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I have been watching videos of guitarist who can play such amazing chord progressions off following melodies or from knowledge of blending chords. Where would be a good place to start for someone with limited knowledge of chord theory looking to learn chord melodies or just overall improvement and understanding of chord structures and how to improvise?
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12-28-2017 04:23 AM
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once you have a few basic chord shapes down for each chord, start working on inversions. Work on the drop2 and drop3 systems. The drop2 inversions especially are a big part of chord soloing on guitar
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You might find something of interest here:
Chord Melody Guitar Basics: for Jazz Guitar Solo or in a Band
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The Ted Greene site would provide you a wealth of information (I see the link says "Single Note Soloing," but the chord melody arrangements are at this link):
TedGreene.com - Teachings - Single Note Soloing
As a beginner, you'll want to take your time and seriously absorb the arrangements; but, this is great stuff!Last edited by M-ster; 12-29-2017 at 12:29 AM.
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Wow, i just had a look at that site, man there are a hell of a lot of chords in those songs but not a lot of movement with walking bass etc.
Originally Posted by M-ster
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Two books I found helpful.
Concepts: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar (The Howard Morgen Fingerstyle Jazz Series): Howard Morgen: 9780769230757: Amazon.com: Books
Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Essentials: Complete Edition – Acoustic Guitar
Both of these artists have course on True Fire as well. Howard Morgen passed away a few years ago but his course material is still on the True Fire web site. While these are both for fingerstyle, the arranging and developing bass lines can be applied for either pick of fingerstyle. The Howard Morgen book does not include tab i.e. all standard notation although a number of the arrangements have chord block diagrams
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I have a couple hundred songs on YouTube and a lot of them are chord melody songs. Many are arrangements done by Howard Heitmeyer specifically for me and my level. My advice to someone starting out is to start out as simply as possible and progress one step at a time. I have coached tennis and table tennis for over forty years and that's how I coach. Start with melody first and foremost and then add a bass note. I then add another note or two from the chords on the sheet music or the chart. Most of the time they are right but sometimes they are not. Then comes the tough part and that is what to do for the fills of the holes (sometimes for four or 8 beats) The forum guys are very helpful most of the time. Don't hesitate to ask questions.....good luck...my YouTube channel is under.....2142543.....or under my name....Dan Cole
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Can you read music? Find a tune you love get a lead sheet like in a real book.
1) learn the melody inside out everywhere on neck....especially on the high E and B strings at first
2) start adding bass notes that match the chords in lead sheet
3) add 3rd and 7ths between the melody and bass note
4) buy a book with an professional arrangement of the song(s) you worked on yourself...compare notes...steal ideas...
5) keep doing it for as long as you enjoy it
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That point is key. I play the melody like a horn player with fluid slides, then I find 2 or 3 note chords to add like a comping piano player. Originally Posted by alltunes
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Robert Conti' s chord melody assembly line is a very solid intro. Books/DVDs generally pile up or sit on the shelf, but that one got used fully. Money well spent...
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Hopefully the OP is still following this thread.
I am speaking strictly from the perspective of learning chord melody form scratch the last several years. I am a beginner to jazz. I've taken a couple of private lessons. Worked out of books; watched YouTubes and videos...read through comment's on this forum. Even joined Martin Taylor's online school for a while. Generally worked pretty hard at it but I am enjoying the the journey and the results immensely. I think it is invaluable to try and tackle a few tunes on your own using the over-simplified approach I mentioned above before you buy a book.
I'm a huge fan of Bill Frisell's approach to solo guitar. Sparse and intelligent use of supporting notes to the melody. I'm also a flatpicker so that flat pick hybrid style appeals to me. Fingerstyle jazz is not my bag.
I have quite a few chord melody books; my favorite being John Stein's Berklee book...also Barry Greene's video lessons on Vimeo are excellent. He has a quite a few chord melody lessons...each that show and dissect an arrangement of one particular song. Learned a lot from Barry's lessons.
Robert Conti's approach is good but I think it's important to realize that you don't need to play as big 4 or 5 note chord on each melody note. His approach may lead you to believe that you need a big block chord on every beat. Gets too thick and difficult to play...for me anyway. Same with Ted Green chart's...love his sound and Tim Lerch's sound even more but there are some huge stretches in those charts.
On thing I heard Frisell say on online was to stick with a tune or two and REALLY work them. To that end after 4 or so years I only have a bout 7 or 8 chord melody pieces that I can do and for me it takes effort to keep them all in somewhat playable condition. I continually work on them and try to improve them. Most of all enjoy the journey...guitar is great.
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7 or 8? Originally Posted by alltunes
I'm sorry, but I'd recommend getting back to the assembly line and working it a little more. After working through that book, I was able to start reading through tunes in a basic way from a fake book using that approach. I've read countless other similar replies over the last six or seven years from other players saying the same thing. It gets you on the way to playing dozens and dozens of your own arrangements pretty quickly.
