how did you learn chord melody?

[Timbell]

I have been very content with the tremendous work load that comes with learning jazz guitar as it is usually played in ensembles, with either rhythm comping or scale/arp soloing. Now that I am feeling comfortable with the basics of these things, I want to put some time aside in my practice to work out chord melodies. I can work out some parts of songs, but I want some guidance. Any books, lessons, info that will get me started? I have a decent understanding of jazz rhythm guitar and chord/scale theory so I think I am on the right track.

[Jake Hanlon]

I'm not a solo player nor very much intersted in chord melody playing as a solo guitarist. I am however interested in harmonization of the melody and using chords in my improv.

The majority of the work I do I either am in Trio where I must cover melody and harmony or I am the only harmonic instrument with say a Trumpet. This to me is not very different. I think that throughout my life as a player I've always been very very concious of melody all the time, especially when I am comping. I got this mostly from being a huge fan in my early days of Wes who always had such strong melodies.

Learning some of Wes' choruses and a few of his arrangements really helped me to see what was possible with simple chords and harmony. Wes mostly played with drop 2 chords and used diminished chords so well as passing chords. Really he was able to get so much mileage out of really simple vocabulary compared to his contemporaries like Joe Pass or pianists of his time like Bill Evans. However he was very capable of catching you with his ideas because of his melodies that he had happening in his chords.

Jim Hall is a great example of having great melodies but far more sophisticated Harmony. Jim's playing, like Wes' is very guitaristic, and very melodic. By guitaristic I mean everything they play just 'makes sense' on the instrument, which is why I think in many ways why over the years Horn players were so captivated with Jim Hall's playing, because he didn't sound like anyone else harmonically while many guitar players were desperately trying to mimic pianists. Hall was/is a guitar player and a unique sounding one because of his vocabulary.

Transcription is too important to pass up. It may seem daunting to try and transcribe harmonic passages, but I would suggest you start trying to lift some Wes Montgomery chord passages, ballad arrangements like "I've Grown Accustom To Her Face" are easy to learn and have just so much great information in them.

[pingu]

start with something simple like satin doll (in C)
it falls right under the fingers all basic grips
Try this to kick you off

Dmin
5
6 (8)
5
7
5
x

G7
3 (5)
5
4
3
x
x

noish ..........

[mr. beaumont]

By doing it.

Lousy answer, riight? Bujt there's no better way imho...I learned more from jumping in and arranging one tune than any book, video, or anything else could teach me.

[TruthHertz]

Yes, there's surely something that comes from the doing when it comes to chord solo.
One thing I remember being helpful was watching Jim Hall. He uses space a lot, and doesn't fill each measure with lots of chords under all the melody notes. I'd see him play a piece of the melody, then in the spaces put in accents and chords. This is really helpful in visualizing the relationships of chord and melody.
Try this too: Play a chord, be aware of what the melody note is on the top voice. Now revoice the top note up the scale, and see if you can walk up the scale until you get a whole octave. You might have to move to the next position of the chord up the neck, and remember, you don't have to play complete chords. Even just hitting the root at the right place gives you a sense of the harmony, and that's what chord soloing is all about.
I found the George Van Eps book handy for introducing me to the harmonized scale.
Do you play with a pick? Fingers? Mixture? This is going to have a big effect on how you learn and what you can do.

Get a piece you like, and one phrase at a time, play the melody, then play the chords on that part of the neck and see if you can make the connection.
There're so many styles, and each of them will have different points and approaches. A little hard to advise, especially as far as book material 'til one knows where you're coming from. Lawrence Lucie would look at the question different from Dave Tronzo.
David

[Billnc]

Chord melody was the first thing I was taught by my first teacher.

I was taught the formula for major and minor triads and had to work out the inversion on string groups 1234, 2345, 3456, 1235 and 2346 and write them all out. I had to work out a basic arrangement to Love is Blue (this was 1975) putting the chords where my teacher told me. My 'lead sheet' was the piano arrangement. We finished the triads and moved on to 7th chords, alterations etc up to 13ths. All the while I was arrangeing tunes less and less with his guidance. I'd come in with a new arrangement and he'd critique it while the primary lessons became comping.
My arrangements were Love is Blue, Moon River, Dreamsville, Nobody Does it Better, Make it With You, Fly Me to the Moon, Feelings, Nights In White Satin, The Prophet Song (Queen), You Take My Breath Away, Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (more Queen) and a few others. Everything was written out by me.
I still have the damn book as that much work will never be lost. I haven't played any of the arrangements since high school.

