Chord-Melody Crash Course (Part 1) - James Hill Ukulele Tutorial

chord melody it's nothing less than a magical musical juggling act it's a way of playing melodies and chords at the same time on one instrument how is it done well in this two-part lesson I'm going to show you the key concepts that make it possible I'm going to give you some exercises to try at home and I'll teach you two arrangements to get you started on your journey into chord melody chord melody is a huge topic but really it all boils down to one thing and that is you have the power to choose exactly which note in a chord you want the audience to focus on you have the ability to highlight any note in a chord just the way a magician can bring any card to the top of the deck how do we do this how do we make a melody rise to the top of a chord progression so that it sort of floats along the top and the audience hears it clearly well there are two ways first we take advantage of the fact that your ears like everyone else's ears are hardwired to listen for the highest sounding note in a chord so if we can make sure that that highest sounding note in every chord that we play is the melody note then the melody will be heard clearly in cases where that doesn't work because sometimes it's not possible to have the highest sounding note be the melody note in cases where that doesn't work we have a back-up plan and that back-up plan is your ears are also conditioned to listen for the last note in a chord so if we roll the chord in it in a way that makes the last note the melody note even that isn't the highest note in the chord it will come out clearly as the melody note okay so those are our two strategies for fooling the ear into focusing on the note that we want it to focus on let's try an exercise now and I'll show you what I mean play a regular C chord strumming all four strings when we play this C chord the way we always play it it really highlights the C note third finger on the first string that comes out clearly as the melody note but what happens if I play the C chord a different way notice I'm not going to move my left hand at all for this entire example what if I just play three strings instead of four if I play the G C and E strings only notice I'm coming to rest on the a string because I don't want to hear the a string that's still a C chord but it really brings out a different part of the chord what happens if I only roll two strings it brings out yet another part of the chord what happens if I roll this chord backwards I'm using the fleshy side of my index finger for that role it brings out yet another part of this chord it's like reshuffling the deck every time we change the way we play this chord so here we have four different variations on the C chord the four string version the three string version the two string version and the reverse rolled version notice that I haven't moved my left hand fingers at all and you get four different variations on that familiar chord each variation bringing out a different part of that C chord and that's how we reshuffle chords in order to really direct the audience's attention to a specific note let's learn your first chord melody arrangement let's choose a piece that has a really familiar melody so that you know if you're getting it right let's choose a piece that has only one chord in it so we don't have to worry about chord changes how about something like frère Jacques or are you sleeping brother John let's play it in the key of C and let's play the melody on the a string exclusively so we're going to start here on the C note notice I'm playing with my first finger because I'm going to move up the neck from there third fret fifth fret seventh fret and back to the third fret do that again third fifth seventh and back to the third jump up to the seventh fret eighth and tenth do that again on the seventh fret eighth and tenth that's enough for now that's all the melody we need for this example now thinking back to our previous example you remember that if I play just three strings three open strings I'm going to get a C chord now this is really useful in this example because all I have to do to turn this Frere Jacques a melody into a chord melody arrangement is to just strum all the strings as I play that melody on the first string like this notice how I'm rolling the cord just slightly to bring out the melody even more clearly play that with me one two ready go now notice how we're really just playing a sequence of chords every single beat is a chord and yet we're fooling the ear into thinking that it's hearing a melody and chords at the same time because in each one of those chords my melody note is the highest sounding note so it's heard really clearly by the audience now if you want a little more of a challenge and you want to make this sound even smoother and more convincing you can try this strum only on the first and third beats of each measure like this notice with my right hand I'm going strum pick strum pick strum pick all the way through to my ear this makes it sound lighter a little more flowing a little more smooth let me play it just a little bit faster so that you get a sense of it right now we're really starting to create that illusion of two parts happening simultaneously and if you're really up for a challenge you can try reversing this drum so that you're playing the strum on the second and fourth beats of each method measure going pick strum pick strum like this okay just something to keep you interested if you're already beyond the the beginner level in this particular lesson that brings us to the end of chord melody crash course part 1 in part 2 of this lesson I'm going to teach you an arrangement of a classic fiddle tune called boiled em cabbage down it's fun it's upbeat it's got three chords and I'll even show you a fancy strum that will make your performance sound amazing if you're still hungry for more on the art and science of solo ukulele and you really want to dive deeply into this topic come on over to the ukulele wacom that's where I'm giving lessons on how to juggle melody harmony and rhythm simultaneously on one ukulele there are six levels in the program and over a hundred video lessons plus there's an active online community of learners from all over the world people just like you who are trying to master this instrument so stop by take a lesson say hello it's free to join so you have nothing to lose take care and until the next time keep on strumming

Channel: James Hill

Views: 391,658

Rating: 4.954824 out of 5

Keywords: james, hill, james hill, ukulele, tutorial, lesson, online, ukelele, billie jean, the old silo, chopsticks, super mario, ode to a frozen boot, chord, chord-melody, solo

Id: 0Se5w7Kio2w

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2016