Spicing up boring chord melodies?

SammieWammie · #1 08-07-2011, 03:51 AM

Simply to add a few quick songs to my chord melody repertoire I worked out a few I already knew in a group setting solo style, like Tune Up and Lady Bird. But they're fairly boring songs, at least to play solo. I'm seriously considering scrapping them, well taking them off my repertoire list simply because I can't think of much to do with them to make them more interesting. Sure Miles could no doubt solo over Tune Up and make it interesting and I have a recording of Grant Green with a beautiful solo over it but it doesn't seem to have much to do to it on solo guitar. Any ideas people? I've used all my tricks I can and it still feels dead.

Jazzaluk · #2 08-07-2011, 07:31 AM

Song choice is important for solo guitar. Some tunes are more conducive to solo playing just by virtue of the melody, chord progression and form. A well written song will present lots of ideas and opportunities to support a solo performance or arrangement.

I would rather hear a solo interpretation of well written tune than one based on an interesting chord progression that facilitates single line improvisation in a group setting.

If you are getting bored with your arrangements, add new tunes. Different feels and timings. I like to practice three tunes in a row. Different keys, different tempos and different style. (i.e. Blues, Bossa, Swing). This is a good practice technique and I have found that it helps to simulate new ideas in each tune.

mr. beaumont · #3 08-07-2011, 09:07 AM

Song has to have a good melody, otherwise there's little point in doing a solo arrangement. "Tune Up" and "Lady Bird" are blowing tunes.

JohnW400 · #4 08-07-2011, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SammieWammie

Simply to add a few quick songs to my chord melody repertoire I worked out a few I already knew in a group setting solo style, like Tune Up and Lady Bird. But they're fairly boring songs, at least to play solo. I'm seriously considering scrapping them, well taking them off my repertoire list simply because I can't think of much to do with them to make them more interesting. Sure Miles could no doubt solo over Tune Up and make it interesting and I have a recording of Grant Green with a beautiful solo over it but it doesn't seem to have much to do to it on solo guitar. Any ideas people? I've used all my tricks I can and it still feels dead.

Lady Bird moves pretty quick for a chord melody. Tune up is a good one to reharmonize. I always think of Tune up and Countdown. Maybe try the Tune Up melody with the Countdown changes. I haven't done this (I may now

).

The reharm I usually do on tune up is to take the second measure of the I and turn it into a ii-v (Emi7 A7 Dma7 Ebmi7-Ab7 etc)

Another think you can do since the melody notes are long is to put some action in the bass and walk it agaist the melody.

Here's a quick example

M-ster · #5 08-07-2011, 12:16 PM

JohnW400 · #6 08-07-2011, 02:46 PM

jtizzle · #7 08-08-2011, 02:32 AM

When doing solo guitar, I like to choose ballads that can be played in any tempo. Ballads usually have more lyrical melodies, and have enough chords to give you A LOT of choices of harmonizing notes. Round Midnight, Stella By Starlight, Have You Met Miss Jones, I Hear A Rhapsody, Lets Cool One, Darn That Dream are all great songs to work with doing solo guitar, hell, even Giant Steps is REALLY easy to work out a solo guitar thing for the head, but Giant Steps is something else, it's not something you should play for a solo guitar arrangement. The song just doesn't do much (melodically).

SammieWammie · #8 08-09-2011, 04:25 AM

I usually choose ballads too, half of the ones you mentioned just above I'm working on, LOVE Round Midnight, I heard Wes playing it and fell in love with it. Thanks for the ideas people. Some ideas I do is walking bass a lot, also I like to get creative with different voicings of the same chord in sections of 1+ bars on the same chord, essentially doing little harmonizing fill ins while still keeping the same basic chords, with different notes added and subtracted as necessary to fit the voicing. If that makes sense. Also small single note runs to connect chords, often a variation or extension of the melody. As for actual complete re-harmonization there's not much I really do, there doesn't seem to be all that much I can do that doesn't sound terrible. Well I'm sure there is but I'm working on just different extensions of the chords, what I mentioned above and such, different root movement sometimes, also since a saxophonist friend explained the diminished relationship of dominants to me that opened up a door into alternate chords substituted for dominant chords. That's the sort of stuff I do in my arrangements. Forgive me, I'm new to jazz and my new jazz teacher has been gone for the past few months when I've been working on this, only teaching I've had is intuition, putting theory I'm learning into my playing however I can and youtube, stealing ideas off random youtube videos. Joe Pass for sure but I haven't transcribed anything note for note longer than 4 bars and some of Tuck Andress's ideas I steal.

jtizzle · #9 08-09-2011, 02:44 PM

When I started doing CM I barely reharmonized, I started looking at the lead sheet, seeing what the melody note was in regards to the chord it was being played on. I find the inversion or voicing that places that scale/chord tone in the top and then add alterations/extensions. For example, in the first bar of Stella, instead of playing an E-7b5, I play a Bb maj#4. (xx8755) which functions also as an E-7b5(11). I like doing this because the song, being in Bb, sets the tonality in Bb (although not fully

.)

One thing to make your life easier and things you should reharmonize, are tritone subs. Sometimes an Eb7 voicing won't work with the melody but an A7 will work. You can also do ii-V reharmonization to add a walking bassline. I'm not a huge fan of Joe Pass style though, there's just too much, and it gets to a point of being really corny. When I do solo guitar I like to imagine I have a bass and drums behind me, playing more Jim Hall style, but I add a bit more just to fill in the space where the Drums and Bass would be playing, it might be a few chords, a line, or a short bass note.

Larry Feldman · #10 08-10-2011, 08:09 PM

Why not try Ladybird at a slower tempo, kinda like the way some people have approached Giant Steps.

kingbiscuit · #11 09-02-2011, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SammieWammie

... also since a saxophonist friend explained the diminished relationship of dominants to me that opened up a door into alternate chords substituted for dominant chords.

please elaborate. i'm still taking harmonic baby steps.

BigDaddyLoveHandles · #12 09-02-2011, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingbiscuit

please elaborate. i'm still taking harmonic baby steps.

I think he may mean this:

Consider a dominant chord, say D7:

D7 = D F# A C

Extend it to a b9 chord:

D7b9 = D F# A C Eb

Often when a guitarist plays a b9 chord they omit the root:

D7b9(no root) = F# A C Eb

Hey that's a diminished seventh chord! And by the symmetry of the diminished seventh chord (being built out of minor thirds), three other dominant sevenths chords will lead you to the same diminished seventh chord:

D7 = D F# A C --> D F# A C Eb --> F# A C Eb
F7 = F A C Eb --> F A C Eb Gb --> A C Eb Gb
Ab7 = Ab C Eb Gb --> Ab C Eb Gb Bbb --> C Eb Gb Bbb
B7 = B D# F# A --> B D# F# A C --> D# F# A C

So I think of that quartet of dominant sevenths (D7 F7 Ab7 B7) as being related -- for starters, take any two of them and you'll see they share two notes, and their other notes are a half-step apart.

Try substituting one for the other. For example, without getting into altered chords and chord extensions, I think that slipping in a F7 chord when playing D7 sounds bluesy:

Instead of just comping 5x453x, comp 5x453x -> 5x354x -> 5x453x.