Now I do it in my head to the real books.

[matt.guitarteacher]

I did a lot of struggling on my own. Then, I got a copy of Robert conti's chord melody assembly line book. Really helped me a lot to have a couple of basic voicings for each melody note/chord combination. Since then it's been about finding new extensions, alterations and substitutions.

[wizard3739]

I learned the basics of arranging chord melodies from a Howard Roberts jazz guitar seminar in the early 70's.

wiz

[Norman931]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

By doing it.

Lousy answer, riight? Bujt there's no better way imho...I learned more from jumping in and arranging one tune than any book, video, or anything else could teach me.

Well, some of us need a bit more guidance. When I was a kid, someone gave me a guitar. He might as well have given me a shovel, because I had no idea of how to get music from the thing. A few minutes with a competent teacher would have worked wonders, but that didn't happen until several years later! Of course, guys like Charlie Christian could take my second-hand dime-store guitar and make magic immediately, but all I could do was beat on the back of it with drumsticks. I couldn't find anyone that would show me how to hold it, let alone tune it or make a chord. I guess what I am trying to say is that before you can "do it," sometimes you need a good teacher to help you get started.
As someone who is fumbling toward an understanding of chord-melody, I appreciate any good advice I can get. I have many of the books, and I agree that they aren't always helpful. So far, the best to me has been Robert Conti's Chord-Melody Assembly Line. Conti's teaching style is a bit rambling, but his approach gives you a quick foundation that will get you past the confusion of "Where do I start?"

[Vihar]

I learned a bunch of chords as time went by, then tried to find the melody notes of a song among the notes of the chords. Usually - but not exclusively - the top note of the chord would present itself in this role, but since often times I tried to use the simplest major or minor grips, I sometimes had to "invent" a new chord by putting a melody note over a given chord shape.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Norman931

Well, some of us need a bit more guidance. When I was a kid, someone gave me a guitar. He might as well have given me a shovel, because I had no idea of how to get music from the thing. A few minutes with a competent teacher would have worked wonders, but that didn't happen until several years later! Of course, guys like Charlie Christian could take my second-hand dime-store guitar and make magic immediately, but all I could do was beat on the back of it with drumsticks. I couldn't find anyone that would show me how to hold it, let alone tune it or make a chord. I guess what I am trying to say is that before you can "do it," sometimes you need a good teacher to help you get started.
As someone who is fumbling toward an understanding of chord-melody, I appreciate any good advice I can get. I have many of the books, and I agree that they aren't always helpful. So far, the best to me has been Robert Conti's Chord-Melody Assembly Line. Conti's teaching style is a bit rambling, but his approach gives you a quick foundation that will get you past the confusion of "Where do I start?"

It depends on what you know before. If you don't know how to play the guitar, you don't start with chord melody! But I don't peg you as a raw beginner--Do you know chord voicings up and down the neck? Do you know where all the notes are on the fretboard? Then you know enough to dive in.

My first chord melody took me weeks to get together. The 2nd and third were probably just as long...by the time I did 10-15 I could knock one out in a day...now I can knock one out in an afternoon...it takes time, you just have to be patient...

The concept is really simple--get a lead sheet, play the chords to the song, put the melody on top...it's great for ear training as you struggle with voicings and harmonies...I guess I don't see the "where do I start?" as the big question, to me it's "When am I done?!"

[wizard3739]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

It depends on what you know before. If you don't know how to play the guitar, you don't start with chord melody! But I don't peg you as a raw beginner--Do you know chord voicings up and down the neck? Do you know where all the notes are on the fretboard? Then you know enough to dive in.

My first chord melody took me weeks to get together. The 2nd and third were probably just as long...by the time I did 10-15 I could knock one out in a day...now I can knock one out in an afternoon...it takes time, you just have to be patient...

The concept is really simple--get a lead sheet, play the chords to the song, put the melody on top...it's great for ear training as you struggle with voicings and harmonies...I guess I don't see the "where do I start?" as the big question, to me it's "When am I done?!"

Good points here Jeff! With your approach, IMHO, you will eventually reach the ability to make up a chord melody during your gig performance. IE, perhaps the ideal end result of playing chord melodies. As you stated, it just takes time, patience and dedication to reach that level of performance. Also, IMHO, playing/arranging/analyzing chord melodies builds your ear and offers many improvements to playing solos.

wiz

[mr. beaumont]

Yeah, it's the single best thing I ever did for my playing...it helped in all areas, not just chord melody playing.

