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Help arranging songs for solo guitar


stk

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Posted

Hey folks:

 

Maybe like some (a lot?) of y'all, I don't play with a band, and I struggle trying to create a "full-sounding", complete musical statement. I'm in great danger of falling into the pit of "One thousand 10-second licks".

 

So given a song to which you know the chords -- how do you go about creating an arrangement, that would allow solo playing?

 

For example, here are the first few bars of Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll" - it goes, Dm7 G7 Dm7 G7 Em7 A7 Em7....

 

What is your thought process? Do you just find voicings for the chords, then noodle around with the melody using notes from within the actual voicings? How do you decide when to play a full chord, or partial chord, or where to play single notes.

 

I hope I'm not too vague. Thx!

Posted

 

Originally posted by stk

For example, here are the first few bars of Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll" - it goes, Dm7 G7 Dm7 G7 Em7 A7 Em7....


What is your thought process? Do you just find voicings for the chords, then noodle around with the melody using notes from within the actual voicings?

 

 

This does constitute a large part of it. I'll move between different voicings using their top note as a melodic line. However, I don't just stick harmonizing everything. That can make an arrangement or improvised solo sound bogged down and doesn't work especially well on faster melodies or improvised passages. I'll play a note or two with a chord under it, play a couple passing tones or chord tones or whatever without any chord voicing, and move to a new voicing.

 

How do you decide when to play a full chord, or partial chord, or where to play single notes.

 

 

This is the ultimate problem that you face as a solo performer. How much chording should I do?

 

When the harmony changes, I'm more inclined to play a voicing. Not always, but most of the time I will.

 

When the chord hasn't changed, I'm more inclined to do single note lines because the harmony has already been established, however I might go ahead and play some chords anyway.

 

It's a very gray area subject, but the best learning comes from two things:

 

1) Listening to great performers and trying to see how they balance chords vs single notes. Listen to guys like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Martin Taylor, and a number of others. Pass and Taylor's careers have pretty much been solo playing, as for Kessel, there's a cd called "Solo" which is, well, all solo playing.

 

2) Playing it. Just sit down and jam out to some tunes. The more you do it, the more natural it will become.

 

 

 

A couple of notes on playing solo: Don't rest. When you stop, the music stops. You don't have the luxury of resting a bar or a couple beats that you do in a band. If you look at Joe Pass transcriptions, you'll notice that he hardly ever rests at all. In a band situation, it would probably sound too cluttered to play like this, but it's almost essential when playing solo. When the melody to a head is whole notes or half notes, you can opt to add rhythmic to the note, or add fills, or do some chord hits or something to fill the space. When Joe Pass was young, his dad had him play along with the radio, and whenever there was a sustained note, his dad had him fill the space with fills, so from early on it was in Joe's nature to fill the gaps.

 

Also, there's only one voicing that comprimises 75% of my playing, and makes up a large portion of what the pros use. Take a normal drop 3 Gm7 voicing:

 

3-x-3-3-3-x

 

Now, move the bass note to the top:

 

x-x-3-3-3-3

 

That's the voicing. Now, inverting it three times:

 

x-x-5-7-6-6

 

x-x-8-10-8-10

 

x-x-12-12-11-13

 

 

 

Alter that accordingly for Maj7 and dom7 and you have enough voicings to make it through just about anything.

 

You can add a passing tone on top of each chord and end up with a way to harmonize every note of the scale for a chord.

 

 

 

A note about dom7 voicings: Using the voicings above yeild a couple really lame vocings:

 

x-x-5-7-6-7

 

and

 

x-x-12-12-12-13

 

 

Most of the time I'll just play some sort of altered voicing (dom7b9 works great because then all the voicings are exactly the same - x-x-3-4-3-4 and move it up in minor 3rds).

 

But, if you find yourself just playing regular, unaltered dominants, here are some alternatives that sound much better:

 

x-x-3-4-5-3

 

x-x-5-7-5-7

 

x-x-9-10-10-10

 

x-x-12-14-12-13

 

 

 

 

One last note: The maj7 voicing with the root on top sounds a bit dissonant at times, so you can replace it with a maj6/9 voicing:

 

x-x-2-2-3-3

 

Also, the voicing with the 5th on top:

 

x-x-9-11-8-10

 

While it does sound gorgeous, it can be challenging to grab quickly at faster tempos, so it can also be replaced with a maj6/9 voicing:

 

x-x-9-9-10-10

 

 

 

 

 

As for the melody on the 2nd string, these are some good voicings, written for C7:

 

root- x-1-2-2-1-x

root - x-3-2-3-1-x

 

third - 8-x-8-7-5-x

 

fifth - 8-x-8-9-8-x

 

7th - x-3-2-3-x

 

9th - x-3-2-3-3-x

 

#11 - 8-x-8-9-7-x

 

13th - 8-x-8-9-10-x

Posted

Also, there's a book of chord melody arrangements by Barry Galbraith that I put together about a year ago that can be a great study for arranging.

 

Originally one of his former students had scanned a bunch of photocopies of hand written charts and put them on a website. They were fairly hard to read, so I entered them all into Finale and made a .pdf file of it:

 

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~jjp14/book.pdf

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Posted

Poparad:

 

I am *floored* by such a quick an comprehensive reply. Printed and saved to disk.

 

Sadly, I can't read standard music, so the PDF file is going to take some work for me to transcribe. Maybe I'll start with Satin Doll, since you've got the arrangment, and it's got a nice strong melody for a neophyte.