It's definitely not the ending, but it's a good start. A beginning method is not a prescriptive RESTRICTION for what you "must" do for the rest of your life or something. I mean, I don't think most people think it's sensible, musical, or even practical to play full chords on every beat Every time you play something, but in the BEGINNING, it's VERY helpful to do so, because more than anything, you need reps with chord voicings for a given melody note.
What you're describing with full chords etc. is more of an ARTICULATION issue and is a false logical premise. If you learn to strum cowboy chords as quarter notes, that's not later a RESTRICTION which prevents you from playing other strum patterns. The logic is just flawed there. It disregards the fact that rhythm is mostly a separate element.
Articulation is the same. Block chords can be played as three or four string chords . You can leave out the bass. You can alternate fingers, arpeggiate, play with a pick or fingerstyle etc. etc. Personally, I think articulation is the biggest factor in playing chord melody effectively anyway, but that being said, all of those factors don't necessarily help when you're trying to find basic voicings anyway.
Finally, beyond all of those considerations, All of these voicings are absolutely standard voicings every jazz guitarist should know anyway, so it's not like you're wasting your time learning grips you'd never use.
Anyway, check out the Jeff Arnold chord melody thread on how deep is the ocean. I'll try to post that tune over there. Maybe we can discuss some of the articulation issues etc. Arpeggiated or not, it's all still based around basic block voicings.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 01-05-2018 at 04:47 PM.
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My point is that you can have fun faster and learn how to play an entire tune by realizing you don't need a full chord for every melody note. Duly noted that the Conti method drills them into your head.
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My personal belief is if you really want to play chord melody and have it sound fluid or pianistic, so to speak, then iron out bad habits from the beginning, first one being, throw away the plectrum. John.
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Thank you guys for all the sources of books, videos, and methods given. I'm a begginer to jazz not guitar. I'm currently working on the Berklee method book to learn how to read and escape the tab dependency. As for chord melodies, I am more focused on learning the theory behind making my own chord melodies rather than emulating them. I'm sure some of the sources listed provide that, just keeping that in mind. While I'm here, I'd like to also ask you guys on sources to other books that will compliment my Berklee method book as material to help improve my reading skills ( perhaps with a jazz focus ). Thank you everyone for the help, much appreciated!
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Learning by playing a full chord on every beat is extremely frustrating and difficult and and I don't suggest it for that reason. Many jazz chords require difficult stretches and would drive me bonkers if I had to learn a complete piece using them....especially on a classical guitar which is all I play on. Go on YouTube and listen to me play Misty in the first position. I played seven gigs over the holidays....playing chord melody.....and not one of the songs was played that way.....Misty.....Dan Cole
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Conti's shtick is that he's some tough guy goodfella, but really I think he's Mr. Miyagi. Originally Posted by alltunes
The one chord for every melody note sounds like shit. And the solos in his single note series are as square and lame as anything I've ever heard. But I'm pretty sure they're "paint the fence, up and down" and "wax on, wax off." They're all full of fundamental stuff that you need to know. You can't take them at face value.
Or you could do it the hard way--I sat down with a stack of CD''s (the silver round things you can still shove in some computers/cars) and a Real Book, and decided I would figure it out myself.
I did. Only took ten years not to sound embarrasing, too.
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There is an inherent methodology that's being missed out in the "one chord per " conversation. It's the value of learning to play a "scale" using chord voicings. It's an exercise in and of itself, independent of pure musical performance or tunes. These conversations which begin with "how do to even BEGIN to start looking at chord melody?" always turns into varied aspects of what I would call ARRANGING.
Arranging solo pieces is very different from learning chord voicings. Whether it's Robert Conti's voicings , drop two voicings, dyads, or whatever, there's a lot of value in learning them in a systematic way , rather than arbitrarily, as you come upon them in individual tunes. If you learn to play scales of chord voicings for major, minor, half diminished, and dominant chords, you are going to vastly accelerate your ability to do this on the fly , by ear, or off the page.
Take 32 bars of quarter notes as a melody: one chord per bar maybe. If you "arrange" this imaginary tune and play a full chord on beat 1 of each measure along with whatever melody note happens to arbitrarily be on THAT beat, then, you practiced 32 unique VOICINGS with a melody note on top, and the rest are single notes around those voicings. If you play the same imaginary tune but play each note with its own voicing, now you're talking about 128 unique voicings?
It's an exercise! It's a method. It works very well whether Conti or someone else's. It accelerates the process. Take it or leave it. When I did out, I never assumed that I would ALWAYS play block chords on every melody note simply because it was that way in that book. Frankly, I've never understood why people assume that. It's simply a beginning method.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 01-06-2018 at 01:37 AM.
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I think Matt is really Mr Miyagi of the guitar and if I were younger I think I might attempt it his way and as a result would probably be a much better guitar player. At my age, I just wanna have fun and play the tune. I would rather spend my guitar practice time playing the tunes I know and arranging the ones I want to learn to the best of my ability rather than engage in an academic study like you youngsters should.....Dan
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I'd like to listen/watch your Misty video...where can I find your YouTube channel? Originally Posted by jazzdan
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My YouTube channel is under 2142543 or Dan Cole or type in Misty and Dan Cole and it will come up.....enjoy!
