IntellectualMusician.com

George Van Eps first coined the phrase “lap piano” as a way to describe his style of guitar playing. I think I would have to agree with this methodology. In this lesson we’ll discuss an approach to the instrument that will make your harmonic playing more melodic, and your melody playing more harmonic. -This is a good one so check it out!

The Concept:

Solo guitar is all about doing complex harmonic things in as melodic a way as possible. This can be very tricky considering that chords are not melodic by nature, rather, they are very angular and jagged as they are after all created by stacking thirds on top of each other.

The trick then, is to figure out a way to make a series of chords (preferably the same or closely related) sound more scalular and thus more melodic. Perhaps the best way of doing this is through the arranging (often for horns) technique of creating approach chords.

An approach chord can function one of two ways:

• by approaching each note in a chord diatonically or chromatically from either direction
• by approaching each note in a chord by small intervals (2nds or 3rds at most) from a dominant chord built a perfect 5th above the root of the chord being approached (aka a secondary dominant)

The below diagrams illustrate this technique over a D-7 chord.

A few things to note about the below example:

• All chords are considered to be “Drop 2’s” meaning the second from highest note in the voicing was dropped down an octave.
  • ex: A C Maj7 chord spelled ( C E G B ) would become ( G C E B )
• Each notation diagram is paired with a interval diagram that is representing in interval form what’s happening note-wise
  • I’ve done this so you can see the relationship between chordtones and the scalular aspects of the different chords.
  • This also makes it much easier to transpose to new keys.
• The chords on the lower two string sets are voiced with the tenor note (second to lowest) excluded.
  • By leaving out the tenor note in the lower voicings we can avoid low interval limits (aka things will sound less muddy).
  • You will also find that chords are much easier to play melodically with the excluded note (which is also VERY important).  Easy = Melodic = Good
• Don’t forget you can zoom in on a diagram by simply clicking it!

So without further ado…

In the next section of this series I’ll go into detail about how to go about applying the concepts from this chart, as well as introduce the Dominant 7th chord structure and other fun stuff.

more articles by Tyler Oakleaf

• Notes of Fretboard Diagram
• Like our lessons? Take a poster!
• The Big Picture
• Good Things…
• “Making It” In Music
• Practice Progression
• Improve Your Picking -Alternate Picking