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Posted

An alternating basline with melody is good stuff. Keep a bassline going and fingerpick. I once read an interview with Jorma Kaukonen where he described this style as having a"band in your hand" Mix it up with some chords when it feels right and do some sigle note runs(again when the music calls for it).

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Posted

great post poparad.

 

i would suggest to beginners to try harmonizing simple tunes and folk songs. stuff like happy birthday and amazing grace can be good tunes to start with.

 

 

peace

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Posted

 

Originally posted by lazaraga

great post poparad.


i would suggest to beginners to try harmonizing simple tunes and folk songs. stuff like happy birthday and amazing grace can be good tunes to start with.



peace

 

 

Let me make sure I understand, Lazaraga....

 

Let me take the first few opening bars of Happy Birthday. I'll play the melody in C, on the high E string, like this: 8 8 10 8 13 10...C C D C F E. Now I know my 3-note triads a little bit, and if the harmonized major C scale starts C, Dm, Em, F G, and keeping the melody note on top, I'd so something like:

 

8 8 9 8 13 12

8 8 9 8 13 12

7 7 8 7 12 12

 

But maybe just play a single note instead of the full triad, in some places?

 

Like:

 

8 8 9 8 13 12

8 x x x 13 12

7 x x 7 12 12

 

 

Is this a super simple example of how one might approach this?

 

Thx,

 

Steve

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Posted

poparad,

 

i have watched this website for a few monthes i guess, and i have seen alot of bad advice here and there.

 

you consistently give good advice. thumbs high!

 

i noticed also that you dig Joe Pass, and being a big fan myself, i was wondering if you studied the open voicing concepts (for multiple melodies) of classical guitar and applied them to the block chording? in the third year berklee book, it got into a quite a bit, and i know joe kept things relatively simple (atleast his thought process) but i was wondering if you have any experience with this?

Posted

Originally posted by stk



Let me make sure I understand, Lazaraga....


Let me take the first few opening bars of Happy Birthday. I'll play the melody in C, on the high E string, like this: 8 8 10 8 13 10...C C D C F E. Now I know my 3-note triads a little bit, and if the harmonized major C scale starts C, Dm, Em, F G, and keeping the melody note on top, I'd so something like:


8 8 9 8 13 12

8 8 9 8 13 12

7 7 8 7 12 12


But maybe just play a single note instead of the full triad, in some places?


Like:


8 8 9 8 13 12

8 x x x 13 12

7 x x 7 12 12



Is this a super simple example of how one might approach this?


Thx,


Steve

 

Yep, that's the right idea. It helps to already know the right chord that goes underneath the melody note so you just have to find the voicing.

 

By the way, "Happy Birthday" starts of the 5th scale degree, so if you're starting on C then you're in the key of F. I remember trying to figure out chords by ear that would go under the melody and I couldn't figure out why what I was trying didn't work until I realized the song starts on a V chord. :p

Posted

Originally posted by fretwizard4hire

poparad,


i have watched this website for a few monthes i guess, and i have seen alot of bad advice here and there.


you consistently give good advice. thumbs high!


i noticed also that you dig Joe Pass, and being a big fan myself, i was wondering if you studied the open voicing concepts (for multiple melodies) of classical guitar and applied them to the block chording? in the third year berklee book, it got into a quite a bit, and i know joe kept things relatively simple (atleast his thought process) but i was wondering if you have any experience with this?

 

Thanks for the compliment. ;)

 

As for classical guitar, I know it may sound weird, but I'm actually a beginner. I just checked out the Fernando Sor and Matteo Carcassi books from the library about a month ago and I'm starting my first classical lessons this fall at school. I'm not foreign to classical music, as I've played trumpet and piano for a while, but the realm of classical 'guitar' is what I'm new to, so I haven't studied any of the typical material.

 

All of my solo guitar playing has pretty much come from my study of Joe Pass, but I'm starting to get into other players like Barney Kessel, Bucky Pizzarelli, as well as some classical guitar literature.

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Posted

Originally posted by Poparad



Thanks for the compliment.
;)

As for classical guitar, I know it may sound weird, but I'm actually a beginner. I just checked out the Fernando Sor and Matteo Carcassi books from the library about a month ago and I'm starting my first classical lessons this fall at school. I'm not foreign to classical music, as I've played trumpet and piano for a while, but the realm of classical 'guitar' is what I'm new to, so I haven't studied any of the typical material.


All of my solo guitar playing has pretty much come from my study of Joe Pass, but I'm starting to get into other players like Barney Kessel, Bucky Pizzarelli, as well as some classical guitar literature.

 

 

there are also a bunch a great resource for solo jazz guitar in the berklee 2nd and third year books. the 3rd year gets into open voicing quite a bit, but i am not great at it yet. it enables you to run mutiple med lines at once while balancing your harmony between them, nad probably keeps you thinking more then anything they have thrown at me so far.

 

yeah bucky is great, i saw his son's band at the time, play on conan obrien with ray kennedy on the piano. that guy is the best piano player i have ever seen.

 

good luck with your studies

Posted

 

Originally posted by fretwizard4hire




there are also a bunch a great resource for solo jazz guitar in the berklee 2nd and third year books. the 3rd year gets into open voicing quite a bit, but i am not great at it yet. it enables you to run mutiple med lines at once while balancing your harmony between them, nad probably keeps you thinking more then anything they have thrown at me so far.

 

 

That sounds interesting... I'll have to check out those books.

 

yeah bucky is great, i saw his son's band at the time, play on conan obrien with ray kennedy on the piano. that guy is the best piano player i have ever seen.

 

 

I love watching John Pizzarelli play... it's always both impressive and entertaining.

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