White Christmas
jazz guitar chord melody
jazz guitar chord melody
With most chord melodies, you want to make the chords ring as long as possible. That gives it a fuller, smoother sound. There are places where the melody requires that you let go of the chord. That's okay, and to be expected. Just aim for smooth strums.
The most important thing is to bring out the melody. In this arrangement, the melody is on top - the highest string played. You can change the chords to a tune as you arrange a chord melody, and you can change the rhythm - sometimes you have to in order to be able to play it, but you need to leave the melody essentially as it was written. My old jazz teacher used to say that the melody was a given. The easiest way to learn this arrangement it to take it in small sections. There is too much to learn all at once. Listen carefully to the recording for nuances. The pdf file of the score is available for download at the bottom of the page. |