist of root, 3 (b3), 7 or b7. Learn these and you can add whatever "color tones" (9, 11, 13) you wish to these. This is but one suggested approach that works well.

There are plenty of youtube videos on this sort of thing.

From there, you can start experimenting with adding movement so it isn't just chord to chord chunking along. Listen to various players for how they do this with arpeggios, single line runs, diads, etc.

This is definitely not something you learn in a week or a month or a year, but instead an endless process, which is really part of the enjoyment - there is always something to learn.

Tony

For some reason, "Edit" isn't working for me, so I will follow my own post.

Chord spelling might not be clear, so here is a link to a whole page on it with the appropriate charts:

https://www.brendanpauljacobs.com/guitar/spelling.html

There are many more such pages around the internet, some specific to the guitar, though my suggestion is forget the guitar and just learn about chord spellings to get the entire picture and then focus on fitting these on the guitar in various ways. The idea is a sort of "sleight of hand" in that you SUGGEST certain harmonies rather than having to spell out the entire chord.

Being able to build chords of any type, anywhere on the fretboard is central to chord melody, so definitely learn this well.

Tony