Search Results for: Chord Melody

In these lessons, we'll learn four slam-dunk strategies for navigating your way from one chord to the next, no matter what the chords are! This will be super-helpful at this point in your guitar learning process, and in years to come as you encounter more advanced challenges. Memorize these golden strategies!

In this set of lead lessons, Anders Mouridsen will teach the concept of chord tones. We'll introduce the concept and look at a good tone for our lessons, then get into tension notes in chord tones. Next we'll learn three licks using triple stops, double stops, and single notes, then we'll incorporate all of those into a solo.

Christopher will expand on the basics of chord melody style playing in a jazz context. In this tutorial we'll focus on making all the upper register scale notes available for a melody line. We'll still keep a bassline going along with chord tones from major 7th chords, dominant 7ths chords, and minor 7th chords. Then we'll put them together to play along with some backing tracks.

Christopher will expand on the basics of chord melody style playing in a jazz context. The basic technique involves playing or suggesting more than one part at a time. In this case, a bass line along with higher register chord tones that suggest a melody. We'll expanded the bass line to a complete octave with upper voicings of major 7th chords, dominant 7ths chords, and minor 7th chords. Then we'll put them together to play along with some backing tracks.

Christopher will explain the basics of chord melody style playing in a jazz context. The basic technique involves playing or suggesting more than one part at a time. In this case, a bass line along with higher register chord tones that suggest a melody. We'll start by applying this technique to major 7th chords, dominant 7ths chords, and minor 7th chords. Then we'll put them together to play along with some backing tracks.

Christopher will show you how to play the chord progression and the melody to this classic blues song. Guitar 1 is a rhythm guitar part playing the chord progression. Guitar 2 is a lead guitar part playing the single note melody of the song. There is also a basic chord melody version later in the tutorial.

Christopher will show you how to play a chord melody version of this classic jazz song. Chord Melody style guitar playing is playing a solo arrangement of a tune by playing the melody, some supporting bass notes and, or chords all at the same time. Usually, this involves playing a jazz standard, a song from the "Great American Songbook", but it doesn't necessarily have to be. Many jazz standards are tunes original written for Broadway musicals and Vaudeville shows of the early 20th century, pop tunes, or early film favorites.

In this tutorial, we'll begin to make the connection between playing an open minor scale, top to bottom, and, using the notes within that scale to create melody and solos. In other words, now that you've learned some scales, let's make some music!

Major scales that relate to the major chords you already know are an important building block for making your playing more interesting and fun. Use the notes of these scales to work towards playing melody, riffs, and improvisations, right in the context of a song with chords. Expand your sound, big-time!

In this set of lessons, we'll learn a pattern of notes to play that will allow you to easily play the major scale, in any key you want. This streamlined system makes playing major scales super easy, and is the gateway to playing melody, riffs, and improvisations up the neck of the guitar.

The key of E is the last key we will explore in this section. Once again, we'll determine the major and the minor chords, talk about chord-change strategies, and learn a new song in the the key of E called 'Three Long Days'.

The key of A shows up quite commonly in contemporary music, and is a good one to have under your belt. We'll determine the major and the minor chords, talk about chord-change strategies, and learn to play a new song in the the key of A called 'Shiny Objects'.

The key of D is another very common key in popular music. Some of the minor chords aren't quite as friendly as in the previous keys we have studied, but don't worry - where there is a will, there is a way. Let's determine the major and the minor chords, talk about chord-change strategies, and learn a new song in the the key of D called 'What Love Can Do'.

With millions of songs in the key of G, you'll get a ton of mileage out of mastering this key. We'll determine the major and the minor chords, talk about chord-change strategies, and learn a new song in the the key of G called 'Darling Destination'.

You now have a solid understanding of melody and tablature. If you'd like to continue honing these techniques, give these more advanced songs a try. If, however, you'd rather move on to working with full chords, feel free to skip ahead to the next tutorial. Or, stick around and learn to play 'Heading Home', Hickory Ridge', and a grand-slam version of 'Ode to Joy'!

Are you beginning to see how much music you can make with just a handful of simple chords, and a song to play? Let's add one more Simple Chord to your collection, and then learn to play the songs 'Would You?', and 'Long Long Train'. Have fun with this!

Let's start out nice and easy, by learning 2 'Simple Chords'. This will enable us to work on the skill of changing from one chord to the other in rhythm. Then we will learn to play a short and easy song using those new chords and new skills, called 'Walk Downtown.'

