Chord melody chat: Aaron Weinstein & David Benedict

[AaronWeinstein]

[Don Grieser]

Brilliant! Thank-you!

[Mark Gunter]

Totally awesome! Thanks for that discussion.

[John Soper]

Great session! I love the Eb913!

[Simon DS]

Great appetizer, many thanks!
I love it when I suddenly realise that there’s so much to learn!

Peghead now, will start Aaron’s course soon.

[thesecretmandolinist]

Lots of super useful info in that video. Thanks for taking the time to share the knowledge.

[John Kelly]

Such an informative and sensible video by someone who is so comfortable in his music.

[LKN2MYIS]

Aaron's knowledge and ability to teach is only exceeded by his patience and humor.

[BillWilliams]

Inspiring.

I learnt so much in such a short time - onwards and upwards.

[CES]

Thanks to both of you. I'm going to have to watch that again (probably a lot) with my mandolin in hand. I also pulled my Weinstein book out again last night...this got my chord/melody juices flowing again!

[Dean Gray]

Great interview Aaron, thank you! The humble open C voicing has been elevated to lofty new heights.

[UsuallyPickin]

Anhhh , thank you David for bringing Aaron to us. The down to my level explanation of what is what and how to look for it was helpful. R/

[Perry]

Anhhh , thank you David for bringing Aaron to us. The down to my level explanation of what is what and how to look for it was helpful. R/

As Aaron mentioned it’s all about the songs. Learn some standards and eventually the theory will reveal itself. It is helpful to take a lead sheet and note the chord functions with roman numerals. See jpeg below. You can also notate the melody using intervals. See the circled section on the D7 chord. You relate the note interval to the chord of the moment. Very helpful when analyzing solos or melodies.

The Roman numerals are the chord function. Do this to enough standards and you will see the patterns repeat in these tunes over and over. It almost like learning fiddle tunes you start to see the patterns and what sets them apart is the little quirky thing in that particular tune.

Autumn Leaves is a first tune for a lot of good reasons as it contains the ubiquitous 2 -5 -1 patterns in both major and minor. Not too difficult and a beautiful melody.

The fastest path to chord melody I have found through years of study.

1) pick a tune you love
2) learn the melody inside out..... a well played melody can stand on it's own
3) start adding some supporting notes to the melody...be it a root or imply the chord with a 3rd or 7th etc
4) then and only then search out someone else's arrangement and incorporate some of their ideas into your arrangement

Learning someone else's arrangement is not gonna get your far. You must try to come up with this stuff on your own first. You have to put in the work.

Bill Frisell explains the process perfectly here. (2:40)

[AaronWeinstein]

Hi Perry,

Of course there's no one way to go about learning chord melody. That's part of what's so exciting about it. I appreciate that the steps you listed have been a gateway into the style for you. My approach is somewhat different and thought I'd mention a few things in case it's of interest to folks on this thread.

I'm totally with you on playing songs you love!

In terms of knowing a melody "inside out"--naturally, knowing a melody well is helpful when working up an arrangement (or just playing a tune). But for me, a basic familiarity with a melody is enough to starting working with the song. Maybe it's because I feel that I can always know a song better and so if I waited until I felt like I really, REALLY knew a song "inside/out" before trying to make it into a chord melody...I never would.

Somewhat related, a quote from Stephane Grappelli. He said, "I've been playing 'Lady Be Good' for 50 years and I still haven't gotten to the bottom of it."

The nuts and bolts chord melody stuff you mention about starting by adding support notes--that's a great approach that can yield really beautiful results. But it's a daunting point of entry into the style. Knowing which "support notes" to add to a melody requires a pretty comprehensive understanding of harmony. I was playing chord melodies for a long time before I would have been able to do that.

Of course, understanding the notes in a chord is hugely important, and the more of that someone knows, the greater their options and the happier their life will be. But for me, those 3 note "Jethro voicings" are the foundation of the style...and a more accessible entry point.

Re: learning someone else's arrangements was incredibly important for me. Maybe even essential. I learned a ton of chord melody by Don Stiernberg, Jethro Burns, Bucky Pizzarelli, Joe Pass, Carl Kress, and Howard Alden before I tried to come up with my own take on the style. Checking out chord melody from these folks really showed me how it worked.

[Perry]

Somewhat related, a quote from Stephane Grappelli. He said, "I've been playing 'Lady Be Good' for 50 years and I still haven't gotten to the bottom of it."

Hi Aaron; thanks for responding. I enjoyed your video above (and all your others too).

I guess my point is that I think you can get a lot more out of someone's CM arrangement if you first spend some time trying to figure out the puzzle yourself. Then the ideas and moves in the other person's arrangement will be that much more meaningful to you and might stay with you better. At least it helps me. "Ah that's how he did that!

I guess I should add that most of my CM pursuit has been on guitar. Same concepts though.

[John Soper]

After watching the video a few times, I worry that the interview wasn't with Aaron Weinstein at all. There was no bow tie, or even a mention of it in the video . Great video interview, and I'll have to re-up Pegged Nation to re-visit Aaron's course.

[Simon DS]

…Learning someone else's arrangement is not gonna get your far. You must try to come up with this stuff on your own first. You have to put in the work…

So no learning poems at school?

In language acquisition rote learning is often frowned upon, but there’s a dilemma. A lot of music playing requires muscle memory, correct muscle memory.
So if you were only allowed to choose one method for learning chord melodies, which would it be?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langua...ctural_methods

I’ve recently begun studying with Peghead Nation: Joe K Walsh, Sharon Gilchrist, Marl Fibish and John Reischman are great. (Aaron’s up soon, so much work though).
There’s such a wealth of good teaching that it’ll take a couple of years full-time study…

I agree, you really have to put the work in yourself, but you don’t set the course syllabus yourself.
It is soooo much easier to follow a course. And then another course…
Trust the educators.

Thanks again Aaron.

[Perry]

So no learning poems at school? .

If you want to be a poet you need to write your own. By all means read the masters be inspired by them and borrow ideas from them.

[AaronWeinstein]

Let's slide this party away from theoretical debate and head back to the mandolin. Happy playing, everyone!

[cunparis]

That was a great video and I'd love to learn more about it.

How does Aaron's book compare to the Peghead Nation course? Is one more suitable for beginners than the other?

[AaronWeinstein]

The book walks you through various elements that go into a chord melody arrangement, offering ideas about left hand (voicings) and right hand (articulation of those voicings).

The Peghead course is more specific in that each lesson looks at how to play a chord melody arrangement of a standard. And I discuss a bit about choices that were made. But its mostly about how to play the specific arrangement.

Hope that helps.

That was a great video and I'd love to learn more about it.

How does Aaron's book compare to the Peghead Nation course? Is one more suitable for beginners than the other?

[BillWilliams]

Worth mentioning also that the book does have 7 nice example etudes, based around standard jazz progressions.

[chris.burcher]

What a wonderful world we live in where two people can share this moment with each other, record it, and then share it with us. Such a cool thing to witness and get to be privy to. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Benedict!