Playing Chord Melodies

[jonjeff]

This may not be the proper catagory, but I'll try it here anyway. I have stacks of guitar instruction books and I love to play the guitar and study guitar theory. But I have yet to find a comprehensive way to learn how to play chord melodies - you know - playing the guitar where it "stands alone" like a piano player does on the piano. I play rock, but I also love to play jazz songs. So my frustration is with the jazz songs. For instance, I can easily play the single note melody to Fly Me To The Moon. I can also easily play the fancy jazz chords to accompany the single note melody. But I crumble when I try to mix and switch between the two. My guess it that what I want to learn is complicated, but can you point me to the best spot to start as a foundation on which I can then build? One of the books I have is Jazz Guitar Comping by Andrew Green. Is that where I should start?

[DesiSerna]

You'll need to seek out instruction material that specifically teaches chord melody and fingerstyle arrangements.

http://www.musicdispatch.com/search/search.do?subsiteid=111&keywords=chord+melody&searchcategory=01

http://www.musicdispatch.com/search/search.do?subsiteid=111&keywords=fingerstyle&searchcategory=01

Look for beginner level materials since you're just getting started. Also, you may want to try your hand at more popular styles of music before venturing into complicated styles such as jazz. Walk before you run.

[jonjeff]

Well I don't necessarily have to do it with jazz songs. I'd love to be able to do it with rock improvision too. My frustration is that I will see a guy do a power chord version of something like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and it sounds great, as if he did it at a rock concert. But then I try that, I can play the melody, but don't really know how to "interlace" the "right" chords so that it sounds really cool like that. There is the wall that I've hit. I know my penta and diatonic scales and some about chord scales and sort of know that if you're substiuting a chord in place of a single note, you need a chord that has the melody note as the top note. But I can't really figure out what is the "correct" chord to use based on that particular note in the scale. It may be more comlicated and that is why I can't figure it out. I can work through a Bernie Kessel song book and play a chord melody off of a tabbed out sheet music. But I don't really know why I'm playing the particular chords they suggest. With three kids and a job, I have limited time to practice this stuff, so I really want to make good use of my limited practice time. I have yet to come up with a good lesson plan and steps to get where I want. More detailed help than just book suggestions would be greatly appreciated. For instance, suggestions on first steps of doing XXXX for foundation, then work on the next level doing YYYY, then try ZZZZ, etc.

[DesiSerna]

Playing chord melody is like anything else. You have to learn by example, start simple and build from there. For example, you might know the pentatonic scale but you'll never understand how to improvise and compose with it until you learn some pentatonic songs. With each riff and phrase you learn you add to your arsenal of licks that can be reworked over other things. I suggest you purchase some beginner level chord melody/fingerstyle instructional books and DVDs and start memorizing some prearranged versions of songs. In time you should pick up on the technique and begin to understand how to arrange songs on your own.

Chord melody arrangements can be complicated and difficult to learn. You must be extra patient when learning this style and give yourself a lot more time to get something down.