A chord melody is basically a solo guitar arrangement of a song. You want the melody to ring out so people can easily recognize what you are playing.
Not everybody sings and even those who do sometimes prefer to have their guitars do the singing for them. You can learn an incredible lot about the art of Chord Melody here at Guitar Noise. As with most of our topics, Guitar Noise has lessons at almost all levels, from lessons that demonstrate this technique in the simplest terms to those that guide you through crafting your own personal chord melody song arrangements, you’ll get all the tools you need to have your guitar become a one-person orchestra. So take a closer look at all the lessons on this page. It will hopefully get you psyched to try out this style of playing.
Chord melody is a way of arranging songs so that a single guitar does all the work of providing melody and harmony, and usually includes a bass part as well.
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Creating chord melody arrangements can be addictive! And you can start out as easy or as complicated as you’d like. Brandon Carrasco takes us step by step through his first time out, turning this timeless lullaby into a wonderful single guitar piece.
Here is Hank’s second Guitar Noise lesson, an accompaniment to “What a Wonderful World” as performed by Louis Armstrong. He draws on some of the ideas used in his first arrangement, “Smile”, and provides some nice movement in the bass line. Since this is an accompaniment arrangement designed to support vocals, most of the chord voicings will incorporate the melody note on the upper strings.
Here is my very first arrangement, a finger style chord melody of the beautiful Charlie Chaplin tune “Smile.” Walking through the process step by step, you’ll see how an initial “busy” arrangement consisting mainly of eighth notes and arpeggios was pared down to make it easier to play and to allow room for some nice movement in the bass line.
In the final installment of her video lessons on the Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” guitar teacher extraordinaire Jamie Andreas takes you step by step through the bridge section of the song with very clear and detailed instruction. I learned quite a bit from Jamie’s videos and I hope you do, too!
In this second installment of her video lessons on the Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” guitar teacher extraordinaire Jamie Andreas guides you through the verses of the song with very clear and detailed step-by-step instruction, designed to help you with the fingering involved in the tricky chord changes.
Guitar Noise bids a heartfelt “welcome back” to Jamie Andreas of Guitar Prinicples (www.guitarprinciples.com). Jamie has honored us by putting together a series of video lessons of performance notes for our Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” She has a wonderful way of explaining the hows and whys of finger positioning and you’re in for a treat. Enjoy this first lesson and rest assured more are on the way.
Peter Simms has written a little ditty that shows us how to make your single guitar sound like a small combo band. We’re going to focus on fingerstyle with a melody, bassline and chords.
Here’s a song arrangement that no one has to sing! Take aspects of “chord melody” arranging and mix them in with fingerstyle playing and you’ve got yourself a version of one of George Harrison’s terrific songs to perform. It’s not all that hard to learn and you can easily adapt it with your own embellishments and style.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a Celtic arrangement of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “All I Can Do Is Write About It” done in DADGAD tuning. A wonderful way to remember your home, whether home is in Alabama or Caledonia.
Here’s a very easy chord melody arrangement of the popular Christmas carol Joy to the World in double drop D tuning. Enjoy this familiar tune in a new way.
Here is another chord melody arrangement of a Christmas classic that most beginners should be able to get a handle on fairly quickly. As a bonus, it’s arranged so that you can play it either finger style or with a pick.
Not so much a lesson as a nice chord melody arrangement of this beautiful Christmas song, courtesy of Peter. Never too early to get started on your holiday material.
Not everybody sings and even those who do sometimes prefer to have their guitars do the singing for them. You can learn an incredible lot about the art of Chord Melody here at Guitar Noise. As with most of our topics, Guitar Noise has lessons at almost all levels, from lessons that demonstrate this technique in the simplest terms to those that guide you through crafting your own personal chord melody song arrangements, you’ll get all the tools you need to have your guitar become a one-person orchestra. So take a closer look at all the lessons on this page. It will hopefully get you psyched to try out this style of playing.
