Looking for a simple secret for writing great melodies and lead solos? Forget about scales and difficult music theory! Try the easy technique of chord tones. Learn how to write a melody from chords now. Let’s get creative!
So you want to write a melody but don’t know what notes to play? Writing a good melody is something vague. It’s not as easy as writing a chord progression. That’s why there are so many tutorials about harmonies and chord progressions. Because it’s easier.
In this lesson, I will show you how you can write melodies and leads without using scales. And the great thing is you can use this for any style of music or instrument.
When you look at a basic chord progression like the one below. If you don’t use scales how do you know what notes to play? Is there a way to know how they sound before you play them?
What many guitar players do is play an A minor pentatonic scale to this. And I can guarantee that it will sound good. But what if you want to break your usual patterns and find something new? This is where chord tone melodies come to the rescue.
Video Tutorial
I advise you to play the examples yourself. Because then you ‘feel’ how the notes sound. But you can hear these chord tone exercises with real music. Just watch the video below to hear how I played these melodies.
What Are Chord Tones
What if I said that you can actually plan your melody? This is possible when you know what notes always sound good on a chord-to-chord basis. For this, you need to look at each chord and see what notes are in them. This is not difficult because we can use the same approach for every chord.
How does each chord tone sound?
Any regular chord or triad is made out of three notes. The root note, the major or minor third and the fifth. Now with your melody, you can play any of these three notes. I guarantee that they will always sound good.
But you do need to pay attention because each note has a different sound quality and function. Here is how each chord tone will sound in your melody:
- The root note sounds stable and creates a final sound.
- The minor third sounds emotional and colourful
- The major third has a full, colourful and radiant sound. It can shine like the sun!
- The fifth has an open and stable character.
How To Make a Melody From a Chord Progression
I know that writing melodies and playing chord notes to changing chords is difficult. Especially if the song has a faster tempo. So focus on only one note per chord. When you start to feel more comfortable then switch and add more notes. In the example below I only played the 3rd to each chord. From this starting point, you can do some serious chord tone soloing.
Soloing With Chord Tones
When you think about guitar chord tones or piano chord tones they are all the same. That’s what makes this technique so easy. Using our previous melody and chord example we can start to improvise. We can come up with multiple different melodies. Here is just one of many options that you get from chord note targeting.
I know that this is not spectacular or mind-blowing. It’s not some rock star melody or something that the composer Chopin would write. But it is a very good starting point. From here you can start to find some more spicy-sounding notes. You can look for more tensions and dissonances. And you did all of this without scales!
