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I'm looking for books that could help me to learn how to play chord melody in a systematic way.
I made some arrangments myself but it takes me a lot of time, and I think I could improve them.
I know the basic theory about chords inversions, scales, improvisation, and I have enough technique to get me start because I have studied classical guitar for a lot of years.
Can you advise me some chord melody books?
Thanks
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09-13-2010 07:30 AM
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It might be a good idea to read Howard Morgan's Book "Through Chord-Melody and Beyond".
This book presents thorough insight into the melody-chord technique. The only hang-up is that there are no preliminary chord forms that you can learn to play the chords beneath the melody notes. A good chord book is a book by Arnie Berle "Modern Chords and Progressions for Guitar" published by Amsco. The book may be out of print. However, you may be able to pick one up on Amazon.
I hope this information is helpful. Joe
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I have Howard's book, and while I haven't gone all the way thru it, it is outstanding. I really like Jody Fisher's books on the subject also. Good luck
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The two Barry Galbraith books of chord melody arrangements are worth studying. They are books of arrangements rather than method books but there's a lot in the arrangements that "makes sense" on a guitar and is therefore memorable and transferrable, imo ...
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It looks like Howard Morgan's Book "Through Chord-Melody and Beyond"., is a good way to go. I've read the first pages of demonstration in Amazon and it looks nice. If i study also some of Barry's Galbraith arrangements i think i'll go in the right direction.
Thanks!
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Hi: I have the Barry Galbraith melody-chord solo book too. I believe that analyzing his chord structures and harmonies are very difficult to do, if not impossible ! Galbraith was a master jazz player, bordering on genious. I tried to analyze his chords and harmonic movement and found myself totally confused ! If you accomplish this feat, please let me know. I would be very interested in your result.
Best regards and lots of luck. Joe S.
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If you want to complement these excellent books with some chord voicings check out this book:
Originally Posted by Joe S.
Amazon.com: Chord-Melody Guitar: A Guide to Combining Chords and Melody to Create Solo Arrangements in Jazz and Pop Styles (Musicians Institute: Private Lessons) (9780634032110): Bruce Buckingham: Books
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Great suggestion! I own this one, too. Originally Posted by nomelite
I think in chord-melody it's very important that you can apply the material immediatly and play some pieces. Otherwise the motivation gets lost, cause it's hard in the beginning. That's why the book by Howard Morgen is so great. You learn the theory, the voicings, the bass lines and there are arrangements of songs in every chapter. But in my mind you learn most by not just copying his arrangements, but by making your own by modifying his versions. And the book by Buckingham is one that gives lots of ideas for doing so, too. And it's cheap...
Cheers, Modalguru
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I'd recommend learning a bunch of chord-melody arrangements and observe what's going on, what chords are being used, substitutes, chord-scales, pedal tones, etc. One good source for a lot of free arrangements is the TedGreene.com website. In the "Tunes" section of the "Lessons" you can find many of his pages. In addition, you'll find a lot of helpful info about those arrangements in the "From Students" section.
Good luck!
--Jay
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The best way to learn this stuff is by doing. Take some easy standards - ones whose melodies have a bunch of long notes (e.g. What Is This Thing Called Love, All The Things You Are, Blue Bossa, Cherokee, etc.) and then just use the chords you already know, or snippets of them, to outline the underlying harmonic progression while you play the melody on top.
It's slow going at first, but you start to get better at it.
I've found that getting yet-another-book-on-the-subject just feeds into my own illusion that if I find the right method book that I'll suddenly "get it." In reality, it does little to help me actually play.
As Pierre would say, "Time on the instrument..."
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Another Howard Morgen production in ebook form with video is "Fingerboard Breakthrough" its very good for chord construction and easier to understand than his other book. There are some videos taken from it on Youtube, worth a look. Also totally agree with Fatjeff, you just have to keep plugging away at it until you get to where you want to be.
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+1 to Fatjeff on the learn by " doing "......I started with expanding my chord voicing vocabulary, i.e. using the CAGED system as a starting point, and creatively elaborated from there.....may be primitive to most schooled upper crust jazz ears, but it works for me.
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Excellent observation. and I'd add that all those companies (book and DVD publishers) already know that we're constantly creating that illusion, so they add more and more material to keep us busy, but we actually never learn that way. Originally Posted by FatJeff
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I agree wholeheartedly with FatJeff. I imagine there's a lot of people like myself. Lots of practicing, studying, learning bits and pieces here and there. You know a bunch of jazz chords, scales, triads, etc but at the end of the day can't play a chord melody from beginning to end.
Many of the chord inversions you learn will rarely be used. As I write out chord melodies I'm able to get all the melody notes with just a few chords, and ones that are easy to finger.
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Steve Crowell has some of the best but there are plenty to choose from. Chordmelody.com has a great section to pick from. You need to decide if you want pick or finger style, block chord or tab notation or both.
Steve Crowell writes some of the best pick style transcriptions with block chords diagrams I have seen. I've been buying and using Steve's books since 1979 and I still refer to them often.
Easy Jazz Guitar - Jazz Science Series
https://www.chordmelody.com/
It takes some time to figure out the key words to look for in the item description and whether or not they apply to your style. I have plenty of books that do not meet my preference for chord block and pick style.
Hope this helps.
