This article will give you a little insight into the guitar chord solo as an interesting style of guitar playing to pursue. While it is not for the complete novice, the intermediate level guitar player can easily benefit from learning some chord melody arrangements.
A chord melody or guitar chord solo is a method guitarists use to bring out the musical possibilities of a tune by interpreting it as a series of chords rather than single notes. Or, putting it another way, you play the chords AND the melody simultaneously. You will find the guitar chord solo - a group setting or unaccompanied - used quite a lot in jazz guitar music.
In rock-oriented music we are used to hearing a guitar solo played by one guitar, the bass notes by another, and the rhythm by a third guitar. Using the chord melody approach, the guitar player makes use of all three elements of a piece of music to produce a different way of interpreting the melody by making use of musical effects of the guitar chord. Solos played this way often have the ability to draw the listener's attention into the music.
What do we need to enable us to play a guitar chord solo? We can make our chord melody by taking a piece of sheet music, tab or a fake book that gives us the basic melody and the chords. Of course, you will need to be beyond the raw beginner stage to make any progress on a guitar chord solo, because your facility for changing chords needs to be established in your body.
Once you have chosen your piece of music to transform into a guitar chord solo, try playing the melody as chords with the melody note on the highest string. This way you can simply strum the chord from bass notes to treble and see how the melody sounds and feels on the guitar. If playing the piece as a chord solo feels too awkward, you will need to think about changing keys.
An alternative approach to arranging your own chord solo is to make use of some of the collections of chord melody arrangements on the market. Some of these anthologies are for either fingerpicking or flatpicking only, but some include both.
There is quite a good book by Mel Bay called Mel Bay Jazz Guitar Standards And Chord Melody Solos. This book has a CD with all the guitar chord solos recorded and they are written in music notation as well as tab.
If you decide to learn to play guitar chord solos you might need a friend or teacher to help you with left hand fingering or the use of your right hand fingers for fingerpicking arrangements. Whichever course you take you will find that learning to play chord melody arrangements quite rewarding.
Acoustic Beginner Guitars
Acoustic guitars are great to play and very family- and neighbor-friendly but beginner acoustic guitar players need to be careful when buying their first instrument. This article covers the main points you need to think about as a beginner guitar buyer.Tab Guitar Software - Some Choices
If you have started composing your own guitar music you are probably looking around for some way to write your own tabs. There are programs that generate guitar tab and even play them for you as MIDI files.Learning How To Play The Guitar - What You Need In Your Head
In your transformation from a guitar enthusiast to a guitar player you need to acquire some knowledge. Becoming an authority on the guitar and guitar music is not stricly necessary in order to learn how to play the guitar but this knowledge will help you on the way to finding your direction as a guitar player.