I'm at the point now where I can "hack one out" on the fly, but I like to put some time into them and get things a little more arranged-even though that goes out the window once I start playing them again!

[Uli]

Stupid as it may sound but try to stick to the idea that "chord-melody" is about chords in the first place. Try to find the melody in the underlying chords of the tune, that is - start with the chords, not from the melody. This will help you a lot to keep things simple and get a better understanding of what you are playing.

At least this has worked for me.

[jazzbender]

Sounds like the Martin Taylor Guitar Academy is what you're looking for. Spend a few months studying his approach and your guitar will look like a different instrument.

[exarctly]

Here are some things that maybe haven't been mentioned. They are not meant to replace anything else that you have working for you.
Try just using just few voices at a time. Play the melody and harmonize it with simply one or two strings. This way, you are not only going to think of shapes that can work with the melody on top, but you might start listening to the ever important voice leading. Looking for ways to have melodies under the melodies (counter melodies) and contrary motion and or simple chromatic movement. Keep in mind that the toot or 5th or often implied without needing to be played, but you can play them if they help complete a nice melody. Keep in mind that any note from the scale can be used in the chord, or you can suspend things and even play some chromatic dissonances if cleverly done. You may know some of this from your other areas of study, so forgive me if I am saying anything you already know.
But by doing just a few strings at a time, you may be able to actually more consciously hear where all the notes are going. You can start to think of counterpoint ideas and you can think of your guitar as a mini choir.

Another approach would be to maybe do the melody and one harmony and then add a bass line. These are more exercises, they may or may not work for some of your finished product, which I would use as many or as few strings/harmonies as I feel like.

Of course, learning a lot of chord voicings and substitution ideas helps...but to me the thing that is paramount (for comping, soloing or chord melody playing) is simply fretboard knowledge. Not to be too tied down to playing things because they are shapes (though I certainly do use a lot of shapes and try to learn new ones too) but to simply choose the harmonies you want and omit the ones you don't. To voice things uniquely. Feature fourths and seconds when possible. Learn how to play a chord with any note in the bass for bass line purposes. But my main point is if the chord is Dm...choose the notes you want from D F A C E G B maybe C# wherever you can find them. Don't just look for a D minor stock shape, but pick the combination of these notes that will give you the best sound. Eventually these may be done often enough that they become memorized shapes as well.

Eventually you just decide between a lot of possibilities. Counterpoint, bass line, more choral style, contrary motion subs etc....There is a lot that people can think of so quickly.

And again, I am assuming that you may already have known a lot of that from your other areas of studying jazz, so don't feel insulted if none of that is new to you, but I wanted to be thorough.

Brian

Listen to and watch players. I just saw a great video of Rosenwinkel playing Darn that Dream at some guitar camp or something. I am thinking of stealing some ideas from it.

[jazzjew7890]

Know as many chord voicings as you can in all the positions on the neck. Roots on 4th, 5th, and 6th string. With chord melodies your playing chords relative to the song's chord changes while putting the note of the melody on top of the chord. Simple enough if you have even a basic knowledge of the jazz language. (understanding substitutions and the NOTES of chords will help create more complex harmonies)

A useful tip is learn the single note melody and chord changes first, don't just start putting everything together at once.
Everyone has different methods so learn what is easiest for you and only you.

[hot ford coupe]

When I first learned what chord melody really was, it was like a revelation. Before I started with it, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how it was done. When I finally put the facts together, I couldn't believe how simple it really was to understand. To execute it was another story altogether. That was the hard part. The first thing I learned was how to put every note in a chord in a lead toned. In other words, how to voice all the inversions. Then I learned how to put each note in a scale including all the semitone into the lead. Once I did that, it was just matching the chords in the song with the lead note. Next, I refined that by looking how the notes other than the melody moved around and fiddled with substitutions and other inversions. Finally, and this is the state I'm at now, gaining fluidity going from one chord to the next so the melody comes out like I want it to. That's the technique part. It took quite a while to do all this. The most important fact to learn is baby steps. You can't fly if you haven't learned to crawl yet. Learn to stand and walk before anything else and then go from there. There's no such thing as a short cut. Sme folks will get it before others but the pathway is the same, i.e. perseverance and time on the instrument.

[steev]

I dont have much of a problem in building chords on the melody. My main problem is how to make the piece more interesting when a melody note carries for a whole bar or more and changes to different chord at the end of the sustained note. I have tried to make little arppegio fills, various scale runs, even playing the sustained chord a few times instead of once with and without the bass note etc. Am I on the right track or am I missing something. Any advice or recommended reading would be appreceated.