Regards -
Cliff
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Frankly I am nopt much into learnign and performing ready arrangements but whenever I see the book I try to go through it mostly sight-reading looking for ideas... so these are ones I had a chance to play through more or less
Chord Melody Solos in 2 volumes - quite simple arrangements and being made by different players they are often different in style and approach.. mixed fingerstyle, pick, hybrid
Dan Towey 'Duke Ellington - 15 sensational songs' - quite ok mixed pick, fingerstyle, hyprid
Dan Twoey - ' Jazz Guitar Chord Melodies' - quite complex arrangements... include not only the melody arranged but also kind of solo... more kind of transcribed solo concert performance than arrangemnet
Howard Morgan 'The Ellington Collection' - nice fingerstyle arrangements reflectin Howard Morgan's individual approach
Robert Yelin's 'Jazz Classics for Solo Guitar' - quite special arrangements... pros and cons were discussed on this forum (also by me) - so try the search
Barry Galbraith - very cool arrangements
Steve Hancoff - 'Duke Ellington for fingerstyle guitar' - technique-wise more rag-style arrangements than conventional jazz... big intro on harmmny chords etc
John Miller - 'Fingerpicking Gershwin' - also look more like classical or rag style arrangements in approach to texture
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It depends where you are what your goals are etc etc. but my top 2 suggestions would be Originally Posted by nick1994
Joe pass Chord Solos.
Joe Pass Chord Solos: For Guitar, Vibes & All Keyboard Instruments: Joe Pass: 0038081001630: Amazon.com: Books
and anything/everything by bill McCormick
Bill McCormick | mPub | Jazz Guitar Books for Sale
The pass book is a classic. Memorize it and you're set for life.
the bill McCormick books are really outstanding. I'm not sure why they never get mentioned here, but they seem like a labor of love and unlike some other advanced books, are not that hard to play, although harmonically they get really out there as you work through them.
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+1 on the Barry Galbraith.
There was also some discussion on this forum some time ago about a very nice folio of Johnny Smith Chord solos.
This link will take you back to those pages.
Johnny Smith Chord Solo Book
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Mike Elliot had a really good series from Hal Leonard, Volume 1 was called Expanding Jazz Harmonies, V2. Contemporary Chord Solos.
They are written with melody and chord grid.
I got a lot from these, the chord movements and harmonies are nicely explained and the songs within are beautiful examples. There were others in the series but the Mike Elliot ones were my favourites.
If you want some really beautiful arrangements of popular tunes, Toru Takemitsu wrote pieces for classical guitar.
You can get a lot out of these, dense with well thought out lines and beautiful use of techniques.
DavidLast edited by TH; 06-17-2015 at 03:54 PM.
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I agree whole heartedly. I bought these ages ago and they were the most useful books both in "steal-able" harmonic approaches and good sound practical theoretical instruction. I carried these around and learned the solos, and parts of them are still in my vocabulary today. They're easy to visualize (chord grid is really effective sometimes) and they're easy to play with the melody outlined as it is.
I too wish Hal Leonard would reissue them. There were other volumes but not with the treatment of good workhorse standards that Volume 1 and 2 had.
Somebody should scan them. Better yet, the publisher should get hip to one of the gems they are sitting on.
David
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No specific recommendation except that if you're getting a book of tunes there should be actual audio examples. That always frustrated me about the Joe Pass Chord Solos book which to my knowledge were not even transcriptions of existing recordings. It's really hard to struggle through complex notation when you don't know what it's supposed to sound like! Plus, being able to listen to the actual tune is important because you might not want to learn a whole solo but only some particular phrases.
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"Solo Jazz Guitar"- Bill Hart-published by Hal Leonard.
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I bought both volumes I and II on Amazon.com. The weren't cheap when I bought them but this is crazy:
This is Volume I at $552.00 which can't be right.
Contemporary Chord Solos - Book 1: A Simplified Approach to Substitute Harmonies: Mike Elliot: 9780793524143: Amazon.com: Books
This is volume II at a fair price of $30.00
Contemporary Chord Solos - Book 2: A Simplified Approach to Substitute Harmonies: 0073999552188: Amazon.com: Books
And this is how I was introduced to Mike Elliot:
Mike Brookfield doing Mike Elliot's Come Rain or Come Shine from Volume I.
Here's Mike's Transcription: [ATTACH]21389Last edited by ckrahenbill; 07-01-2015 at 01:45 AM.
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Very nice transcription in terms of the arrangement. Disappointing to see it just in tab, but that's ok. I don't hear so much substitutions as just good voice leading. Nice version.
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The Elliot arrangements are not meant to be completed integrated technique performances pieces, they are from a book of pieces that use standards as vehicles that elegantly demonstrate certain techniques that are introduced, discussed and demonstrated. These books are first and foremost great instructional books, like a class on using harmony in solo chord arrangements and an etude using a standard. So no. You're not going to see substitutions, harmonics, great liberties with the melody, harmony or the rhythm. Originally Posted by targuit
The original Elliot books have notation of the original melody, chord symbols and the supporting chord presented in a chord block form. That's not in tab. The curious can scroll up to post #8 and see an example.
If you're looking for an arrangement with more advanced techniques, chord substitutions, different linear ideas and a concert quality arrangement, probably don't think about the books we're discussing here on the Mike Elliot sub topic; you'll likely find these below your level and unsatisfying.
I've found them useful in the way they presented material that does make a good chord soloist.
I wonder if Mike Elliot is still around, if he could be convinced to present an integrated Volume 1&2 to the publisher, or if some letter writing might help turn Hal Leonard's decision makers to make this move for Mike. I've seen other publishers re-issue classics like the Van Eps book and others. Originally Posted by ckrahenbill
It won't kill you not to have them, there are certainly good books out there, Galbraith, Takemitsu, etc, but the Elliot ones did have a unique visual approach and very nice etudes for study.
David
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