Chord melody improvisation

Keddie · #1 04-18-2007, 11:34 PM

I am working on a chord-melody approach to improvisation, using fingerstyle. I notice that there are a lot of books, articles, web-pages etc about playing chord-melody arrangements but not much about improvising on a chord-melody arrangement. For example, Martin Taylor's book is pretty good on playing chord-melody arrangements with a bass-line (though it has some limitations) but gives very little information about improvising. Duck Baker has a DVD about jazz improvisation which I assume is based on a fingerstyle, chord-melody approach (as his other DVDs are) but I haven't seen it. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who is working on this area too. Cheers.

wizard3739 · #2 04-19-2007, 01:27 AM

Howard Roberts had a great approach to chord melody. He taught his approach with his seminars and also at G.I.T. as a part of the curriculum. My notes from the seminars and G.I.T. are currently in storage (moving to a new apt). Basically, his approach was---anything goes! But it will sound better if you try to backcycle or move in halfsteps when you choose the chords. You will end up with a lot of interesting and often familiar progressions with his approach. Remember, you are improvising the song so don't expect to always put the melody on top of the chord. Your ear will always tell you if the song comes out the way you want it to. There are a lot of excellent chord meloy stylist out there now and some of them have written really good books involved with chord melody studies. All of the 7-string Jazz players would be very good to listen to for chord melody techniques. Ron eschete, Howard Alden, John and Bucky Pizzarelli are all examples and all have recent releases (mostly jazz standards). My final thought is: 1) Be totally familiar with the way that chords are formed and move within progressions. 2) Become very familiar with the neck of your guitar and as many chords as you can learn including extensions (+/-5 --- +/-9, 6, 9, 11, 13---etc...). 3) Try to learn your chord melodies in several different keys (this will multiply the learning process). 4) This site has excellent lessons regarding chords and the chord selection software is a super reference and learning tool.Good luck with your chord melody improv!!

mr. beaumont · #3 04-19-2007, 12:16 PM

if you're talking specifically about improvising to extend the tune once you've played the melody, here's a few things i do.

idea # 1: a chorus of "stop time" play a chord on the one of each bar (probably best for a slow tune) or one the one of each melodic fragment in the tune, and then improvise single notes after it--or play the ii V if there is one and play single note lines on the one. best not to overdo this idea, but used in the right amount, it can funtion quite well.

idea#2: for difficult tunes, compose a "solo framework." it's not cheating. write your self a shell of the chords in the tune so you can connect them with single note lines and hit chords on beat.

idea#3: go through a chorus using four note block chords based off the general chords in the tune (if you're playing completely solo, you can sub like mad) and playing different inversions at least twice to the bar. try to get yourself to be able to play these chords in a general area of the neck so you're not jumping around. or, let your inversions gradually climb (or descend) the neck.

idea#4: listen to a lot of ed bickert for more ideas with number 3.

idea #5: mix and match ideas-- i.e. the A section in stop time, the B with chords and single notes, and then ride out in the second A section with the block chords.

idea #6: cheat. compose a few different solos to the song, and then mix and match from them. this is the best way to learn how to eventually do it on the fly.

idea#7: whatever you do, don't buy some cheesy looping device. most people won't notice, to be honest, but any musician in the room will have you pegged as a hack.

in my expereince, playing the melody, one chorus of improv, and then a melody restatement at the end is long enough for most folks, especially on longer form tunes or really slow ballads.

Butch · #4 05-11-2007, 06:15 PM

Hi Keddie,

I was extremely fortunate to play with Carl Verheyen when I first started playing. He was just a young guy then, and we used to jam on standards at his apartment in Newport Beach CA. I bring this up because Carl showed me a very cool, and conceptually easy, way to get into chord solos, which of course, facilitates chord melodies.

As per Joe Pass's great book "The Joe Pass Guitar Style" Joe thought of chords as being three basic families. Major, minor and dominant chords (he stated in his book that m7-5 chords, diminished and augmented chords could be thought of as belonging to one of the three families, for ex. a diminished chord can be thought of as a 7th chord with a flat 9).

Start with G (for example) and learn a G major chord with every scale tone as the top note (by the way, I am talking primarily about 3 note chords here). Work from the 3rd position and begin by selecting notes on the B string and work your way up the neck. The goal is to be able to play some type of G major chord underneath any note in the G major scale up the length of the neck (think horizontal here rather than vertical). This will give you a G major chord that you can grab anywhere on the neck. Do the same for G 7 dominant and G minor. What you are basically doing is working up chord scales. Anywhere on the neck you can grab a G major, minor or dominant 7 chord. It goes without saying that you need to transpose to other keys, but use the same voicings where possible. Once again, the starting point is to memorize the chords that you come up with.

What you get out of this is the follow:

You will be able to play a "type" of chord anywhere at anytime at any position. This is very helpful when you are playing a fast tune and your goal isn't the "ultimate" voicing but any voicing on a tune.
It will lead to better voice leading with a little thought behind what you are doing. For example, if you are changing chords and you are staying in the same position your voicings will move to the new chord by smaller intervals. This may not be what you would do in an arrangement to add some type of drama, but when you are playing a big band chart that is "hauling ass" you just want to be able to nail the changes.
When you get comfortable playing melodies on top of the chord you can start to check out available bass notes.

