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!
Pdf) Complete Jazz Guitar Method Mastering Chord Melody Jody Fisher
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Discovering The Benefits Of Playing Chord Melodies
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.
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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.
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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.
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Voilà! With these 4 chord melody tricks, you now have a toolset to arrange any standard into a chord melody, with minimum stress.In this post you are going to get a step by step breakdown on how to get started playing chord melody guitar – in both a solo jazz guitar context, as well as in a band.
Check out this video for the end result you will be getting out of working through this article on chord melody guitar playing:
Don’t have time to read this post now? Handy PDF Download: Get access here to download a print-friendly PDF version of this article including all the lead sheets, chord diagrams, backing tracks and instructions.
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This is a huge topic of course, and just one article couldn’t possibly cover all the techniques and concepts of chord melody guitar. So, this post will cover the essentials to quickly get you up and running playing jazz guitar, chord melody style. Let’s get started!
Generally, chord melody guitar refers to playing jazz guitar with single line melodies or solos and combining or accompanying with chords. This is opposed to just single line soloing or melody playing, or on the flipside only comping in a band with chords. You actually combine the two at the same time, on one guitar.
Getting into the nitty gritty, the term ‘chord melody’ can actually refer to two similar, but nonetheless distinct styles of jazz guitar playing.
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On one hand, chord melody can refer to a guitarist mixing chords and melody on a tune in a band setting, e.g a jazz trio of guitar, bass and drums. In this setting, you need to take care in what chord voicings you apply to the melody and your solos. If you play too many low notes on the 5th and 6th strings it can interfere with the bass player.
On the other hand, chord melody guitar playing can also refer to playing jazz tunes arranged or improvised on solo guitar. This is kind of like playing as a one man band: soloist, comping and bass all in one.
To avoid confusion, let’s refer to the setting in a trio or other lineup as a band chord melody, and playing chord melody on your own as jazz guitar solo chord melody.
Video Lesson: Turn Any Song Into A Chord Melody Solo
Now, let’s work through the 5 steps for an awesome chord melody guitar arrangement. As it is a bit easier on the left hand, let’s start with a band chord melody. Then, I’m going to show you how to adapt this version just a little to make an effective jazz guitar solo chord melody.
Although you can turn nearly any tune as a chord melody guitar arrangement, it is helpful to find a chart with a melody that isn’t too fast moving. Bebop tunes in straight eighth notes will be difficult (though not impossible) to arrange. For beginners, ballads or swing/broadway standards should do the trick.
Here is a list of tunes that work well as chord melody guitar arrangements for solo jazz guitar as well as in a band:
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Even non-jazz tunes can work well by substituting standard chords for jazzier alternatives – e.g. check out this post by Matt Warnock on chord melody guitar arrangements of well known Christmas tunes.
Now that we have found a suitable tune, it’s time to learn it just like you would learn any other jazz standard:
Also, listen to recordings and watch youtube videos of others playing the tune. This is a great way to get an ideas for your own arrangement.
Guitar Tablature:
Changing the key may be necessary to suit the setting you are playing the arrangement in (i.e. as a solo or in a band), and also can give the arrangement a particular flavour. Some keys work better than others and it’s helpful to consider open strings in the chord voicings if possible as using them can give some great effects.
As I was playing around with this tune in the original key of Bb Major, I noticed that the melody is getting a little bit low in places:
This causes issues for a chord melody arrangement on guitar, as you may be unable to fit good sounding chord voicings underneath the melody. Voicings that low could start to sound muddy and will get in the way of the band’s bass player.
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A way to solve this might be to take the melody up an octave, however in this case the tune will be too high on the guitar neck for it to sound good:
After transposing the lead sheet to F Major, it seems to sit in a much more suitable range for a
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