Easy Guide to Chord Melody and Chord Soloing

[Greg O'Rourke]

I was speaking strictly in terms of alternating I-M for lines . Which seems to be the default setting. Find that people use either the I-M or P-I as their go to fingering for lines . Clearly you can use M-A or even I-A, but it seems this usage is not as prevalent. The problem arises when you play three notes on one string and then cross to the next string.

My personal approach is to use I - A alternating most of the time. I find I can pluck much faster with this than the more orthodox I - M alternating. I've seen many alternatives though even among classical players - one of the best classical concerts I've been to was where the player (name escapes me) was using mainly the A finger for single lines.

For fingerstyle in jazz I would try to keep things really simple - I tend to avoid any complex three finger combinations for single lines as you need to have a right hand where you don't need to be thinking about the fingering - your attention should be on improvising. So, rather than avoiding string crossing issues (e.g. from I on string 1 to M on string 2) by using more complex fingerings, you should deliberately practice exercises with these more awkward string crossing situations until they are completely natural. That way you have a good 'motor' for playing single lines that you don't need to focus on too much in the heat of the moment. There's a lot of these kinds of exercises in Chapter 1 of the Easy Guide To Chord Melody Guitar.

Cheers,

Greg

[Greg O'Rourke]

Wonderful job on this book!!!

Thanks for your kind feedback Pete!

[NSJ]

My personal approach is to use I - A alternating most of the time. I find I can pluck much faster with this than the more orthodox I - M alternating. I've seen many alternatives though even among classical players - one of the best classical concerts I've been to was where the player (name escapes me) was using mainly the A finger for single lines.

For fingerstyle in jazz I would try to keep things really simple - I tend to avoid any complex three finger combinations for single lines as you need to have a right hand where you don't need to be thinking about the fingering - your attention should be on improvising. So, rather than avoiding string crossing issues (e.g. from I on string 1 to M on string 2) by using more complex fingerings, you should deliberately practice exercises with these more awkward string crossing situations until they are completely natural. That way you have a good 'motor' for playing single lines that you don't need to focus on too much in the heat of the moment. There's a lot of these kinds of exercises in Chapter 1 of the Easy Guide To Chord Melody Guitar.

Cheers,

Greg

I think a lot of flamenco players use I-A (and, really, who's faster than them? )

It's awkward for me because I haven't practiced it, but I'll give it a try

I think the ultimate cluster f*uck is Jimmy Weible's two line system where he compartmentalizes P-I for the bottom line and M-A for the top line, and maintains a strict rule for alteration. That's a lot of finger gymnastics to keep track of.

Sylvain Courtney posted an exercise on his FB page where he emulates Tim Miller's hybrid picking 2-1-2-1-2-1 argeggio system using P-I-M. He can play it blazingly fast.

Thanks again for the book. Happy new year to you and Matt.

[rcpj]

I think a lot of flamenco players use I-A (and, really, who's faster than them? )

It's awkward for me because I haven't practiced it, but I'll give it a try

I think the ultimate cluster f*uck is Jimmy Weible's two line system where he compartmentalizes P-I for the bottom line and M-A for the top line, and maintains a strict rule for alteration. That's a lot of finger gymnastics to keep track of.

Sylvain Courtney posted an exercise on his FB page where he emulates Tim Miller's hybrid picking 2-1-2-1-2-1 argeggio system using P-I-M. He can play it blazingly fast.

Thanks again for the book. Happy new year to you and Matt.

Lots of flamenco players use i-a, but i-m is the more common and the players with the best picado use i-m...however the flamenco picado action/attack doesn't suit the the fingerstyle jazz approach IMO - it's far too heavy for jazz to me..

I think the best touch for jazz is a good quality free stroke - practice it all...i-m, i-a, m-a, p-i, p-m, p-a, 3 finger combos,etc..it will all come in use..

I make my living in both jazz and classical fields and the right hand technique really is best transferable from a mainly free stroke approach from my experience

The Wyble thing is good too..work on any predominantly two-part work by Bach or Scarlatti(i.e an invention, fugue from violin sonata,etc) and you'll exercise the same idea..there's even lots easy 19th century repertoire that this could be trained with as a pre-requisite or supplement to the more complex Bach or Wyble stuff..

[NSJ]

Lots of flamenco players use i-a, but i-m is the more common and the players with the best picado use i-m...however the flamenco picado action/attack doesn't suit the the fingerstyle jazz approach IMO - it's far too heavy for jazz to me..

I think the best touch for jazz is a good quality free stroke - practice it all...i-m, i-a, m-a, p-i, p-m, p-a, 3 finger combos,etc..it will all come in use..

I make my living in both jazz and classical fields and the right hand technique really is best transferable from a mainly free stroke approach from my experience

The Wyble thing is good too..work on any predominantly two-part work by Bach or Scarlatti(i.e an invention, fugue from violin sonata,etc) and you'll exercise the same idea..there's even lots easy 19th century repertoire that this could be trained with as a pre-requisite or supplement to the more complex Bach or Wyble stuff..

I also found there are two wild cards that can alleviate the concern about not alternating in a strict manner (this is jazz, of course, we don't worry that we may not be strictly alternating all the time):

the use of slurs and P. P is free to do whatever it wants. Often I delegate P to play the bass and tenor lines, freeing up the rest for the soprano parts on the top strings.

[edh]

Is this book mainly about playing chord melodies without a pick?

[va3ux]

Likewise Matt, really enjoyed working with you on this one and looking forward to further collaborations.

I guess I'll admit it now : when Matt first posted about working with Greg my thought was, ' Greg who ? '. Now that Greg has posted in this thread I of course now know.

Is there a reason you guys didn't list yourselves as authors somewhere near the beginning of the book/pdf ?

[m78w]

Hey, we always list ourselves at the end with bios. It just helps gets people into the meat of the book quicker, then they can read about us at the end or skip down.

[m78w]

it's both. We cover fingerpicking, hybrid picking, and picking in the book. So any exercise can be played with all styles, but only picking will challenge your picking hand with some of the arrangements, as any chord melody will.

[Jhui]

I also got the book and find it very good and helpful. I haven't played quitar that long anyways, so chord melody playing is all new to me. Anyone interested to make study group kind of thing based on this book (here @ jazzquitar.be forum)? Maybe the better place for that would be in Chord-melody section.