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Mel Bay's Guitar Melody Chord Playing System : A System for Playing Guitar Solos in Chord Style Using Popular Sheet Music
Presents the art of guitar melody chord playing in an interesting and practical style. Music is to be played one octave higher than the written music. It is a system for playing guitar solos in chord style using popular sheet music.
93 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1978
About the author
Mel Bay
451 books4 followersMel Bay was an American musician and publisher best known for his series of music education books. His Encyclopedia of Guitar Chords remains a bestseller.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 18, 2026
Classic chord melody method book. You need a teacher though; it will be very difficult to read through the method book fully by yourself. Once you have the method realized, it's a powerful tool for playing solo guitar. The benefit of the system is the provided interchanging chord forms to fill into the melody notes while reading notation.
The method goes generally like this:
1. Memorize the chord forms
2. Read the melody note, observe if it is the I, III, V, or VII of the chord being played.
3. Plug in the provided chord form I, III, V, or VII, etc. (op chords provided for pinky finger on the melody note) to match the melody tone. You match the melody note as I, III, or V of the chord with the form I, III, or V, etc.
This way, you have interchangeable chords for every key. You can play in any key, from any sheet music with this form hearing the chords with the melody singing on top.
There are several errors throughout, and some of the chord symbols become inconsistent too. There can be a great deal of confusion when juggling the Roman numerals with his chord form numbers. Other outdated symbol confusion exists like minor 7 chords symbolized as M7. The last section on 9, 11, and 13 chords gets rushed too. It’s a lot of method content pushed into the last ten or so pages. Also, some of the fingerings are stamped in incorrectly.
Despite these errors, if you can work your way through some of the inventible confusion, this is a great method to play solo pieces from any sheet music with chords and standard notation.
The method goes generally like this:
1. Memorize the chord forms
2. Read the melody note, observe if it is the I, III, V, or VII of the chord being played.
3. Plug in the provided chord form I, III, V, or VII, etc. (op chords provided for pinky finger on the melody note) to match the melody tone. You match the melody note as I, III, or V of the chord with the form I, III, or V, etc.
This way, you have interchangeable chords for every key. You can play in any key, from any sheet music with this form hearing the chords with the melody singing on top.
There are several errors throughout, and some of the chord symbols become inconsistent too. There can be a great deal of confusion when juggling the Roman numerals with his chord form numbers. Other outdated symbol confusion exists like minor 7 chords symbolized as M7. The last section on 9, 11, and 13 chords gets rushed too. It’s a lot of method content pushed into the last ten or so pages. Also, some of the fingerings are stamped in incorrectly.
Despite these errors, if you can work your way through some of the inventible confusion, this is a great method to play solo pieces from any sheet music with chords and standard notation.
Displaying 1 of 1 review