chord melody

I thought I was clicking on a video of you playing! I said right quickly, "Al's got it figured out. Doesn't need MY help!" :lol:

That is the puzzle, isn't it?

When you start out writing chord melody, you're taking the harmony and choosing inversions that place the melody in the soprano. For example, let's say you're doing "Silent Night" in C. The first melody notes are G-A-G-E, all over a C major chord, so maybe you go:

xx5553 - xx5555 - xx5553 - x32010

Later on we've got some notes that are (or could be) held longer. Like the "all is bright" phrase. So now we've got to make some choices.

You could simply arpeggiate the chord, playing the melody note on the beat, and then filling out the space with lower chord tones:

xx10-9-88 - xx10-9-88 - xx5553 - x32xxx - xx20xx - xxx01x (or anything similar)

Or you could decorate the melody line... instead of holding the G note, you could replace it with a run like G-A-G-F-E-D-C-G. And you could do that with single notes, chords, or a combination.

You can also look at the function of the chord at the moment - is it tense (leading strongly into the next chord), or at rest? If it's tense, you can use any tense substitutions - for a G7, you could use Abº7, or anything else that strikes your fancy for part of the chord duration - keeping the melody note in the soprano the same. If it's at rest, you can add color tones - playing C6, Cadd9, Cmaj7, or Csus for part of the C. And if you really want to get ambitious, you can combine these chord substitutions with decorations on the melody line.

At some point the line between "arranging" and "composing" gets blurred. Your choices line up on one side or the other - stay true to the original harmonization and build your arrangement by emphasizing different parts of the harmony to fill the space, or make it interesting by leaving the original behind - sometimes far behind - and blaze your own trail.

You could simply arpeggiate the chord, playing the melody note on the beat, and then filling out the space with lower chord tones:What I've usually done.

Just listen more attentively. Like Ric just said...an arpeggio will leave the dominant intervals sittin' across the dance floor from ya'll! Go and pick one...

Cat

thanks guys. I am stilla bit confused though. i have transpose my arrangement into a different key so i can more easily play it onto my acoustic, and the note that the singer sings throughout the entire verse (except for one or two words max) is an A note (in the key i play it in).

As a result if i arppegiate the chord, then yes i get a good backing arrangement to sing over, but i dont get the melody on the guitar which is what i want (i dont want to sing it).

i think the reason i am struggling with this is because of the pace of the vocals, the vocal note does not come to rest/it is constant so i have no opportunity to play notes inbetween.
i must confess i am getting a bit frustrated and thinking about trying a different song to arrange, but that goes against my grain, i dont like to admit defeat if i feel i can work through it in time.

Apologies for not seeing this thread until this morning. And also for being busier than I'd like.

Gave the video a watch and it looks like it may not be as hard as all that. First off (and please remember this is from one watch plus playing a long with a guitar that's currently in open G tuning so I may be totally off base), I think the song's in C# major, which means that you'll be able to play it in C (capo on the first fret) or D (everything tuned down a half step) without too much trouble.

You're right in your observation that the melody is all over everything and that doesn't leave you much room in terms of arpeggios or accompaniment, but you also should take into account that you don't have to play every syllable of every word of the melody in order to convey the general sense of the original melody.

I've some things I have to take care of today, but let me play around with this when I've the spare time and I'll try to give you some more ideas. This isn't beyond your capabilities as long as you're willing to have a take on it that's certainly not going to be the original. It will be cool, though.

And thanks for turning me on to this song. Like it a lot!

Peace

Okay...

Most of the drive of this song comes from the descending bass line, so that might be a great place to start. If you use your capo on the first fret (after a few more listens it's definitely in the key of C#) you can begin with something like this:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

E - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
B - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
G - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
E - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - - -

The melody note during the verse, unless I'm really not hearing it well, centers on C# (first fret of the B string, taking the capo into account), so on the first beat of each measure you can sweep that note, along with an accompanying chord:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

E - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
B - - 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
G - - 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
D - - 3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
E - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - - -
And then start filling in the melody. Again, don't worry about nailing every syllable. This should certainly get you going on a decent version.

Hope it helps and let me know if you need some more ideas. And, by the bye, big kudos to you for trying out an arrangement like this. It's not an easy task and you didn't pick an easy song to try it out on, as easy as it might have seemed at first. Sometimes it's the songs that have the simplest melodies that make the trickier chord melody arrangements.

Peace

Many many thanks for taking the time to do that - especially at christmas.

i will break my guitar out tonight and give it a serioius amount of time, hopefully i can post the results as a video on here here early in the new year.

Thanks again, it is truely appreciated. - have a great new year. Al

thanks guys. I am still a bit confused though.

Okay...time for another of Cat's secrets:

Have someone go out and buy a song book. Beatles? Eagles? It's not all that important. But what IS important is that you must NOT even see these books or know who's they are!!! Not even the genré. Have your friend write down JUST THE CHORDS as shown in their order as per song.

You want chord melodies??? The right hand stuff is left up to you!

Happy New Year!

Cat