Chord-Melody Made Easy(ish)

Chord-melody is simply the art of supporting a melody with a chord voicing, where the top note of the chord becomes your melody note.

This guide from Greg Ruby serves as a gentle introduction to chord-melody. It will walk you through the steps of finding melodies using only the first two strings of the guitar, generating inversions for any chord, using those voicings to support melody notes, and applying these techniques to popular songs.

Throughout the guide, we will explore jazz standards such as "Whispering," "Careless Love," "I’ll See You in My Dreams," "After You’ve Gone," and "My Melancholy Baby." We’ll also cover a variety of musical contexts and techniques, including passing chords, tremolo, bass runs, and arpeggiated picking, to fill in the gaps.

Deepen your understanding of how the guitar works, expand your chord vocabulary, and add beautiful songs to your repertoire with this complete digital edition. Your download includes six lessons, plus a bonus workshop, each with chord frames, standard notation, tablature, and more than 2 hours of accompanying video instruction with Greg Ruby.

"This is an invaluable resource for guitarists looking for a way to explore swing-based chord soloing from the ground up. Greg Ruby dives right in and articulately lays out a step-by-step process for learning that is—to his great credit as a teacher—as approachable as it is thorough. Using jazz and swing standards as vehicles for developing chord soloing language will bring readers a great deal of satisfaction for their efforts, and the book’s problem-solution format will no doubt save students a lot of time and frustration. Chord Melody Made Easy(ish) is sure to reward readers with a solid foundation for getting hip chord solos under their fingers!" —Grant Gordy