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Hi,
I would like to understand the thinking into how to choose the chords for a melody. My goal is to be able to transcribe songs that I love as chord-melody voicings on the guitar. While I can pretty much play a melody by ear on the guitar (any string set), I would like to understand how to figure out the right chords to play over the melody. This process becomes a bit more difficult with secondary dominants, Tritone substitutions, borrowed chords and modulation. I would like to understand the different approaches to tackle this. There might be so much I am overlooking at this point and would love to understand how to approach this concept.
Thanks for reading my message and hope to hear some insights to kickstart my journey. Have a great day !
BR,
Nanda
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07-10-2023 05:18 AM
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Learn aural skills. Learn to identify intervals, then chord types, then then inversions. It’ll take a while, but there are some excellent online resources.
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I'd start with simply major/minor chords and leave the secondary tritone borrowed submodulations for later.
Originally Posted by esnandakumar
- Can you find the vanilla chords for a given tune?
- When you can, can you find inversions that put the melody note on top of the chord?
- When you can, can you find secondary dominants or subs to add more harmonic movement?
Another great exercise is to take a note and harmonise it in as many different ways as possible just to see how it sounds. Play a g on the top E string and a G Major chord under it, then a G minor, a C major and Minor, then a D - that gives you the cadence. Find out to where these chords resolve. Go ahead with an A, E, and move on around the cicle of fifths until you reach Db. That will give you various harmonic colours, and eventually you'll see how these chords relate and resolve to each other.
And of course, there are always books and teachers.
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As someone who is much closer to the beginning of the journey than the end, I'm happy share what I've learned and discovered.
I have a mix of standards and (mostly 60's & 70's) pop tunes that I play solo and in a duo with a buddy who sings. I continually try to develop and expand them. I personally like solo arrangements that may use a combo of single note lines along with harmony where it fits, as opposed to harmonizing every note. Although both approaches are equally valid. Tunes are learned through a combo of FB charts and ear. I don't strictly follow the rule of keeping the melody on the B and E string but will look for the melody note inside the chord on any string. I play with a thumbpick and fingers. It worked for Chet and Lenny!
I purchased several courses on fingerstyle approaches and arranging. These were a real big help and have enough info to last a lifetime. On Truefire there's Tommy Emmanuel Fingerstyle Breakthroughs and Milestones, Sean Mcgowan Fingerstyle Jazz Survival Guide, Fareed Haque Solo Fingerstyle Handbook, Frank Vignola Chord Melody 123, Tim Lerch Chordal Improv and Diego Figuerido Brazilian Jazz Guitarra. I also bought Jake Reichbarts' How to Arrange Any Song. All of these courses have a metric f#$k TON of information and ideas and as I learn, I return to them to help my progress.
I also look for YT videos of solo performances of songs I'm working on. There are a lot of really talented players out there and I'll steal ideas wherever I can.
In summary, it all comes down to finding the basic chord that aligns with the melody note and then as you develop the arrangement, you will find ways to enhance and modify it. Different voicings, rhythms, substutions et al will form the way you play the song. I find it particularly challenging to play an improvisational section within a particular tune. The Lerch and Figuerido courses are helping with that.
I hope this helps a bit. It is an incredibly rewarding way to play the guitar.
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Figuring out what chords to play over a melody is quite a different task than to learn how to transcribe a particular chordal arrangement. I'm a bit confused about what specific area are you trying to get better at? Originally Posted by esnandakumar
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Hi, Originally Posted by Tal_175
Thanks for your reply. Just to give an example of what I'd like to do, lets say I want to arrange a fingerstyle composition of "Mad World - Gary Jules", I know how to play the melody of the song but then, I would like to understand the approach to add chords to the melody notes and pick the right chords when there are several chords matching a particular melody note. I just wanted to understand approaches towards figuring out / creating my own chord melody fingerstyly arrangements.
BR,
Nanda
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In simplest terms:
Start with a lead sheet of the tune; that will give you the chords.
but
if you are referring to the changing the original chords you are talking re-harmonization
There are many resources out there and Guitlifer lists many of them.
I would add that Barry Greene always talks about how he chooses chords to his arrangements. For $14.99 a lesson you would be hard pressed to find a better bang for the buck. Barry's Vimeo platform is very user friendly. Two of his lessons specifically on this topic are:
How I Create Chord Melody Arrangements - Essential - Barry Greene Video Lessons
Joe Pass Solo Guitar Style - Topic Driven - Barry Greene Video Lessons
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