If you respond to me with your e-mail I would be able to send you some chords. It is difficult to talk about this when it so easy to just show you the chords themselves.

Good luck Keddie

Chrizzia · #5 05-13-2007, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Butch

Hi Keddie,

I was extremely fortunate to play with Carl Verheyen when I first started playing. He was just a young guy then, and we used to jam on standards at his apartment in Newport Beach CA. I bring this up because Carl showed me a very cool, and conceptually easy, way to get into chord solos, which of course, facilitates chord melodies.

As per Joe Pass's great book "The Joe Pass Guitar Style" Joe thought of chords as being three basic families. Major, minor and dominant chords (he stated in his book that m7-5 chords, diminished and augmented chords could be thought of as belonging to one of the three families, for ex. a diminished chord can be thought of as a 7th chord with a flat 9).

Start with G (for example) and learn a G major chord with every scale tone as the top note (by the way, I am talking primarily about 3 note chords here). Work from the 3rd position and begin by selecting notes on the B string and work your way up the neck. The goal is to be able to play some type of G major chord underneath any note in the G major scale up the length of the neck (think horizontal here rather than vertical). This will give you a G major chord that you can grab anywhere on the neck. Do the same for G 7 dominant and G minor. What you are basically doing is working up chord scales. Anywhere on the neck you can grab a G major, minor or dominant 7 chord. It goes without saying that you need to transpose to other keys, but use the same voicings where possible. Once again, the starting point is to memorize the chords that you come up with.

What you get out of this is the follow:

You will be able to play a "type" of chord anywhere at anytime at any position. This is very helpful when you are playing a fast tune and your goal isn't the "ultimate" voicing but any voicing on a tune.
It will lead to better voice leading with a little thought behind what you are doing. For example, if you are changing chords and you are staying in the same position your voicings will move to the new chord by smaller intervals. This may not be what you would do in an arrangement to add some type of drama, but when you are playing a big band chart that is "hauling ass" you just want to be able to nail the changes.
When you get comfortable playing melodies on top of the chord you can start to check out available bass notes.

If you respond to me with your e-mail I would be able to send you some chords. It is difficult to talk about this when it so easy to just show you the chords themselves.

Good luck Keddie

Could I have those chords too

My email is:
hede_hood@hotmail.com

thanks...

Keddie · #6 05-14-2007, 05:10 AM

Thanks everyone for your comments and ideas. Very inspiring. Butch, thanks for offering to send me those chord ideas: I've sent you my email address.

Keddie · #7 05-22-2007, 12:18 AM

Thanks again Butch, for sending those chord diagrams. As I mentioned in my email to you, your suggestion has helped me to get started with chord-melody improvisation. By looking at the various chord voicings I already know, and thinking of them as parts of chromatic chord-scales, I now have a way to think about chords and melody at the same time. Previously I was trying to "add in" a chord every now and then while playing a single-line improvisation. The way some players could move chords around as fluidly as if they were improvising single-note lines seemed really mysterious to me. Now I can see better what they are doing.

big bang · #8 01-16-2008, 07:51 AM

check out mel bay's books on joe pass, very helpful for those who want to know more about chord substitution and chord tone improvisation

JohnW400 · #9 03-28-2008, 10:24 AM

Hello Keddie,

I've spent quite a lot of time on this approach to improv. The way I started was to develop a "vocabulary". (Everybody really does this. If you listen to enough Joe Pass you can start to hear some of Joe's favorite chord licks.)

Remember that there really isn't any difference between a chord/melody arrangement and improvising using chords. Your harmonizing a melody so the same principals apply.

The late Harry Leahy used to make his students write out a "line" and harmonize it using whatever scale system they were studying at the time and it's a great way to get your chops together for improvising using chords. He used to do it using the back cycling method mentioned above. (C7, F7, Bb7, Eb7. 2 measures of each for example)

But I would also recommend that you take an easy tune (changes wise) Like "Tune Up" by Miles Davis. Then write out solo. Something fairly easy. Then try to harmonize it. Play the solo a few times but each time you play through it use a different inversion of the chord or a different substitution. Also, mix up single notes, double stops and even triads. If you do this enough you'll start to develop your own vocabulary (same as you do with single line "licks") and take it from there.

One more idea which works well for playing solo is if the song is in a key like Eb, then transpose it up or down a half step to D or E. this may let you get som open strings for bass notes making the double stops or triads sound fuller.

m78w · #10 03-28-2008, 01:43 PM

A great way to approach this stuff is to use the Lenny Breau/Bill Evans approach. This is where you hold down the 3rds and 7ths of each chord on the 4th and 5th strings while playing a melodic line on top of it. The cool part is you don't have to think of many different voicings, just one two note grip and then the melody line is all that changes.

Check out any Bill Evans chord solo, if you listen closely you'll notice that the right hand lines are moving, but the left hand keeps playing the same couple of notes until the chord changes, and then he repeats notes over that chord.

MW