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One of the most common techniques that jazz guitarists want to study and master in their playing is Chord Melody.
There’s something about the sound of a CM arrangement that appeals to jazz guitarists of all levels of experience and different musical tastes.
While many of us want to play CM’s, it can be intimidating to arrange or learn a CM and apply it to your playing.
These exercises are examples of ways that you can apply CM techniques to your studies.
Feel free to try out a few of these exercises and see which one or ones suit your playing style better.
As well, you can come back to these exercises over time to see how your tastes have changed during your development as a player.
Lastly, not every tune can hold a CM arrangement.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to work out a CM, realizing it won’t work, and then treating that melody as a single-note line.
Chord Melody Exercises
These exercises are designed to help you build and perform your own chord melody arrangements.
If this is the first time you’ve attempted working on CM’s, you can also begin learn arrangements that have been written by other players.
This’ll provide inspiration and insight into what other players use to create their own CM arrangements.
Making it easier for you to tackle your own CM’s once you’re ready to move on to your own arrangements.
Lastly, write out or record any CM arrangements that you work on in order to prevent yourself from forgetting these CM’s over time.
Bass Notes Below Melody
The first CM exercise seems straightforward on paper, but it can be a tough and beneficial exercise when applied to your practice routine.
The first step, as was mentioned earlier, is to learn the melody line on the top two strings.
This’ll provide enough space below that melody line to add your bass notes in the next step.
From there, add the root note of each chord below the melody line, on the 5th and 6th strings only, by playing one root note per chord change.
When you can do this while looking at a lead sheet, apply bass notes to your melody without looking at the chart
This’ll develop your ability to memorize chord changes at the same time.
Here’s an example of this approach with the first four bars of the jazz standard After You’ve Gone.
Audio Example 13
When adding one root note per chord is easy, add in a few other bass notes, diatonic or chromatic, to expand this exercise in your studies.
Here’s an example of this approach with the same four bars of After You’re Gone.
Audio Example 14
While this may not be an arrangement you perform, it’s a great exercise to help you work on two items at the same time, melody and bass.
As well, it’ll train you to think of chords while playing a melody, which will help in later CM exercises in this chapter.
Piano Approach
This exercises is designed to imitate the two-hands of a piano in your chord melody arrangements.
This exercise works best with melodies that have spaces between phrases, where you’ll insert chord voicings in a two-hand style.
An example of this would be “Summertime,” where there is a short melody line followed by space between each phrase.
That space is where you can add chords into the tune to build your CM arrangement.
When adding chords in, you can use 2, 3, or 4-note chords between the melody lines.
But, be aware that the faster the tune, the smaller the shapes you should use in your arrangement.
Smaller shapes will maintain the harmony, while making it easy on your hands at the same time.
Also, when applying chords, you can use your chord vocabulary and phrases to create movement in your chord lines.
You don’t have to use phrases, but sometimes a well thought out chord line between a melodic phrase can really lift your CM to the next level.
Here’s an example of this approach over the first four bars of the jazz standard “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home.”
Audio Example 15
To keep things from fading over time, write out or record an your CM so that your hard work doesn’t disappear from your memory.
Harmonize Every Note
The final, and most difficult, CM technique involves putting a chord below every note in the melody line.
This approach works well for slower melody lines, such as “All the Things You Are” and “Stella by Starlight.”
Though it doesn’t function well with Bebop tunes such as “Donna Lee,”
where the melody line moves too fast to harmonize each note.
With your melody learned on the top two strings, you can add chords below those notes, one per note, to build your arrangement.
Begin with two or three-note chords, before moving on to bigger chords, though that may not always be possible depending on the melody range.
Here’s an example of this approach over the first four bars to After You’ve Gone.
Audio Example 16
If three notes are too difficult to manage, play the 3rd and 7th of each chord below the melody notes.
This’ll bring harmony to your line without overdoing it at the same time.
Here’s an example of 3rds and 7ths added below the melody line of After You’ve Gone.
Audio Example 17
Because this approach is more difficult, write out any fully harmonized CM’s you work out so you don’t forget it.
As well, you can work these arrangements in groups of four to eight bars at a time to keep things manageable in your studies.
Melody Variations
Once you have your CM worked out, don’t think of that as the end, but the beginning of where you’ll take that arrangement in your playing.
To begin taking your CM further, you can alter the melody line each time you play it through.
This doesn’t mean completely changing the melody line; think more about adding slight variations each time you play the melody.
This could mean using any or all of the following techniques to build variations into your melody line.
Ø Change the rhythms.
Ø Add approach notes, either below or above, to the melody.
Ø Add enclosures to the melody notes.
Ø Add licks between melody lines where applicable.
Ø Play any melody lines as octaves instead of single-notes.
Though these variations seem easy on paper, they can really add up when you bring them together in your CM playing.
They’ll allow you to perform the melody differently each time you play a CM arrangement in a jam or gigging situation.
Chord Variations
Another set of variations that you can work on is with the chords that you’ve used to build your chord melody.
This means adding new voicings to your CM arrangement, but it doesn’t have to mean learning new material or altering your CM in any big way.
The first way that you can alter your chords is to change the plucking pattern you use in your picking hand.
This could mean fingerpicking instead of strumming, or vice-versa.
It could mean using various picking hand patterns through the chord voicings in your arrangement.
Some examples of these picking hand variations, with three-note chords for example, could be:
Ø Play the lowest note and then the top 2 notes together.
Ø Play the top 2 notes followed by the lowest note.
Ø Play the top note followed by the lowest two notes.
Ø Play the bottom two notes followed by the top note.
Ø Play the middle note followed by the outside two notes.
Ø Play the outer two notes followed by the middle note.
Here are examples of each of these variations over a Cmaj7 chord.
Audio Example 18
With just these six variations you can create countless combinations of picking exercises when applied to any CM arrangement in your studies.