GSCC Lesson 19

Past Lessons Summary and Links

If you are new to this series, here’s the links to past lessons:

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Lesson 4

Lesson 5

Lesson 6

Lesson 7

Lesson 8

Lesson 9

Lesson 10

Lesson 11

Lesson 12

Lesson 13

Lesson 14

Lesson 15

Lesson 16

Lesson 17

Lesson 18

We had covered all the family chords and their siblings in key of C and G Major:

Key of C major and G major are common keys used by guitarist to play sing-along guitar.

We also looked at the guitarist best friend – CAPO , and it’s application.

When we use the CAPO in conjunction with chords from C and G keys above , we are able to play almost every pop songs we wanted to play.

We have also looked at some basic strumming patterns:

1	One strum per beat
2	Up-stroke strumming
3	Strumming lightly on first few strings
4	16 beat strum
5	Campfire Strum
6	“Chuck” Strum
7	3/4 Strum
8	6/8 Strum

And we had explored some basic pluckings.

1	8 beat pluck #1
2	Double string pluck
3	3/4 Pluck
4	“Alternate Bass” Pluck
5	6/8 Pluck
6	Slap Rhythm

And of course, we had fun learning all these songs !! They are specially produced “Karaoke for Guitar” videos (only vocal and metronome count) for you to practice your strumming / plucking:

Lesson	Song
Lesson 1	Song #1 (English: Because I Love You) Lesson 1
Lesson 1	Song #2 (Chinese/Cantonese: 喜欢你) Lesson 1
Lesson 2	Song #1 (English: Happy Birthday)
Lesson 2	Song #2 (Chinese: 月亮代表我的心)
Lesson 3	Song #1 (English: Let It Be – Beatles)
Lesson 3	Song #2 (English: Perfect – Ed Sheeran)
Lesson 3	Song #3 (Cantonese: 海闊天空)
Lesson 4	Song #1 (English: Deperado – Eagles)
Lesson 4	Song #2 (Chinese: “最长的电影” – 周杰伦)
Lesson 5	Song #1 (English:”Creep” – Radiohead)
Lesson 5	Song #2 (Chinese: “你要的愛”)
Lesson 5	Song #3 (English: “Last Christmas” – Wham)
Lesson 6	Song #1 (English: “Reality”)
Lesson 6	Song #2 (Chinese: “刻在我心底的名字”)
Lesson 6	Song #3 (English: “Auld Lang Syne”)
Lesson 7	Song #1 (English: “Country Roads”)
Lesson 7	Song #2 (English: “Time of Your Life”)
Lesson 7	Song #3 (Cantonese: “朋友”)
Lesson 8	Song #1 (English: “Sweet Child O’ Mine”)
Lesson 8	Song #2 (English: “I’m Yours”)
Lesson 8	Song #3 (Chinese: “简单爱”)
Lesson 9	Song #1 (English: “Hey Jude”)
Lesson 9	Song #2 (Chinese: “小幸运”)
Lesson 10	Song #1 (English: “Sway”)
Lesson 10	Song #2 (Chinese: “可可托海的牧羊人”)
Lesson 11	Song #1 (English: “Edelweiss”)
Lesson 11	Song #2 (English: “Que Sera Sera”)
Lesson 12	Song #1 (English: “What A Wonderful World”)
Lesson 12	Song #2 (Chinese: “新不了情”)
Lesson 13	“Happy Birthday” melody on guitar in key of C and G Major
Lesson 14	“Happy Birthday” Solo Guitar Playing
Lesson 15	“Can’t Help Falling In Love” Solo Guitar Playing
Lesson 16	“月亮代表我的心” Solo Guitar Playing
Lesson 17	“Let It Be” Solo Guitar Playing
Lesson 18	“What A Wonderful World” Solo Guitar Playing

Last week, we looked at Maj7 and Minor7 chords:

And, why we use 7th chords.

We concluded the concepts by playing a songs using lots of 7th chords : “What A Wonderful World”.

Click here to ask a question …

Let’s go to the GYM! The Chord Melody Guitar GYM!!!

Now we know that the basic concept of playing chord melody guitar or solo guitar, is to combine the melody and chord of the moment.

