YOUR top 10 chord-melody Tunes

**theunleashment** · 05-24-2010, 01:44 PM

Hello everyone! I introduced myself in the intro room, so here goes...

As a beginner, i know very little about jazz. I was able to go to a local jazz club last night where a gentlemen went through my whole Real Book and outlined tunes to learn for jam sessions. I was very grateful!

I am studying guitar in school, and I will be workin on the tunes he outlined for a while during this summer break! However, i wanted to know from fellow guitarist what are some of the essential chord-melody solo's for me to work on during the semester break as well? I have completed Autumn Leaves and Barry Galbraith's Darn that Dream so far.

I know this may have been discussed, but please leave any helpful comments or suggestions! Thanks!

**mr. beaumont** · 05-24-2010, 01:58 PM

your own.

that's my best advice. Start with ballads YOU like. Pick "easier" ones, for starting out--lots of quarter notes in the melody is a good sign (you'd think half and whole notes would be easy, but sometimes it's tough to figure what you're gonna do that whole time!)

here's a few I did when i was starting out that weren't too difficult, and were interesting enough that I still play them now.

here's that rainy day
how high the moon
misty
georgia on my mind
All the things you are

and the afforementioned "leaves" and "dream" would be on my list, although "dream" can be slippery to improvise over...

**JohnW400** · 05-24-2010, 02:36 PM

Green Dolphin Street
Bluesette
Tune up (M. Davis)
Watch What Happens
What is This Thing Called Love
You Don't Know What Love Is
Take The A Train
Stella By Starlight
Blue Monk
A Child Is Born

**derek** · 05-24-2010, 04:18 PM

My Favorite Things
Girl From Ipanema
Georgia
Any Blues
Rhythm Changes (I use Flintstones, in one of the RB)
Yesterday (in my Real Book)
How High The Moon
Misty
Body & Soul
The Shadow Of Your Smile

**fep** · 05-24-2010, 04:25 PM

ATTYA
Mercy Mercy Mercy
Goodby Porkpie Hat
Autumn leaves
A child is born
Lil Darlin
Bluesette
Body and Soul
Four
Summertime

**theunleashment** · 05-24-2010, 04:36 PM

Thanks everyone for all of the reponces so far! I have considered posting my arrangements whien i complete then, just so that everyone knows their replys weren't in vain! Im going to take the ones here that are listed the most number of times so feel free to highly,extremely, even double suggest things. Thanks again!

**FatJeff** · 05-24-2010, 05:24 PM

All The Things You Are
Autumn Leaves
Misty
There Is No Greater Love
There Will Never Be Another You
Moonlight In Vermont
Have You Met Ms Jones
All Of Me
Just Friends

**msr13** · 05-24-2010, 11:21 PM

Spring Can Really hit You Most
What are You Doing the Rest of your Live
Misty
A Child is Born
Darn That Dream
You Go to my Head
Bewitched
Black Orpheus
The End of a Love afair
Yesterdays

**wizard3739** · 05-25-2010, 12:19 AM

These are my Favorites:

You Go To My head
When Sunny Gets Blue
The End Of A Love Affair
I remember You
Angel Eyes
Here's That Rainy Day
Gentle Rain
Misty
Triste
Darn That Dream

best wishes,
wiz

P.S.--- working on "Ceora" & "Cry Me A River"

**Gambrosius1984** · 05-25-2010, 02:14 PM

Some of my favorite CM's to play-
Night and Day
It Could Happen To You
Nuages
Moonlight In Vermont
One Note Samba (Definately a good latin for beginner)
Easy Living
Satin Doll
Someday My Prince Will Come
So What
Round Midnight

**BigDaddyLoveHandles** · 05-25-2010, 02:31 PM

What about ones in 3/4? I saw Bluesette. I'll add "Some day my prince will come". Any others?