[exarctly]

Someone else already offered something here that I found helpful...I have been listening to more trio recordings. And I love the way that guiatr players will sort of embellish melodies or sort of comp for themselves like piano players with just little intervallic chords like thirds or seconds being punched around melodic ideas. I think that in order to do this, you first learn the melody really well, and then play it pretending that you are being accompanied by at least a bass player, and so you can choose to add harmony when you want to or have time, but you do not have to all the time. But rather than always playing melodies harmonized, you can play part of the melody than add some harmony and occasionally play the melody note harmonized as well. But don;t always do it the same way. Look at yourself as a comping for yourself, and try to interweave a lot of fills and occasional bass notes or bass lines around the melody. Pretend you are in a trio, and get some ideas for movement around the melody that can happen and from there try to take it to the next level where you are consistently harmonizing or playing as if you are doing the work of a melodist and accompanist. Hope I am explaining this well. It is something I am working on.

[m78w]

I learned by a mixture of three things which were really helpful:

1. I learned all the Barry Galbraith comping studies and all the Joe Pass chord solo studies. These really helped with getting practical, common voicings and chord phrases under my fingers and into my ears.

2. I transcribed a lot of Ed Bickert, Joe Pass and Lenny Breau. Three of the best chord melody players around.

3. I wrote out arrangements of chord melodies and memorized them for a while until I felt comfortable doing it on the fly. Great way to take the stuff I learned in the first two ideas and apply them to tunes and with my own take on these ideas.

Hope that helps!

[SammieWammie]

How I started was I learned all the drop 2 chord voicings for major, minor and dominant, all the inversions so I could now put any chord tone on the top of a chord voicing, got me far, far away from barre chords. Of course not all melodies have a chord tone on top so you just need to be flexible with your fingers and voicings to put any note on top. I also had to learn to read notation at the same time so this was very beneficial for me. Then I would read a melody (1st was Satin Doll), read the chords, put the two together, add a bass line sometimes (I also walk and comp through the chord changes which I can add into an arrangement), then with just that you have a simple arrangement. Next steps were to steal ideas off other people to put into my own playing (also if you can't see a way to put melody and chords together, Youtube it, somebody has usually done it, good ideas to take), re-harmonizing it, improvising while accompanying yourself (impossible for the 1st few weeks but now I can) and what I like to do is know it a few different ways e.g. melody, chords, bass, chord melody, walking comp, walking bass with melody, walking comp with melody, chords which outline the melody (chord for every note), then with that flexibility I mix and match as I feel, allowing improvisation. I'm no pro, that's as far as I've gotten in a few months working on this and only a bit longer playing jazz in general. I can work out a basic arrangement in less than a day usually but they're never finished I keep changing them. Also trying to get time to transcribe and learn properly some of the ideas I take from people instead of just getting general ideas.

[fasteddie]

I picked up a Robert Yellin Jazz Chord Melody Book. Learned a couple of tunes. They sound really good. But I was just playing the way it was written not really thinking about what was going on. By the way Robert Yellin has 4 chord melody books out that I know of and I think the arrangements are really nice.

Then on the third tune I started to anaylize what was really going on, and this was an enlightment for me. Then I started to pick out tunes from the Real Book and try to do a chord melody on my own (Satin Doll, Moonglow & They Can't Take That Away From Me). A lot of work for me but really fun.

As far as filling in where there is only one note in a bar, I find it helpful to listen to examples. It doesn't even have to be the song your working on but llisten to what goes on in that situation. Lately I steal ideas from Barney Kessel's Poll Winners & Frank Vignola Plays Gershwin among others.

I'd like to get to the level Mr B is out a tune a day but for me right now it takes probably 1 to 2 weeks to put together a chord melody.

Another thing that has helped is that I could play a chord in 5 or 6 positions but I had no idea what note was where. Trying to learn chord melodies has really helped me in knowing what finger is on what note.

[wizard3739]

Originally Posted by exarctly

Someone else already offered something here that I found helpful...I have been listening to more trio recordings. And I love the way that guiatr players will sort of embellish melodies or sort of comp for themselves like piano players with just little intervallic chords like thirds or seconds being punched around melodic ideas. I think that in order to do this, you first learn the melody really well, and then play it pretending that you are being accompanied by at least a bass player, and so you can choose to add harmony when you want to or have time, but you do not have to all the time. But rather than always playing melodies harmonized, you can play part of the melody than add some harmony and occasionally play the melody note harmonized as well. But don;t always do it the same way. Look at yourself as a comping for yourself, and try to interweave a lot of fills and occasional bass notes or bass lines around the melody. Pretend you are in a trio, and get some ideas for movement around the melody that can happen and from there try to take it to the next level where you are consistently harmonizing or playing as if you are doing the work of a melodist and accompanist. Hope I am explaining this well. It is something I am working on.