Here’s a C chord:

Let’s say the melody note is ‘G’ ,and the chord is C, we will play the following chord melody shape:

Let’s look at the all the melody notes in key of C Major (1st 3 frets):

If we have no problem playing the chord with all the possible notes combination, eg. C chord with D note, C chord with E note, C with F note, C chord with G note …. we are on our way to chord melody guitar mastery!!!

And the good news is , we already know all the ingredients!! It is just a matter putting them together!

If this is still not clear , it’s alright, let’s take a look at the following diagram:

The yellow dots are the C major chord. The red dots are the possible melody notes above the top C note. If we play the individual red notes (the melody note) with the C chord , we get the following chord melody passage:

Now, let’s look at all the possible combination of melody notes with C chord at the 1st position:

If we were to play them in sequence:

With that , we covered all the combination of chord melody of C chord in 1st position!!

Here’s the guitar notation of it (TAB):

If we practice this regularly, we will be able to handle all chord melody shapes for C major chord in key of C (1st position)!!

That’s the chord melody gym exercise #1!!! Play it often and your muscle memory will be activated in no time!

Click here to ask a question …

Only 6 more , to Chord Melody Guitar hero!!

Let’s look at all the other basic chords in key of C major:

So there’s 7 basic chords in key of C Major. And those are the chord shapes in the 1st position of the guitar (1st 3 frets).

If we have no problem playing all the chords with all the possible notes combination, eg. C hord with E note, Em chord with G note, Am with E note, Dm with F note …. we are on our way to chord melody guitar mastery!!!

We had looked at C chord just now, let’s look at Dm.

Here’s the Dm chord:

Combing Dm chord with notes in C major, here’s all the possibilities:

Playing them in sequence:

Here’s the TAB:

Next, Em chord.

Here’s all Em chord chord melody in 1st position for key of C major:

Playing them in sequence:

Here’s the TAB:

For F major chord

Here’s the F major chord:

Here’s all the chord melody combination of F major chord in C key (1st position):

Here’s the GYM sequence:

Here’s the TAB:

Now, G major chord

Here’s the G major chord:

Here’s all chord melody combinations:

Here’s the GYM sequence:

Here’s the TAB:

Am chord

Here’s the Am chord:

Here’s all chord melody combinations:

Here’s the GYM sequence:

Here’s the TAB:

Bm7b5 chord

Here’s the Bm7b5 chord:

Here’s all the chord melody combination:

Here’s the GYM sequence:

Here’s the TAB:

Click here to ask a question …

Chord Melody Guitar GYM for key of G Major

Let’s look at the basic chords for key of G Major:

Here’s the G Major melody in the 1st position:

Following the process for all basic chords for key of C Major, here’s possible the chord melody combinations for all 7 chords of G Major.

G chord

Here’s the G chord:

Here’s all possible chord melody guitar combination for G chord in 1st position (Key of G):

To play them in sequence:

Here’s the guitar TAB:

Am chord

Here’s the Am chord:

Here’s all the combination of Am chord melody in 1st position (key of G):

Here’s the sequence:

Here’s the guitar TAB:

Following the same process, below are the TABs for the other 5 chords:

Bm chord

C chord

D chord

Em chord

F#m7b5 chord

Click here to ask a question …

I know , those GYM was tought. Now, let’s have fun! Let’s play another song on Chord Melody Guitar

Let’s try it on another classic song : “Over The Rainbow”

Again, we will go through the following steps:

Step 1: Play the melody

Step 2: Find out the chords

Step 3: Combine the melody and the chords

Step 4: Add in the accompaniment

Click here to ask a question …

Step 1: Play the melody

Let’s learn to play chord melody guitar of the song “Over The Rainbow” in the key of G Major.

First, learn and play the melody:

Click here to ask a question …

Step 2: Find out the chords

You can either get them online or use your ears!!

Click here to ask a question …

Step 3: Combine The Melody And The Chords

Let’s combine the melody and the chords.

As we mentioned before, the trick is to play the chords “below” the melody notes. The melody note will be the higher notes of the “chord”. This means we are gonna play part of the chords, below the melody.

Click here to ask a question …

Step 4: Add In The Accompaniment

Yeah! We have the melody and the chords!!

Let’s make it more complete by filling in the gap between the melody.

We can fill in the gap by playing the plucking accompaniment just like we are accompanying someone to sing:

Click here to ask a question …