[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

This approach provides a practical starting point and is very easy when you can play the progression and just sing a line that sounds good over the chords, you imediately get a distinct harmony and melody part and a tune that's singable, like wise on keyboard - play the progression with the left hand and just explore a scale in the same key with the right.
This isn't so easy to do spontaineosly on an acoustic guitar which I think is why a lot of stuff which is composed on the guitar sounds like a series of arpegios rather than a distinct melody with seperate harmony. How do you get over that?

For an instrumental you start with the melody line and then add the chording and harmony to that.