Howard Morgen: Through Chord Melody & Beyond: Guitar Book & Online Video/Audio/PDFs

Morgen and Alden's video demonstrations show you exactly how these arrangements sound and feel in real time, eliminating guesswork about interpretation and phrasing. The book itself is substantial and serious: 19 full arrangements grounded in the chord melody approach means you're learning a genuine method for creating your own, not just copying one player's style. This bridges the gap between transcribing and composing your own solo guitar voice.

Sophisticated and grounded. These are lovingly crafted arrangements of timeless standards that respect the melody and harmony while opening space for your own interpretive voice. The work feels attainable rather than intimidating, even when the harmonic content is rich.

Intermediate to advanced guitarists serious about developing a solo jazz vocabulary and creating their own professional-level arrangements. This is for players who want to understand the thinking behind chord melody rather than settle for transcriptions, and who are ready to invest in systematic study of a real method.

• Study Morgen's and Alden's video performances side by side to observe how the same arrangement breathes differently depending on touch, tempo, and phrasing choices.
• Work through the harmonic analysis before playing the melody; understanding where the chord changes sit in the phrase prevents you from just reading notes.
• Record yourself playing along with the audio demonstrations to hear how your interpretation interacts with the harmonic framework and where you need to adjust balance or clarity.
• Practice the arrangements at a slower tempo first to lock in the voicing transitions, which are the true technical challenge in chord melody work.

Assign specific arrangements as recital repertoire for advanced jazz guitar students, using the video examples as reference performances rather than templates to copy. The book also works as a core text in a jazz arranging or jazz guitar interpretation seminar where students learn the chord melody approach through Morgen's framework and then apply it to their own standard selections.

• Chord melody voicing and voice leading on guitar
• Harmonic analysis and reharmonization of jazz standards
• Translating written chord progressions into idiomatic guitar fingerings
• Balancing melodic clarity with harmonic complexity in solo arrangements
• Interpreting jazz standards with sophistication and stylistic authority
• Transcription and reverse-engineering of professional arrangements