-
My question is this: sheet music usually has among other notations the voice notation on top of the guitar notation and beneath that the bass notation. Constructing a chord melody with the melody note on top necessitates playing the chord structures as written along with the top melody note as taken from the voice line in essence a blending of the 2 parts - voice and guitar. Does one simply play inversions that allow this to happen with the top note ignoring the particulars of the guitar line, or should one attempt to play the guitar line as written with the melody line up top. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Would this be what is known as voice leading? Thanks
-
08-26-2018 09:03 AM
-
When arranging a tune to play, generally the only thing I care about is melody on top. Any other information is used to supply harmony, and I may use it or use my ears to decide on a substitute.
If you're just starting out, I recommend using a "lead sheet" of the tune to work from, which has only chord names and the melody. It's a process, but yes, at first all you do is look for ways you can play the chord of the moment with the melody note on top (which may or may not be part of the chord written)
If you look for ways to do this without jumping over the entire neck, chances are you're already getting good opportunities for nice voice leading.
-
Yeah. What Jeff said. Don't sweat it too much in the beginning.
When you find a simple voicing which covers multiple melody notes, it's basically the equivalent of playing a half note under the melody as opposed to quartets/eighths. Not better or worse necessarily, just a different effect.
I think a good long- term strategy is a process over months of:
1. "Anything which works" arrangements...
Then,
2. "Busy arrangements". (Separate inversions for each note).
Finally,
3. More sparse chords with melody note separate.
A lot of people advocate a reverse of 2 and 3..... Just my personal take. I think the more inversions you learn, per arrangement, the more reps you're getting, and the faster you develop the skill to play "whatever you want". I think it's easier to simplify a "busy" version than it is to embellish a more sparse one, at least to start.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 08-26-2018 at 01:03 PM.
-
I think the best way to approach doing chord melody solos is to learn enough chord inversions that you can harmonize each melody note of the song with a different chord.
Once you can do this, then you can start choosing to use chords only for the melody notes that you want to and single notes for the melody notes that you don't want to use chords for.
Knowing a lot of chord inversions also allows you to start constructing strong bass line movement - ascending or descending bass lines that move chromatically or scalewise - that will help turn your chord melody solo into a solo guitar arrangement that stands on its' own.
If you feel you need help learning how to do these things, Robert Conti has published 2 excellent Book/DVD combinations that I like. The first is called "The Chord Melody Assembly Line" and the follow-up to that is "The Formula" which was originally called "The Formula For Harmonic Protocol".
-
At some point I realized that finding a root of a chord, and a root of a scale created a topography of notes, or a living scale grid on the guitar. These maps or "local grids" are all over the fingerboard and melodies played single note are lines, and in dyad or triad create harmony.
I find the root, see the melody within and the inner voices eventually took part in the relationship. That was the process for me.
It created more possibilities than set chord grabs and shapes, though they're useful too. See the root, see the melody and you don't need to play the root, but it's always the gravitational centre.
That's my wacky way of doing it.
David
-
I'm trying to learn how to do this also. The best thing I've found so far is Frank Vignola's "1-2-3 Chord Melody" at Truefire. He explains a simple formula to get you started in creating chord melodies. It really answered most of the questions I had. I think you can check out a free sample of it at Truefire to see if it's what you're looking for.
Originally Posted by phazyme
-
all good advice above, but if you post the sheet music you’re working with we could give you more taylored advice
-
I got a lot of help from learning the "harmonized scale" with the scale note on top. Learning how to move from the I to the V or from the ii to the V or whatever with passing chords is valuable.
-
When arranging a tune for solo guitar I sometimes find it helpful to start with just the melody and bass, in fingerstyle. At first the bass voice would be mostly roots, but as I work on the tune I’ll try to play it a bit more like a bass player. Then I’ll add a couple of chord voices between the melody and bass. I’ll try to think of it as arranging for a choir. After learning a tune in fingerstyle I might then try to adapt the arrangement to plectrum, but I prefer to learn in fingerstyle first.
I think of melody as king. Bass helps keeps it grounded. Middle notes add color and forward motion through tension/release.
-
A melody stave, a bass stave and a guitar stave?
Or, are you talking about a piano part beneath a melody line?
Post an example?
If there's a guitar stave, are you trying to play what's written or construct your own chord melody?
Typically, constructing a chord melody begins with the lead sheet, so you know the melody and the chord symbols.
You then have to figure out how to play the melody while harmonizing the tune -- and with a decent bass line.
The whole enterprise involves solving one problem after another.
For the beginner, a good approach is to learn grips for all the basic chords (7 m7 m6 maj7 minmaj7 etc) which allow you to get any melody note on top. That gives you a starting point, meaning you can get the melody on top of the first chord.
You can also get the next melody note on top of the next chord using the same library of grips, but it's not that simple. You want to establish a smooth bass line if you can. You may want to harmonize each melody note (typically, with a different chord for each melody note, with smooth voice leading) or a selection of them. You may want to alter the harmony with passing chords for melody notes for which that's appropriate.
And, you have to figure out how to make this playable. Personally, I prefer chord melody which is in time, not rubato, and not going out of time because there's something difficult to finger.