**Gambrosius1984** · 05-25-2010, 02:40 PM

I had Someday on my list, but some other good 3/4's for CM that I play are All Blues and Fly Me To The Moon as 3/4 (I play it as a bossa sometimesas well). Take Five is another fun one, but in 5/4 obviously.

**BigDaddyLoveHandles** · 05-25-2010, 02:52 PM

Sorry, I missed your reference to "Some day..."

I guess one could always try to change the meter of a song to 3/4. How about a 5/4 version of "Four"? :lol:

**barrymiles** · 05-25-2010, 09:30 PM

Satin Doll
Black Orpheus (Manha De Carnival)
Round Midnight - Joe Pass Style
Love For Sale
Georgia on my Mind - Martin Taylor Style
My Romance
Summertime
How Insensitive

I know it's not ten, but that's my list

**Cindy** · 06-11-2010, 04:48 PM

Black Orpheus
Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
Summertime
Angel Eyes
Misty
Girl from Ipenema
My Romance
Yesterdays
and a few others

**tonyteech** · 07-10-2010, 06:57 PM

Just Friends
Nature Boy
Summertime
Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps
Wave
Take Five
It Don't Mean Thing If It Aint Got That Swing
Waltz For Debby
That Lonesome Road
Don't Get Around Much Any More

**gravitas** · 07-11-2010, 12:46 AM

St. Thomas - Sonny Rollins
It Could Happen to You - Jimmy Van Heusen
I Wouldn't Like to Live on the Moon - Ernie from Sesame Street
Bye Bye Blackbird - Ray Henderson
Days of Wine and Roses - Henry Mancini
Central Park West - John Coltrane
Black Hole Sun - Chris Cornell
Tenor Madness - Sonny Rollins
I Could Write a Book - Rodgers & Hart
Stella by Starlight - Victor Young

I also like to take pop tunes and reharm them in a jazz way... Recently I arranged Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, M.I.A.'s song Paper Planes (might remember that one from the the movie Pineapple Express), Paul McCartney's Ealanor Rigby (fun to do in 6), George Harrison's Something...
Really any Beatles tune is easy to arrange. The challenge is finding recent tunes with changes hip enough to mess with (ie, tunes that were written in the 70's or earlier).

Another thing I've found is that a lot of the old standards are completely irrelevant and unentertaining for the majority of listeners who aren't my grandparents, or adults who spent really uncool childhoods listening to their parents' music instead of the Rolling Stones, or Jazz Musicians- especially other jazz guitarists. Unless you happen to be Joe Pass, you won't see a lot of sax players coming in to catch your set, or piano players (given that what we're doing is super easy for them, almost childish a lot of the time). Maybe I'm just crazy... Has anyone else felt the desire to liven their set up?

**theunleashment** · 07-12-2010, 10:27 AM

I am workin on Crazy right now!!! Can you post yours or PM me? I do a chord melody to The Rain by SWV, its based off Jaco's Potrait of Tracy. Doing current songs and arranging them with jazz voicings for chord melody is definately something that keeps people entertained because it lets everyone see that just because it's jazz doesn't mean it's not hip or cool. I go into so many places where i feel that if you dont play the standards and try to "crossover" the genres, you get labeled for not swingin or not havin the ability to play bebop or something. Us musicians are funny! All that time spent labeling someone else can be used for practicing! (off the soapbox now...lol)

**whippersnapper** · 07-12-2010, 12:21 PM

Some of my favorites....