+1 on your approach, you have just described the way I am trying to approach chord melody. I am basically an ear player with a pretty good jazz theory education and a pretty good command of many, many chords. When I play in a trio setting (bass, drums & guitar), I often use a melodic comping approach that can pass for chord melody when needed.

wiz

[hot ford coupe]

Originally Posted by exarctly

Someone else already offered something here that I found helpful...I have been listening to more trio recordings. And I love the way that guiatr players will sort of embellish melodies or sort of comp for themselves like piano players with just little intervallic chords like thirds or seconds being punched around melodic ideas. I think that in order to do this, you first learn the melody really well, and then play it pretending that you are being accompanied by at least a bass player, and so you can choose to add harmony when you want to or have time, but you do not have to all the time. But rather than always playing melodies harmonized, you can play part of the melody than add some harmony and occasionally play the melody note harmonized as well. But don;t always do it the same way. Look at yourself as a comping for yourself, and try to interweave a lot of fills and occasional bass notes or bass lines around the melody. Pretend you are in a trio, and get some ideas for movement around the melody that can happen and from there try to take it to the next level where you are consistently harmonizing or playing as if you are doing the work of a melodist and accompanist. Hope I am explaining this well. It is something I am working on.

Now that's exarctly (pun intended) what I'm talking about. That's a great way to figure out what you need to do. I try to do something similar (note I said I try but I don't always succeed yet.) during the part where I'm not singing. I've come a long way since I first started to unravel chord melody.

[matt.guitarteacher]

I do a lot of the aforementioned comping like a piano player (or piano player's right hand). I'm an old finger-style player and don't have a lot of trouble separating the melody from the chords, rhythmically speaking. I never did a lot of playing the melody by itself without the chords. I read melody a lot better in the context of chords/chord tones than stand-alone melody. So, as far as the "learn the melody first, then chords, then together" philosophy, I never did it that way.

Honestly, I'm pretty lousy with playing the melody. I started really playing chord-melody when I got Conti's Chord-Melody Assembly Line book and my first Real Book about a year and a half ago at Christmas. Since I learned how to read chord-melody, I just don't have the attention span for drilling chords or melodic stuff, but, then again, I only play for myself. I'm sure that some day when things slow down a little I'll find other musicians to play with and that focus will change.

When I got my first Real Book, I worked through the handful of tunes that I could kind of get through pretty easily with Conti's entry-level chords. I'd play through the tunes a couple of times, stopping occasionally to find a voicing for spots that gave me trouble. When I got to the end of the Real Book, I went back to the A's at the front.

Each time I went through the book, I got a little better, learning new voicings, embellishments, and substitutions, to keep from jumping up and down the fretboard and to freshen things up. Tunes that sounded cheesy with the simple chords I used in the beginning started sounding better as I learned more voicings. On each pass through the book, I dog-eared more pages. Now I've got about 50-100 pages in each of my four volumes dog-eared like that.

I know that Mr. Beaumont has talked about his "year in chord-melody land" before. For me it's been about a year-and-a-half. (I don't have anywhere near his chops BTW.) The thing that I love about studying this way is that the tunes do the teaching. I get bored and irritated with the same old voicing in a tune, and I look up new ones or transpose familiar ones up or down a string set. I feel like I'm taking lessons from Duke Ellington and Cole Porter. They've taught me a ton of chords that I didn't get out of any book.

At one point, last year, I got irritated that I was reading these things and never memorizing or perfecting them. I couldn't really play one for someone without a Real Book. So, I memorized a few tunes. Now, I've gotten busy again and I mainly "read through" for a few minutes each day, picking up a new Real Book when I tire of the one I'm playing through. While I know that I need to work on arranging, I still progress each time I play through tunes, and my comping is a ton better.

My point is that, in addition to working out real arrangements and memorizing them, I believe that there is tremendous value in reading through or playing by ear tunes which are equal to or only slightly above your ability to play the first or second time through CM style. I can now read through a tune I've never seen much better now than I could "work out" arrangements even a year ago.

If you can't kind of read through or figure out a simple tune, get the Conti book or some other book that has simple beginner CM voicings. Work out some basic ways to read/improvise CM on tunes on the fly. Then embellish, arrange, embellish some more.

