# Simple guide for chord melody playing



## Luan (Nov 8, 2008)

Hey you metalheads, today in class we are going to see the best thing in the world, how to fire your bass player, keyboard player and everybody else in the band.
First of all you have to choose a song, your first one can be the happy birthday or something simple to start.
And then, you have to realize that you will learn something simple, in fact it is more simple than you think.
1) what style is the song?
If it's metal, obviously don't crank the distortion since you are going to play chords and intervals that sound like shit with it, if it's jazz you know that you can use tensions in the chords, if it's folk it's a good idea to use open strings everytime you find it possible, etc. The more you try, the more you will get ideas and approaches for every style.
2) Learn the melody first of all, try playing it in all the neck, remember that you can play every note in a lot of different places, the same for every part of the melody, if you know how to read you can use any standart from the real book, or get a transcription of any song you like, or tab or whatever.
Most likely you will have to transpose one octave up the melody, I would say that 60&#37; of the times you will have to.
If you are more advanced at this, you will be able later to transpose to a key in which is easier and better to play the song on the guitar.
3) learn the chords, if they have inversions, is a very good idea to play them, since you will be playing the bass movement, and that sounds cool and it has a reason to be, it's a more specific bass line.
4) here you will start to work on your own arrangement of the song:
Play the song with only the melody and the lowest (bass note) note of each chord together. Try different fingerings, and use the one that makes the song sound better, try playing the notes on different places of the neck.
At this point you will be only able to play this way by using your fingers and not a pick in the right hand, since notes will be separated by various strings.
5) if you are playing a jazz or bossa song, you can try arranging the song so you only play the bassline and the melody. In a jazz context, write a walking bassline first and learn it separately, and then figure out when does the notes of the melody fall on each beat of the bassline, you will not be able to play some parts of the melody with the bassline you did, so you may try other notes for the bassline in those sections in which you have problems with.
Also, if the melody is very active in some sections, you can play the same note of the bassline for each chord for making things easing and possible to play.
In a bossa nova, you play the root and the 5th of each chord in the bassline, there are common patterns, google is your friend 
6) almost the final step: fill the bassline and melody, with notes of the chords.
You have the extreme limits that are the bass note and the melody note, see which fingers you have left and see how you can use them to play important notes on the chords.
Try to always let the melody as the highest note, so it will be more clear. It can be in the middle of the chord every now and then, you have to play it clearly and make it move as you let the chord sound, so the ear hears the voice that is moving as the melody of the song.
If you already are playing the root of the chord, you don't really need to use it again as a note to fill the chords, see if you can play the 3rds of each chord, you can put there the 5th too. If your fingers let you and you still can let the melody be the most high note, you can use tensions.
This is the basic guide, but it doesn't mean that you will not get excellent arrangements only with this.
I've learned by trying and thinking a lot which elements sounds better, and still I have a lot to try in this topic, a lot really.
If I can get time and submit some arrangements of songs I've already done, I will do it, I want to see if there is interest first.
Songs I recommend trying this (they are not hard, and sound incredible): the happy birthday, tune up (miles davis), all the things you are, autumn leaves, just like the day (pat metheny, great song for playing on the 7 or 6 with drop D), crystal silence (return to forever, chick corea), wait for sleep (dream theater), footprints (wayne shorter), james (pat metheny).
Your ultimate goal will be to know which degree of each chord you have as the highest note of all the chord forms you know, that will help you a lot, it's easy, you will learn as you play more and more chord melody.
Also, you will start to see how the melody works with the chords, which intervals the notes of the melody are, etc.
Sorry for my english.
I hope you try it, I think it's one of the best ways of using the possibilities of this great instrument, specially a sevenstring, it makes everything easier.


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## abyssalservant (Nov 10, 2008)

I AM the bass player 
*chuckles* that said, I've done some very simple stuff in this direction, different ways (Star of the County Down + open chords as a simple strummy thing, whatever). Highly rec'd.
I do like timbre variety though


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