Make Your Playing Sound More Melodic By Targeting Chord Tones
What sets apart really melodic and musical players from amateur players is the ability for these great players to make their solos fit so well over the chords they are playing over. It is almost like their lines were made specifically for a particular chord progression. This is apparent not only in their written and thought out solos, but even when they are improvising. This is something that seems to be lacking in some amateur guitar players. Their lines sound like they are going through scale shapes and phrases that they’ve worked on rather than following the chord progression.
The good news is that anyone can train to play melodically like these great players. There is nothing special about these great sounding players apart from the fact that they have worked really hard on the specific soloing approach which you will discover in this article, which is chord tone soloing.
What Are Chord Tones?
Each chord is made up of a set of 3 notes. The formula for these notes are as follows:
Major: 1 3 5
Minor: 1 b3 5
Diminished: 1 b3 b5
Augmented: 1 3 #5
The notes which make up the chords are referred to as chord tones. Let's take C as an example.
C Major: C E G
C Minor: C Eb G
C Diminished: C Eb Gb
C Augmented: C E G#
A simple way to know what notes are in any chord is to just play the chord and identify the notes in it one string at a time. You will notice that there will only be 3 UNIQUE NOTES (as long as you are not playing extended versions of the chord), even if the chord is played over 4, 5 or 6 strings. Some of the notes are just repeated.
Playing any of the chord tones over their chord is going to sound musical or “stable” since the notes themselves are what make up the chord. For example, over a C Major chord, the notes C E and G will fit really nicely. The players that their solos sound great all the time are always targeting the chord tones of each chord they’re playing over.
Remember that it is the interplay between the chord tones and the notes outside the chord tones that makes a solo sound musical and melodic.
Targeting Chord Tones
If you are completely new to targeting chord tones, it can be rather overwhelming in the beginning. There are simply too many things going on in the background in a real-life situation to focus on targeting chord tones, from the chords which are constantly changing, how many beats does each chord last for, the different chord tones for different chords, located on different areas on the fretboard.
In order to get started, you will need to simplify the scenario. Start by recording a 2 chord loop where each chord lasts for 8 beats. You can even try your luck looking for one online. Let's take G Major and C Major as an example. The chord tones for G Major and C Major are G B D and C E G respectively. Choose one chord tone for each of the chords. Map out those 2 chord tones on your fretboard and play only those chord tones over the progression. For example, the B note over G Major and E note over C Major. Play these notes over each chord and try to land on the chord tones on beat one of the chords in the progression. You will notice that the notes sound stable and fit really well over each chord.
Moving forward, you will want to gradually increase the challenge by adding more elements to the notes you are targeting. Use the following approaches as a rough guide:
1. Adding one non-chord tone note before/after the chord tone. a. Increase the number of non-chord tones as you get more comfortable.
b. Move back and forth between the chord tones and non-chord tones over each chord.
2. Adding more chords to the progression.
3. Decreasing the number of beats for each chord in the progression. 4. Use different beats for some of the chords in the progression. 5. Use phrasing elements (slides, bends, vibratos etc.) when moving in and out of the chord tones.
6. Combine more than one approach.
As you get more familiar with this, you will notice that the sound of each chord tone over the chord will also sound more familiar to you. You want to eventually work your way up to a point where you are no longer intellectualizing where the chord tones are but instead using your ear to determine whether or not you are resolving your phrases over a chord tone.
Moving in and out of chord tones create tension and resolution. This is a great way to change the intensity of your lead lines.
Work on this and take your playing to the next level!!!
Learning to play guitar on your own can be frustrating and challenging, especially if you don’t know what to do. Having a great teacher makes the whole process more fun, enjoyable and gets you real results fast.
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