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  #31  
Old 07-25-2022, 10:51 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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Don't get too flustered by those 6ths and 9ths etc...a lot of time, its the melody note on top of a rather simple "base chord" that's giving it that name.

And if you're arranging your own chord melodies, it does help to know some of these things, as it gives you smoother voice leading.

In the end, the real trick is to know how to construct chords and know what chord symbols mean, as opposed to thinking you need to learn dozens of new shapes.
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  #32  
Old 07-25-2022, 04:37 PM
Scuzzo Scuzzo is offline
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I'm not sure I get the distinction, I always assumed that unless you are just doing a basic strum pattern, you always tease the melody out of chords with arpeggios and such.. perhaps you may not use some weird augmented 13th things.. who needs that..lol.. cats like Neal young and bob Dylan use chordal melody too.. or perhaps I'm not understanding the term chordal melody.. Wess Montgomery held strong to chordal melody.all those blazing fast double octaves But that cat is so far beyond any of my dabble.. I just like to hear him play.. . but a melodic thread usually runs through the chord changes... hmm.. I know Pete Townsend has lots of chordal melodies is records like quadrophinia... or tommy.. could be wrong
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  #33  
Old 07-25-2022, 05:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scuzzo View Post
I'm not sure I get the distinction, I always assumed that unless you are just doing a basic strum pattern, you always tease the melody out of chords with arpeggios and such.. perhaps you may not use some weird augmented 13th things.. who needs that..lol.. cats like Neal young and bob Dylan use chordal melody too.. or perhaps I'm not understanding the term chordal melody.. Wess Montgomery held strong to chordal melody.all those blazing fast double octaves But that cat is so far beyond any of my dabble.. I just like to hear him play.. . but a melodic thread usually runs through the chord changes... hmm.. I know Pete Townsend has lots of chordal melodies is records like quadrophinia... or tommy.. could be wrong
Rightly or not when I hear the "chord melody" term I am thinking about block chords with melody on top rather than anything else. It could sound "jazzy" or
not depending on the type of chords and chord progressions used.
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  #34  
Old 07-25-2022, 07:28 PM
Scuzzo Scuzzo is offline
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
Rightly or not when I hear the "chord melody" term I am thinking about block chords with melody on top rather than anything else. It could sound "jazzy" or
not depending on the type of chords and chord progressions used.
Yea,, after I looked up the term I know I was off base on it.. but is one of the best examples of players is Chet or Pass.. yikes... I think I will stick to the shallow end of the pool for now.. lol
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  #35  
Old 07-25-2022, 10:29 PM
stanron stanron is offline
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Chin up Scuzzo. I was playing for nearly sixty years. I'd argue most things with most people, but this subject has me wondering. Perhaps there's a bit of definition drift going on and there's no point in fighting definition drift. It happens.
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  #36  
Old 07-29-2022, 10:10 AM
Malcolm Kindnes Malcolm Kindnes is offline
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Originally Posted by Bain View Post
Yes ,yes ,and yes thanks sinistral that’s just what type of chord melody music I was looking for .............
Well, that's definitely chord melody jazz to me! Perhaps it's just complex jazz you don't want to attempt?
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  #37  
Old 07-29-2022, 11:04 AM
Italuke Italuke is offline
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I've got our solution: "chord melody" is jazz. "Melody chord" is not jazz.

Yeah while we may have always heard the term applied to jazz, it doesn't have to be.
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  #38  
Old 08-03-2022, 06:36 PM
Mortimer Nelson Mortimer Nelson is offline
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I think what you're looking for is really more like open tuning (aka fingerstyle, aka alt. tuning), and not chord melody. In Sinistral's post, Tommy E seems to be playing in something related to DADGAD, an open chord with the 9th already added in. I'd call it 'drone melody' since the chord the guitar is tuned to acts like a background drone. Most of these tunings leave out the 3rd, making them 'open chords', neither major nor minor. The 'open' strings also play a big part in the overall sound.
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  #39  
Old 08-04-2022, 09:10 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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I can see where the term "chord melody" gets to be a rather grey area and Stanron mentioned "definition drift" captured it pretty well.