Polka dots and moonbeams (first one I arranged)
Misty
ATTYA
Satin Doll
Moonlight in Vermont
Stompin' at the Savoy
Days of Wine & Roses
MR Sandman
Honeysuckle Rose
Don't Get Around Much
Lover Man
Wave

**gravitas** · 07-13-2010, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by theunleashment

I am workin on Crazy right now!!! Can you post yours or PM me? I do a chord melody to The Rain by SWV, its based off Jaco's Potrait of Tracy. Doing current songs and arranging them with jazz voicings for chord melody is definately something that keeps people entertained because it lets everyone see that just because it's jazz doesn't mean it's not hip or cool. I go into so many places where i feel that if you dont play the standards and try to "crossover" the genres, you get labeled for not swingin or not havin the ability to play bebop or something. Us musicians are funny! All that time spent labeling someone else can be used for practicing! (off the soapbox now...lol)

Haha yeah... To look at it another way, taking pop tunes and rearranging them jazz IS traditional. It's just a practice that seems to have died out now that fewer and fewer jazz musicians "get it." Probably 2/3 of the standards we play were at some time vocal pop tunes that a jazz musician (like Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, Miles Davis, Lester Young, Dizzie Gillespie, etc.) thought the audience would like, and so transcribed and rearranged so that they would be more fun to solo on. The 60's was the decade when jazz began to "die out," so to speak, and it was also the decade when jazz musicians began to write prolifically, and to write solely instrumental music. I guess that's a good thing, but it also meant that the jazz tradition would become self-encapsulated, and would no longer strive to be contemporary anymore. That flat out sucks for a beginning jazz musician! :P

As for my arrangement for Crazy, well I have a few but I don't have a scanner. I can tell you what my approaches were, though. I did a few passes through, the first one I backcycled in between all of the two bar phrases. The second one I used major seventh chords cycling through the circle of fourths. Right now I'm working on taking like a Giant Steps approach and doing the whole thing in those three augmented key centers. They are approaches you could use on any tune whose changes aren't that interesting.

**Billnc** · 04-27-2011, 11:30 AM

My Foolish Heart
What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?
Blue Monk
Michelle
I Hear A Rhapsody
My Ship
My Foolish Heart
Blue In Green
We'll Be Together Again
Goodbye Porkpie Hat

**Flyin' Brian** · 04-27-2011, 11:58 AM

**matt.guitarteacher** · 04-27-2011, 01:52 PM

Billnc, those are great CM tunes and some of my favorites. Some are probably not the beginner tunes the original poster was looking for, but that was a long time ago.

Welcome.

Early on, I liked to play Come Sunday. It's mostly quarter notes and makes frequent use of the same types of altered chords. It's almost like an etude. The A section of Prelude to a Kiss is similar. Sometimes there's just one chord in a tune that you have trouble learning. These tunes give you more reps on some of the same type of altered chords so that you get used to using them in CM. Guilty works the same way. I haven't seen Dancing on the Ceiling mentioned. It's really simple to play. Mood Indigo and Dreamsville were the big ones for me in learning what to do with the long notes.

For the not so easy stuff later on I really like:

Detour Ahead
Lullaby of Birdland
Milano
Quiet Now
Some Other Spring
Sophistocated Lady

**Billnc** · 04-27-2011, 06:04 PM

Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher

Billnc, those are great CM tunes and some of my favorites. Some are probably not the beginner tunes the original poster was looking for, but that was a long time ago.

Welcome.

Early on, I liked to play Come Sunday. It's mostly quarter notes and makes frequent use of the same types of altered chords. It's almost like an etude. The A section of Prelude to a Kiss is similar. Sometimes there's just one chord in a tune that you have trouble learning. These tunes give you more reps on some of the same type of altered chords so that you get used to using them in CM. Guilty works the same way. I haven't seen Dancing on the Ceiling mentioned. It's really simple to play. Mood Indigo and Dreamsville were the big ones for me in learning what to do with the long notes.

For the not so easy stuff later on I really like:

Detour Ahead
Lullaby of Birdland
Milano
Quiet Now
Some Other Spring
Sophistocated Lady

Woops, so many threads to read I didn't notice OP wanted easier tunes! I'm going to have to add some quicker tunes to my own repertoire, I'll back a singer up etc quicker, but love the sound of ballads and how 'envelope' of the chords develop. I'm going to break out Lullaby of Birdland. Sounds like a good quicker one to do.