Getting something to be playable in time may require hours of thought and experimentation. It can require changing the original key, reharmonizing, possibly changing a melody note, playing single notes, chord fragments, harmonics, you name it.
I have a chord melody for Stella which I have worked on literally for years and it's still not done. The idea is to find the absolute perfect chord at every point in the tune -- and not accept less.
-
Ugh, that would mean arranging the whole thing, wouldn't it? Where's the jazz? Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
-
Last year I posted the following links to some Martin Taylor lessons. He distinguishes between “chord melody” vs. what he calls “polyphonic,” or what others sometimes call “pianistic.” His melody-driven style is what I strive for.
Originally Posted by KirkP
-
It does sound like the OP might be working from a score instead of a lead sheet. I’ve done a few solo guitar arrangements from piano scores but as you suggest, the first step was to create a lead sheet. Since the piano part was unplayable on guitar I had to figure out what chords the piano was playing, then find inversions with melody on top that would allow me to emulate the piano part. For most jazz standards it’s much easier to find a lead sheet than create one from a score, but the piece I’m thinking of was classical where lead sheets rarely exist. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
-
Amen to that. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I have, somewhat reductionistically, divided all chord-melody playing into two camps. The George Van Epps camp (or maybe Ted Greene?) goes for stretchy chord shapes, very close voicings, and is very "arranged" sounding. The tone is also more harp-like or acoustic sounding. It's amazing music, wonderful to listen to.
Then there is the Joe Pass camp. Uses basic chord shapes, more open intervals, and is more improvisational and "on the fly" with a lot of melodic single-not lines and fills in the mix. The tone is often more electric, not that different from the tone Joe et. al. get on any bop tune. It's amazing music, wonderful to listen to.
I personally love and aspire more toward the Joe Pass sort of playing, and so all the "arrangement" talk is not very appealing to me. I don't want to be writing arrangements, though obviously writing arrangements can be vital to learning the skill of improvisational blending chords and melody. But focus on arrangements I think leads to fixed, frozen performances and what I love about jazz is the crazy, scary, freedom of the improviser. I want to be able to play a standard and improvise harmonically on the guitar as well as melodically.
I doubt I'll achieve that goal, but I'm sure having a blast heading towards it.
-
Yea... there are many approaches .... towards how to arrange.. what style and how you choose to perform the tune.
These are performance things... you would be using your "technical skills" and whatever "composition and arranging skills" you have to perform.
Sounds like, as with most... you'll be memorizing an arrangement of the tune(s). An easy approach is... as Martin T did in his vids.... basically play the melody and changes as two parts.
Play in a somewhat call and answer style.... play melody and in between the spaces fill with chords or harmonic licks that imply the changes.
The call would be the melody and the answer is your version of the changes.
The two may cross paths and even work together sometimes... but the performance is in a somewhat compound line style.
Your playing two parts that work together..... the next level would be adding more parts.... and larger musical organization, I'll skip these because... you need basics first..... which leads me to a different approach to becoming able to play chord melody style on guitar.
If you learn how to connect chords with lead lines... start with two chords first then chord patterns and then sections of tunes... etc... the point is you learn how to have common top notes or licks, melodic lines on top of chords, chord patterns, and eventually tunes.
Where this ends up is.... being able to just play chord melodies of tunes without having to memorize what your playing.
It's not like you need to do one or the other.... pick tunes to pull the chords and chord patterns from. You can still memorize or work on one specific tune.... but if you really want to be able to play jazz tunes in a solo style... you need technical skills.
Generally when guitarist try and get solo pieces together... is takes way too much time and every tune is a new project, and if you don't review your collection of pieces or play them all the time.... yea... anyway this is all usually from trying to perform what you really don't have the technical skill to be able to perform without memorizing, practicing etc...
If one puts the boring time into working on their technical skills to being able play in a solo style.... you'll end up being able to perform solo styles without having to memorize....
Yea... no way.... good luck. Just a note...I play solo gigs a lot. I work for a few agents that use me to open for shows, I just pick the tunes and styles that work with the main acts and try and get the audience up for their performance. I don't rehearse etc...
-
Mr. Beaumont stated it well.
The technique for this is using non-chord tones with chords that the lead sheet says to play. So, you end up with chords that are altered, whether they remain diatonic, or become chromatic (out of key).
This is a great way to come up with interesting chords: You can make a lead melody, then when choosing chords to accompany it, try out different chords, and see what you come up with. The dissonances and harmonies produced can be what you not expect.
-
THe guy to listen to in my opinion is Lenny Breau. For me Joe Pass was the Godfather but I must admitt that as the years go by I find Lenny Breau to be maybe the most interesting player. He is a true orginal and Lawson has pointed out the difference in the chord melody approach.
The thing I find is that now you have many who have clearly taken up the Joe Pass approach and he has inflluence a huge amount of players over basically generations. However I find Lenny Breau's style to never really have been copied to any degree. Lenny was a master of a number of styles of playing and he could launch the Chet Atkins thing in the middle of a jazz tune and it would work.
