Mistakes You MUST Avoid When Playing The Melody And Chords Of A Song, At The Same Time, On One Guitar - Part 2

Playing the chords and melody to a song at the same time, on one guitar, can seem like a very difficult thing to do, much more difficult than it actually is. This was the focus of part 1 of this article, where I laid out for you 3 mistakes players make when creating and playing guitar chord/melody arrangements. Today I will add to this a further 4 crucial mistakes made playing this style of guitar. Before we get into mistakes 4 through to 7 however, I highly recommend you check out part 1 of this article so you can learn about, in detail, the first 3 mistakes and how you can either stop making them yourself, or better yet, avoid them altogether. Upon doing so, you can then continue with this article to discover further mistakes made when playing chord/melody, and in the process, make your life much easier when playing this style of guitar. To summarise, the areas we covered in the first part to this lesson were: Not Having An Intimate Knowledge Of The Chords And Melody Of The Song You Want To Create An Arrangement From Crowding Your Arrangement By Trying To Include Too Much (Can’t See The Forest For The Trees Syndrome) Lack Of Chord Knowledge And Vocabulary, Leading To Limited Options And Much Frustration Now let’s continue by taking a detailed look at critical mistakes 4 through to 7 in creating and playing chord/melody arrangements on guitar. I’ll lay each mistake out for you in detail, and tell you what you can start doing right now to avoid the frustration many players encounter when trying to play this style. 4. Being Very Limited In How You Can Express The Melody You may have the chords and melody working together on a mechanical level, however with such a focus on getting to this point, the melody can otherwise be overlooked, sounding lifeless and much like an afterthought as a result. You need to have a variety of ways to express the melody in your arrangements. It’s not enough just to have it technically in place. Imagine a singer, singing the melody of a tune technically correct but with no feeling. This is the same thing I am talking about here, only with your guitar. To be clear, the first step is to get the chords and melody working on a mechanical level, however this is not the end. Next you need to decide how you want to express the melody. Steps To Avoiding This Mistake: To get more of a syncopated melody, try adding an alternate bass/travis picking element to your arrangement. This will not only get your melody singing, but will also bring a very cool, forward momentum groove to your chord/melody piece (think Chet Atkins, Tommy Emmanuel). Discover the guitar technique of the great Chet Atkins to bring this awesome fingerpicking style to your playing. Harp harmonics will bring a very unique sound to your chord/melody arrangements to say the least. Even better, you can arrange your melody using harp harmonics and totally blow away all who hear you play! You can get started with the harp harmonic technique for guitar right now. If you don’t know what these are, check them out, you won’t be disappointed! In addition to harp harmonics, the droning of open strings in your melody and solo lines is also a very unique sound well worth exploring. I love this sound and have used it in my own guitar playing extensively. You can always vary your melody. You may do this by changing the value of some notes in the melody (ie. time spent on the note), or you may add a note or two to decorate the melody. Be careful here though as you don’t want to stray too far from the original melody. It still needs to be very much recognisable within your arrangement. Instead of playing the chords and melody at the exact same time, try playing the melody and punctuating the space in-between with chords. This is a great way to allow more space for expressing your melody with things like bends and legato etc. 5. Failing To Begin At The Beginning, And Trying To Play The End Product From The Very Start It may sound obvious to you, but start at the beginning, not the end. What do I mean by this? A chord/melody arrangement has several moving parts to it. Many players try to learn all these parts at the same time. In other words, they are trying to play the end product from the very beginning (ie. the piece as you hear it). This is a recipe for disaster! Unless you already have great skills in this style of guitar playing, you will fail every time with this approach. Instead, you need to break the tune down into small pieces and learn it from the ground up. Steps To Avoiding This Mistake: Learn to recognise the role of each note in a chord melody arrangement. Generally speaking it will either be a bass part, a harmony part, or a melody part. In doing so the structure of the tune will be revealed to you. You will not only have a great way to work on the tune in smaller doses, but also a great insight into how one approaches creating their own chord/melody arrangements. Learn how to create your own acoustic instrumental arrangements of songs via this method, and you will see in great detail what I am talking about here. 6. Not Taking Time To Consider The Key In Which To Arrange Your Chord/Melody Piece The key in which you choose to create your chord/melody arrangement in is important, and a lot of the time crucial. Choosing a key by default, in other words going with whatever, can have your arrangement become very problematic. While there is generally going to be more than one suitable key, you must take time to consider which is best for what you want. For example, when creating chord/melody arrangements on your guitar, it is best for the melody to fall on the top 2 or 3 strings. This allows room for the bass and chord parts that will harmonise with the melody. Whatever key you choose, you want to make sure that the range of the melody (highest to lowest note) falls comfortably on these strings. Some keys will suit better than others depending on the position you intend to play your arrangement in. You will find different keys throw up different open chord shapes (assuming you are going to use open chords in your arrangement). Different open chord shapes present different possibilities, and what may be awkward to do with one set of open chord shapes, may be very comfortable and easy to do with another set of open shapes. Steps To Avoiding This Mistake: Save yourself much frustration by taking some time in the beginning to consider and experiment with the best key to create your arrangement in. It’ll be well worth it! Be sure that the majority of the melody can be played on the top 2 or 3 strings of the guitar, and that it is in a position that suits where you want to play your arrangement. To do this, find the lowest note of the melody and the highest note of the melody, and see where they fall on the guitar. There can be one or two notes on the 4th string, but most of them, if not all of them, need to fall on the top 2 to 3 strings. 7. Failing To Study Arrangements Of Tunes By Other Musicians To Gain Ideas, Insights, And Inspiration Contrary to what some people believe, looking at, and analysing other musician’s arrangements, particularly the chord/melody arrangements of other guitar players, will do wonders for your own playing in this style. Unfortunately, some musicians think that by doing this, they will sound too much like other guitarist’s and lose their own originality. I am going to be completely honest with you here, I have not heard of such a load of rubbish in my entire life! Ask any guitar great, and they will give you an extensive list of players they have been influenced by in developing their own style. Do you think Tommy Emmanuel avoids listening to other guitar players and musicians because he thinks he will sound too much like them. Of course not, rather he would tell you how much he has been influenced by studying and analysing other players to arrive at where he is today with his guitar playing. Steps To Avoiding This Mistake: A single step for you here. Listen to and learn the chord/melody arrangements of other guitarist’s. It’s not only a lot of fun, and feels great when you can play through a whole piece of one of your guitar heroes, but will give you many, many ideas for your own arrangements. Be sure to take your time and read through each common mistake in both this article and part 1, and more importantly take the action steps I have laid out for you. In doing so you will find playing and creating chord/melody arrangements on guitar so much easier to do! Master the art of playing the chords and melody of a tune at the same time in 5 easy steps