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 guitar lessons from the course. For the full course containing all of the lessons, check out Frank Vignola’s Jazz Chord Melody Playbook on TrueFire!
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
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
Before we dig into the chord melody arrangement, let’s practice the chords with a metronome.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Avalon – Melody Practice Session
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
Don’t forget to practice the melody with the metronome as well!
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 1: Avalon – Chord Melody Arrangement
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
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
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
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
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
Here is the Level 2 arrangement. We’ll play the melody along with chords and extensions.
Jazz Guitar Lesson – Level 2: Avalon – Analysis & Breakdown
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
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
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
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
Download the tab & notation for this jazz chord melody guitar lesson
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 guitar lessons? Check out Frank Vignola’s full course, Jazz Chord Melody Playbook.