I like George Van Eps but find myself not listening to him all that much. The gold standard to compare styles is Joe Pass and his very first Vituoso recording. No one had ever really tried what he accomplished on that recording. Breau was much less recorded but listining to his stuff he just does things with the guitar no one else was doing.
I spent the first 25 years of my playing trying to get the Joe Pass thing down and still feebly working on it. Then trying to do the Lenny thing...........well I met my match. I like to say some guys can train all the time and never break a 5 minute mile running. Others can go out and handle one after a few weeks of getting into shape.
Listen to Barney Kessel too he could make the guitar sound huge and his arrangements were sort of fly by the seat but structured. It is more about listening to various players and then taking it all in. Lately I have been listen to Cal Collins solo guitar recording BY MYSELF. Great stuff I had listened years ago and went back to it. Always pays to go back to the basic.
-
I find Lenny Breau's playing technically amazing, but it leaves me cold. I hear nothing there that really penetrates my soul or moves me. It's astounding to witness, but for me, something is missing. I also find his tone almost too pure and harp-like. This is only my eccentric view, but the word I keep thinking is "sterile." I know that can't be right, but try as I may, I feel Breau's playing is something that once one starts trying to emulate it, it will take over everything. It's an instrument, a tonal range, a technique, a harmonic concept, a totality. That makes it, for me, unattractive. Joe Pass I can listen to, learn from, pick up ideas and phrases, and imbibe his profound knowledge of the music and love for the great tunes, but I don't feel like it has to take over my playing. I don't think I'm in danger of becoming a Joe Pass clone.
Like I said, that is just my feeling; it's not intended as a judgment on Lenny Breau, who was a master of the craft and fully worthy of the admiration others have for him. For me, though, something just doesn't click.
-
Apparently, the term "chord melody" doesn't mean quite the same thing to everyone.
For solo guitar, I'd also suggest checking out the video of Ted Greene on a solo gig that's on youtube. Just astonishing.
I like Genil Castro, who has some youtube videos.
Guinga is an amazing harmonist on guitar and a great composer.
Brazilian players seem to do their solo guitar stuff in strict time, which I like. It strikes me as harder to do. For that matter, my favorite Joe Pass recordings are with groups, not the Virtuoso material. But that was more typical of the jazz guitar of the time.
-
Hi phazyme,
To echo Joe2758, if you can post an example of the sheet music that you're working on I'll also try to help in answering your questions - they're not dumb at all.
There's loads of great advice already on this thread, and you almost answer your question yourself. Sometimes you can use a 'guitar accompaniment' guitar part together with the melody line, but at other times you need to simply 'sketch' the harmonic and rhythmic support rather than make a more detailed picture - it depends on how complex the melody and the chord changes are, as to whether you can play a full guitar accompaniment part and its melody line at the same time. It's often a virtuosic process and it has many elements in common with the classical and flamenco guitar pieces that do a three-part juggling act with bass/harmony/melody. However, a simpler and more sparse approach can also be very effective, especially when improvising chord-melody lines.
Some general things about creating your own 'chord melody' pieces from lead sheets:
— the commercially produced generic 'sheet-music' charts of jazz standards (Gershwin, Porter, Kern etc) are an ok starting point, but are often only of limited use when adapting them to create a guitar arrangement. Are these sheets and books of tunes what you were referring to as lead sheets?
— beware of published charts since these often contain dubious chords (and chord symbols), along with eccentric or complicated fills, odd turnarounds, and plain old mistakes. The notation of rhythms can be very simplistic, and passages that sound ok on a piano may be tough or impossible to carry over to the guitar.
— a 'real book' lead sheet offers an alternative starting point for a jazz guitar approach, and if you play finger-style or hybrid, you might start out playing the chord bass notes as long notes, plus the melody notes, while also adding a sixth, a third or a fourth interval under some of the melody notes, matching the chord harmony, as a middle voice. You can also sketch in short chord fills of your own, in the spaces between the melodic phrases. You may also find it useful to change the key of a song to a more guitar-friendly key.
- I'll also mention a couple of decent books, from the dozens out there, on the basic elements of playing/writing chord melody guitar solos, that I've found highly useful (as a finger-style/ pick & fingers player). They are Howard Morgen's 'Concepts '(lots of techniques, plus some inspiring arrangements), and Alan de Mause's Solo Jazz Guitar Vol. 1 (an interesting overview of different contrasting approaches - Van Eps, Pass, Hall etc., plus some decent but short set-piece examples).
Jim Hall's incredible 'less is more' solo chord melody approach is showcased in his Tonight Show 'Skylark' recording here (it starts at 3.20 after 'Subsequently' with his band, but don't fast-forward!):
-
Though it was beastly hard, the book I began on for learning "chord melody" and have kept coming back to was this one:
I also learned tons from Steve Crowells chord-melody standards.
-
Great and interesting discussion here! Originally Posted by phazyme
I don't think I read in any of the replies that the first step in using sheet music for chord melody/solo guitar is probably to raise the melody an octave so it is easier to find voicings underneath it.
Reply With Quote
Part 2 Secrets to McCoy Tyner using 4ths,...
Today, 07:31 PM in Improvisation