One thing I have always appreciated about Robert Conti is his ability to make seemingly complex stuff simple (check out his "Chord Melody Assembly Line" and "The Formula" to get going with "chord melody).

Anyway, he said, in one of his DVDs, that "what we call chord melody, piano players simply call making music".

Of course, rick-slo said "Rightly or not when I hear the "chord melody" term I am thinking about block chords with melody on top rather than anything else. It could sound "jazzy" or not depending on the type of chords and chord progressions used.", and (for me) that captures what comes to my mind when I hear the term "chord melody". For somebody else, another meaning might come to mind.

This discussion about the scope of the meaning of the term "chord melody" has come up from time to time here, over on the jazz guitar forum, and in person over the years, so I doubt that there will ever be a universal consensus.

Tony
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  #40  
Old 08-04-2022, 10:10 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bain View Post
I have little interest in jazz for me it’s too complicated , but I would like to play simple chord melodies , maybe it’s me but when I search for chord melodies I am almost driving down the road of jazz , 9 this and 6 that and twist your fingers around this . Can you guys give me any direction for simple songs in chord melodies without all that jazz
Cheers
I would love to play jazz, and westerswing stuff, but I fear its a matter of old dogs and new tricks.

However, I have found that there are lots of ways to find non jazz style melodies from within pretty standard chord progressions, with a knowledge of scales and some hammer on, pull off technique, a bit like this.

I've taught this to a number of folks and still do, if requested.

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  #41  
Old 08-04-2022, 11:05 AM
SpruceTop SpruceTop is online now
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Then there is this jazzy duo!

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  #42  
Old 08-20-2022, 05:32 AM
sinistral sinistral is offline
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Even though these are just guitar demos, I really like JoiL’s arrangements:

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  #43  
Old 08-20-2022, 03:42 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Since I have (and still do) known a number of pro jazz musicians, I am left with the impression that jazz is a pretty deep subject and that a person would need to spend many years of study to get enough of a grasp on a true working vocabulary and the repertoire to get to a point at which s/he to call him or herself a jazz musician.

In short, I have too much respect for the art form to say that I play jazz. What I can say is that I borrow some of the more obvious harmony that is often used in jazz to inform whatever arranging I do. In other words, I can grab the "low hanging fruit" that is easy to absorb and make use of it (i.e. chord extensions and color tones, some of the more obvious chord substitution ideas, etc.).

However, a jazz musician would be able to hold his or her own in a jam session, managing whatever tune is called, be able to sit in as an on-call sub in a gig, and in general, be able to handle him or herself in any jazz-oriented musical situation and probably any pop situation too. That, I am not.

But as a hobby player, I can make use of whatever tidbits I can learn on my own to add some modicum of sophisticated-sounding harmony to the tunes I choose to play on my own. That is definitely not a jazz musician.

So, though a person may not want to play jazz, a person can inform him or herself of some of the less involved jazz harmony ideas and make use of that to add interest to the music he or she does choose to play.

Tony
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  #44  
Old 08-21-2022, 08:14 AM
Joe Beamish Joe Beamish is offline
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I think it’s a journey. If you love listening to jazz, or at least some of it, you are likely to enjoy the journey of learning it.
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  #45  
Old 12-05-2022, 02:23 AM
Heliodoro Heliodoro is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bain View Post
I have little interest in jazz for me it’s too complicated , but I would like to play simple chord melodies , maybe it’s me but when I search for chord melodies I am almost driving down the road of jazz , 9 this and 6 that and twist your fingers around this . Can you guys give me any direction for simple songs in chord melodies without all that jazz
Cheers
Hi!
I think to get your nice jazz sounds you will have to go through 6th or 9th chords. But it's not that difficult. I refer you to a list of easy guitar songs and suggest you to look at the chords of Dark Eyes which is a pretty simple music with only three chords and sounds really good!
Enjoy.
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