I am approaching a point where I want to begin working on chord-melody playing. It occured to me that hymns in most church hymnals are already arranged in a chord-melody style, at least for the piano. Is this an accurate observation or am I missing something?
Thanks,
RLRubenking
Nope, perfectly valid observation. Quite a bit of church music is very much chordal melodies.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
you are dead on.
now use your ear and pick out those melodies.
it is a very sweet way to play.
Chord scales are a good way to practise for this.
Instead of just playing single-note scales, play full chords, ie in C major, play in sequence, the following triads:
C, Dm, Em, F, G (or G7), Am, Bdim, C, and back down.
Then try same sequence for the natural, melodic & harmonic minors.
If you are leaning toward jazz, chord scales in the major 7th are excellent practise:
Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7, Bm7b5, Cmaj7
"A child of five could understand this...send someone to fetch a child of five !"--Groucho Marx