Sorry for being long-winded.

[Jim Soloway]

Originally Posted by steev

I dont have much of a problem in building chords on the melody. My main problem is how to make the piece more interesting when a melody note carries for a whole bar or more and changes to different chord at the end of the sustained note. I have tried to make little arppegio fills, various scale runs, even playing the sustained chord a few times instead of once with and without the bass note etc. Am I on the right track or am I missing something. Any advice or recommended reading would be appreceated.

There are always many chords that share the same voice note (usually the highest note in the chord). Often those can be used in sequence in single passage so while the melody note remains the same, the underlying chords progress, ideally in a sequence that creates movement towards the next tonal center. Perhaps the easiest way to learn this concept is to learn the Jobim song "One Note Samba". Other than the bridge, the entire song is built on descending harmony under a single melody note.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Originally Posted by steev

I dont have much of a problem in building chords on the melody. My main problem is how to make the piece more interesting when a melody note carries for a whole bar or more and changes to different chord at the end of the sustained note. I have tried to make little arppegio fills, various scale runs, even playing the sustained chord a few times instead of once with and without the bass note etc. Am I on the right track or am I missing something. Any advice or recommended reading would be appreceated.

All that stuff is a good start. I used a lot of the Mickey Baker Maj-Maj7-Maj6 and min7-min6 type of stuff and just varying the rhythm of the chords and bass when I first started.

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

There are always many chords that share the same voice note (usually the highest note in the chord). Often those can be used in sequence in single passage so while the melody note remains the same, the underlying chords progress, ideally in a sequence that creates movement towards the next tonal center. Perhaps the easiest way to learn this concept is to learn the Jobim song "One Note Samba". Other than the bridge, the entire song is built on descending harmony under a single melody note.

That's a great example, Jim. Yeah, look at some classic tunes where the melody note stays the same but the chord changes, especially at the end of phrases. A lot of these tunes have great turnarounds that happen over one sustained note. They very often use some simple backcycling.

If you've got a sustained Major type chord you'll often see I vi ii v as the turnaround for repeats. This works as a 'sub' for a long Major chord. You just have to time it where you end back at the I chord, possibly by shortening the length of the ii V to arrive back at the I before the original chord would have ended. When those start to sound cheesy, substitute some of those turnaround chords with their tritone, like I vi ii bII.

CESH sequences can add interest to sustained minor chords. am-amM7-am7-am6 and back. You can do the same thing with chromatic movement from the 5th of the chord. This type of movement applies to other chord types of well. There are a lot of good voicings for these in Leavitt's Modern Guitar Method and probably many other books which I don't own.

On your dominant chords, alter the 5ths and the 9ths. Use diminished shapes. Matt Warnock has a great new article on this. They really come in handy for chord runs over dominants.

I'm really pretty new to a lot of this as well. Those are just some of the things I do over the long chords.

[jtizzle]

By no means I'm an expert at chord melody, but I can handle myself. Not enough to play a whole gig by myself, but maybe introduce a few songs at a gig with some solo CM stuff, and definitely good enough to harmonize melodies in a group setting.

I learned chord melody a few months ago. I was taking a combo class in college and we wanted to play Round Midnight. My instructor gave us the idea of doing it as a duet, but I had absolutely no idea of what to do to keep it interesting. I could comp well, but that was about it. I went up to my guitar teacher and he helped me arrange the A section a couple of different ways while he helped me analyze the chords we were playing and substituting. He gave me the task of arranging the bridge, which I did really easily, as just learning how to do 8 bars and how to start it off helped me a tremendous amount. After that I started working on other songs and it was really easy.
However, I think the reason it was so easy for me is because I already knew tons of different voicings for chords already before I started doing CM, so it was just a question of being able to bring out the melody out of the chords. I've been working on adding in bass lines in the style of Joe Pass, not overdoing it though, and keeping richer harmonies in the style of Jim Hall.
I'm not a huge fan of CM anyways, I like doing what I can do already Introducing a few songs, being able to accompany an instrument while being able to play/hint the melody but not have it relied on me, or be able to harmonize certain notes from a melody or solo while playing with a group.

I've done a few arrangements for solo guitar now, for Have You Met Miss Jones, Stella By Starlight and a few more. I worked out a trio thing to be able to harmonize a lot of the melody, but not full enough for solo guitar for Let's Cool One and I hear A Rhapsody. There's probably a few more songs, but I'd have to think more about them.