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Playing open chords, bar chords and bulky block chords can get quite boring after a while. And it also can prevent us from seeing and creating independent lines within the harmonic progression of a song. This is because we tend to think of the overall shape of the chord, not the individual chord tones. And the bulkiness of some chords prevents us from being able to move certain notes up or down to create a melody. It can also prevent our development of voice leading (smooth movement between lines) as we sharply jump from one chord to the next, unless we are aware of inversions perhaps.
If we want to play solo guitar (aka chord melody) in jazz, classical or other styles, outlining the harmony while playing a melody, then using 2 and sometimes 3 voices gives us the best options. It’s small enough to allow the freedom of movement of certain fingers but enough notes to reflect the chord changes.
An approach that I’ve found very useful as of late is to focus on the movement of one ‘voice’, so we’ll focus on the bass line. We start with an ascending bass line. A very important thing to be aware of is that each note of the ascending line can be considered chord tone in some inversion. This type of approach can be useful in creating a baroque-style version of the classic jazz standards and also for classical improvisation.
Let’s take the chord progression to Autumn Leaves: Am7 D7 Gmaj7 Cmaj7 F#m7b5 B7 Em. And we’ll start with the note A on the 7th fret D string. The line will ascend from there. So what we do is play A over Am7 which is the root. Then we look at the next chord and decide if our current note is also a chord tone. If it is we can stay on the same note. Since D7 also has an A in it (the fifth of the chord) we will stay on it. Then we will ascend to B (the third of Gmaj7) and so on. So the line goes A A B C C D# E. Each note is a chord tone of the current chord. We’ll stick to one string to emphasize the ascending movement.
Okay now we’re going to add a melody line. We’ve made the tune 3/4 time to help give it a Baroque feel. Let’s listen to it first:
The bass line is a bit faint in this image but it’s the same as the previous line!
Notice the repeating phrase/idea – basically a measure or so of eighth notes followed by a measure of quarter notes. Notice the melody uses chord tones on strong beats (and others). You can develop this idea by doing a similar thing in reverse – for upper voice do an ascending ‘bass line’ and create a melody in the bass. Move this around the fretboard and try doing it for the entire song. You can use this for improvisation as well, as you think of the chord progression and smooth movement of one voice, while adding melodies in the other voice(s).
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Here’s a minute or so of transcription. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to finish this one so here’s a nice set of things to learn. Notice lots of I’s IV’s and V’s!
An amazingly effective way to get started improvising is to harmonize a given melody (or use this in your compositions). By that I mean finding the right chord to fit the chord progression that gives you each melody note in the upper voice (ie. the highest note in the chord is the melody note).
Since most songs use a combination of minor and major chords we will start with those. In the following PDF, I have provided a series of minor and major chords in various inversions. Each chord has a chord tone as the highest note which will be our melody note (non-chord tones as melody notes to come later).
We use A minor as an example of a minor chord and E major as an example of a major chord. For other minor chords you just shift the shape up or down the neck. When you play each inversion, be aware of what the melody note is (name of note, whether it’s the root, third, fifth) and what the other 2 notes are (name of note and whether root, third, fifth).
Later we will discuss Dominant and Diminished chords but let’s start simple for now. Here’s the Melody Notes with Chords PDF.
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The first four measures are the inversions of A minor. Play these ascending and descending. Each chord has a melody note on top, which is a chord tone so our melodies will consist of just chord tones for now. The second four measures are for the E major chord. These shapes can be moved up or down the neck to play any other minor or major chord – this is key!
Next on the second line in the PDF we have a melody with chords. Try and find the appropriate chord from the list in the first line which has that melody note as the highest note of the chord. Do this for each melody note. Then be able to play the melody in time and smoothly moving from chord to chord. Congratulations you’ve played your first chord melody!
If you need to look at the answer you can see it below. Please don’t look at this before you try it yourself. The work to find each chord is the critical skill you need to learn to do classical improvisation!
Work this out in other keys. Just transpose the chords (simple i V progression) to another key. Determine what interval each melody note is in relation to the chord. In our example melody we have 5th (E is 5th of Am), root, major 3rd, root, minor 3rd, major third, root.
Also we can use the same chord progression but alter the melody. You might be surprised how many songs use the same series of chord progressions.
Hopefully by now you can appreciate the incredible power of this type of approach!
This is a free lesson but if this lesson has touched you in some way you can donate what you feel in your heart. Suggested donation is $4.99. 10% of your generous donation will go to Music for a Cure Charity for kids with critical illness.
As songwriters, improvisers and guitarist we can often overcomplicate things. Trying to learn too many things, trying to use overly complex chord progressions in our songs and improvisations. Here’s an example by Chopin to show how beautiful a song can be with just 2 chords, Db and Ab7!
This tune by Chopin repeats a I-V progression for over 5 minutes! Notice how it starts out sparse and becomes more complex building tension, with lots of chromatic or ‘outside’ notes. But the bass line is the same for almost the entire piece. I’ve include the bass line on guitar below the video.
So try writing a song or improvising using this simple progression. Remember that there are many things you can do – target each chord tone of Db (Db, F, Ab) and Ab7 (Ab, C, Eb, Gb). For 2 notes together you can combine root and 3rd, root and fifth, root and minor 7th, 3rd and fifth, 3rd and 7th as well as the inversion of these. Study the melody of this song and see what Chopin did (eg chromatic approaches).
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