One of the best things I learned from many excellent guitarists is to be able to sing the melody of whatever it is you are playing. A key distinction is someone like George Benson who sometimes is singing as he is playing. He is actually singing first and playing what he is singing if that makes any sense. You should, without your instrument in your hand, be able to sing what you want to play. Such as when improvising, if you can sing it, then try to play what you sang. Now what I am talking about is not chords per se, but single notes. But it should work for chords as well. I like to play stump the band when I am playing guitar in a crowd. They shout out a song and I try to play it, in many cases, never having played it at all. I do it by first thinking of the melody, I usually pick an easy key, C, G, etc. then having thought of the melody and guessing that the song will start with the root chord for the key I pick it out.

IF you have played for years, you usually can tell which chord is next just by the melody and "hearing" the song in your head. Some of them are harder, but most times you can tell that you need a dominant 7th, or a minor chord, diminished or augmented etc.

You will find with a little practice you can do it. Also you sometimes find an interesting arrangement that maybe you didn't think of before because you choose the "wrong" chord. It may have not been what the sheet music said it should be, but it sounded really good in the song. Those are fun accidents.

Probably didn't answer your question, but I tried?


My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.