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How about providing the direct web link. Originally Posted by jazzdan
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Here is Dan's Misty. Btw you should all join us on the Jeff Arnold chord melody practical standard thread.
The more the merrier.
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The one-chord-per-melody-note method is most commonly referred to as Note For Note Harmonization (NFNH). It is the standard technique used by jazz arrangers for harmonizing moving melodic lines, particularly for saxophones. In essence, you are creating 4 or 5 simultaneously melodies. Robert Conti’s Chord Melody Arrangements are great examples of this style. If you read his comments in some of his Source Code books, he says that you don’t have to play a chord under each melody note. You get to choose.
The 2 most important melodies or “voices” in these arrangements are the main melody note (top note in the grid) and the bass melody (bottom note in the grid). In fact, if you take Conti’s arrangements and just play these 2 important notes, what you get is the much coveted melody plus walking bass line technique used by Lenny Breau, Martin Taylor, Ted Greene, Joe Pass, etc.
Try these experiments. 1) Take a Conti arrangement and just play the chord under the first melody note of each measure. For the others just play the a) melody note or b) the melody note plus the bass melody note. You will come up with a simplified but good sounding arrangement using about 70% fewer chords.
2) Now use the full chord on the first melody note of each measure AND the last melody note of each measure. For the other melody notes use either a) or b) from above.
3) Then try using a full chord on the first note of the measure AND the melody note on beat 3 (in 4/4 time). Other melody notes use a) or b).
4) use just the melody note and bass melody note for the “contrapuntal” walking bass approach.
Finally, if you take the above 4 approaches PLUS the NFNH method and mix them, you can play a different “version” of the tune each time you play it, avoiding the cliché of having to do it exactly the same way each time. Works like a charm!
LAST PIECE OF ADVICE: Know the difference between “information” and KNOWLEDGE. Information comes in the guise of “learn this Martino lick”, “play guitar like George Benson”,
“Joe Pass chord melody phrase”. This info is available free on the internet. DON’T pay for this stuff. Just look around a bit. By contrast, KNOWLEDGE comes from real teachers that can really play. They supply you with real-world application of proven methods, that WILL improve your playing in a short amount of time. You have to pay for this KNOWLEDGE, but it is worth it. I don’t know of any more extensive collection of KNOWLEDGE than Conti’s Source Code books. As you can see from the above-chord melody examples, there is depth to Conti’s “curriculum”. Just dig a little bit and you will be rewarded!
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Here’s a really neat and quick way to improve your comping by increasing your “vocabulary”. First start with chord voicings found in Robert Conti’s Source Cod books “The Formula” and “The Chord Melody Assembly Line”.
Instead of learning one or two chord “grips” for each type of chord (ma7, mi7, 7, etc.), Conti has you learn, for example, mi7 voicings with ALL of the available melody notes on the “top” of the chord (1, 2/9, b3, 4/11, 5, 6, b7). If you play these in succession, you get a “chord scale” of mi7 voicings. Instead of just 2, you get 7! Pretty cool.
The chords in Conti’s books have a bass note/root on each voicing. For “thinner” comping chords, just leave off the bottom note of the grid OR use just the top 3 notes of each grid.
COMPING: When choosing your comp voicings, think of the top note (“melody” note) of each chord and how it moves. Here are 3 examples to experiment with:
1) “Common Tone on Top”: Let’s take the common progression, I, VI, ii, V, I in C major. The generic chords could be: Cma7, A7, Dmi7, G7, Cma7. The note “G” can be parts of all of these chords. “G” is: the 5th of Cma7, the b7 of A7, the 11th of Dmi7, and the root of G7. So, the voicings that all share the “common tone” of “G” as the top note of each voicing create a feeling of stasis. By using this approach you can “stay out of the way” while backing a soloist.
2) “Chromatic movement up or down”: Here, the top note of each chord will create a “comping melody” that either rises or falls chromatically (1/2 step). For our progression, let’s descend from “B” to G”. “B” is the 7th of Cma7, “Bb” is the b9 of A7, “A” is the 5th of Dmi7, “Ab” is the b9 of G7 and “G” is the 5th of Cma7. This approach provides a “direction” to your comping.
3) “Intervallic movement”: This usually refers to “melody note” movement by 4ths/5ths or 3rds/6ths. In other words, it jumps around more. “leaps” can often imply a more melodic movement. For our progression us “B” on Cma7, F# (13th) on A7, “D” on Dmi7, “Bb” (#9) on G7, and F# (#11) on Cma7. You have now created a very strong melody, that an soloist might choose to play off of. But be careful with this one, because the soloist might not want to “go” your way.
The KEY to all of the above is learning the Conti Chord Scales (my term, not his) in his Source Code books. They are a super-useful place to start!!
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