Learning to perform chord melody compositions may seem like an elaborate ordeal. Memorizing hundreds of chord voicings and seemingly endless jazz theory can be quite a process. However, for all intents and purposes, it’s actually much more painless than it looks IF you simplify it into a series of practical, successional steps.
In his course, Chord Melody Playbook, Frank Vignola breaks this process down for you. Here are nine free video jazz
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Avalon – Overview & Harmonic Analysis
This segment is an overview of the song, “Avalon”. I discuss the harmony and melody as well as suggest some classic versions of this great standard to research.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Avalon – Chords Practice Session
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Before we dig into the chord melody arrangement, let’s practice the chords with a metronome.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Avalon – Melody Practice Session
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Don’t forget to practice the melody with the metronome as well!
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 1: Avalon – Chord Melody Arrangement
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In the Level 1 arrangement, you’ll learn how to play the melody along with the prevailing root bass note, or simple prevailing triad.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 1: Avalon – Analysis & Breakdown
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Lets break this down. For this iteration, we’re just using the root note in the bass together with the melody.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 2: Avalon – Chord Melody Arrangement
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Here is the Level 2 arrangement. We’ll play the melody along with chords and extensions.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 2: Avalon – Analysis & Breakdown
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Here’s the breakdown. I tried to add some passing chords for when our melody falls outside of the standard progression.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 3: Avalon – Chord Melody Arrangement
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In the Level 3 arrangement, we’ll play the arrangement as if I were performing it on the bandstand adding fills, groove, tempo and more sophisticated chord voicings.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 3: Avalon – Analysis & Breakdown
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Again, let’s break this down. Get your right hand moving so we can swing this one up to tempo.
Digging these free jazz chord melody