Learn how to combine chords and melody to play jazz standards in the style pioneered by jazz mandolinist Jethro Burns and guitarists like Joe Pass and Bucky Pizzarelli.
Try a Sample Lesson
Chord Melody Basics, Part 2: Picking-Hand Technique
Your fretting hand determines the notes you’re playing but your picking hand determines how those notes (and chords) are articulated. Aaron shows you how to create different sounds with the two progressions you learned in Part 1 by separating the chord and melody notes in different rhythmic ways, for example, playing the melody note before the full chord, or the bass note before the full chord. He also demonstrates how you can combine these approaches to give your chord melody performance some rhythmic variety.
In his arrangement of the jazz standard “Fine and Dandy” Aaron looks at how to exploit bass-note movement in chord voicings. He starts by talking about how to decide the right register to choose for a chord melody arrangement of a song. Then he walks you through the song phrase by phrase, explaining some of his chord-melody arrangement ideas as he goes.
"Fine and Dandy" Lead Sheet (Available to subscribers)
"Fine and Dandy" Chord Library (Available to subscribers)
"Fine and Dandy" Chord Melody Arrangement (Available to subscribers)
Here's our Fiddle Styles Workshop host and instructor, Brittany Haas, playing one of her original compositions, "Down The Hatch" on July 5, 2014, part of the Vero Beach International Music Festival, at First Presbyterian Church of Vero Beach, FL. Brittany is joined by The Advancing Mandolinist instructor Joe Walsh and her talented sister, Natalie Haas.