This tutorial is an introduction to Jazz style lead guitar. We'll cover the three primary characteristics of jazz as a distinct genre of music: sophisticated harmony, swing rhythm and improvisation. We'll learn how the essence of lead guitar in jazz style is "playing the changes". We'll learn how to build and play chord scales that follow the chords of a stereotypical jazz progression. We'll also learn how to build and play arpeggio lines that are based on the extended harmony chords typically found in a jazz tune.

In this set of lessons that concludes chapter 1, Anders Mouridsen will teach you some great exercises that will help you develop your rock playing muscles. You'll dial in a direct tone, then learn ways to build strength and fluency with open chord, barre chord, and power chord exercises, and finally exercises for your "add a finger" embellishments.

In this tutorial we'll learn an original instrumental song that uses all of our cool new chord and melody techniques. This song will work well on both acoustic and electric and if you learn it well it'll be a perfect piece to try performing for someone in your life.

In this tutorial, we'll have some fun with some challenging practice exercises for the minor scale. Get ready to put your minor scale chops to work, with these very musical scale practice exercises. Who said practicing scales should be boring?

The 'Grid-Style' minor scale allows us to play any minor scale that exists, using a consistent and moveable pattern. Learn this grid, and you can instantly play ANY minor scale that exists, just by placing the grid at different points on the neck of the guitar.

Learning to understand what the Major Scale is all about will open up exciting new doors to you as a guitar player! The Major Scale is a common language amongst all instruments, not just the guitar. In this tutorial, we'll learn what makes the Major Scale 'tick', and why.

By the end of this tutorial, you'll be reading full tablature, and playing melodies that use all 6 strings of the guitar. Reading tablature and playing melodies is an essential guitar skill. Congratulations on getting this under your belt! Have fun learning to play 'Five Miles Out', and 'Six Days Till Sunday'!

In this set of lessons, Anders Mouridsen will take a look at "Hendrix" style embellishments. We'll look at the concept and get a good tone, then embellish our major and minor barre chords on the 6th and 5th strings. We'll learn some decorations for our substitutions, then learn parts for the sections of our practice tune; we'll finish with rocking out in a performance.

When we add 2 more lines to the tablature, we open up the ability to read and play melodies which will involve the high E, B, G, and D strings. Have fun learning to play 'Early Bird Gala', and 'Cousin Dave's Blues'!

In this set of lessons, Anders Mouridsen will teach you how to strip down your chords. Anders will discuss the topic and set a good tone for the lessons, then dissect 6th string root barre chords. Next is 5th string root barre chords, then we will strip down our substitutions. We'll put it all into context and performance in a stripped down practice tune.

In this tutorial, Anders Mouridsen will be teaching you how to "embellish" your open chords. This is called "suspension", which is a big word for a very simple thing: adding a finger! Anders will demonstrate a good tone to use for this, then show you how to add a finger to spice up your open A, D, E, and G chords. To conclude, we'll put it all together and apply it to an easy practice tune.

In rock rhythm guitar, simple chords can often be played with slight variation to create what is called chord embellishment. The idea behind chord embellishment is taking any chord in your vocabulary and adding a slight variation to one or two of the notes you are playing to create a strong rhythm. With this idea, you also develop a strong melody on top of the chords you are playing. This technique is used by everyone from Chuck Berry to Led Zeppelin to Stone Temple Pilots to The Killers and just about any contributor to the rock guitar world. The following examples showcase ideas and concepts that introduce you to this idea. Each example touches on a different style and era of rock guitar, allowing you to see how simple chords can develop strong movement with just a small amount of variation.

In this tutorial we'll look at some super cool and useful embellishments that you can add to your basic open chords. Think of the open chords as the cake and the embellishments as adding icing or decoration. We'll go through some of the most common examples of open chord embellishments

Whenever you play a chord with all six strings it sounds nice and full, which is great. But you can also get some really cool results out of separating the low strings from the high strings. This concept can ultimately get incredibly advanced and super cool, and even here in its most early stages it's extremely useful and fun to explore.

In this tutorial we'll add another very important chord to your arsenal, the F major chords. The traditional way to play the F chord is one of the hardest of the open chords, but in this tutorial we’ll learn an easier way to get around that. Someday you'll probably want to learn the harder version too, but the F chord is so common that it's really useful to have an easier alternative in the meantime.

In this tutorial we'll add the D minor chord to the arsenal, and then explore what it sounds like when we combine it with the A minor and E minor chords. Once again, the most important thing to get from this tutorial is to learn the D minor chord and practice switching between that and two of the most common chord shapes that are used along with it: A minor and E minor.