I have in the past said horrible, disparaging things about Chord Melody; heck, I published a whole book entitled The Plectrum Banjo: Beyond Chord Melody! In those 110 pages, I went to great, exhaustive lengths to blame it for the downfall of the four-string banjo (and thus, society in general!). You must realize that I wrote with the intent of breaking my own frustrating dependence on the technique.
Long story short: Five years later, I am still dependent on Chord Melody! It will always be my “default” position; when lost for any other tool to learn/understand a new song or a chord progression, I fall back on it as a starting point. So now, I grudgingly admit that it has an important place in the overall picture of four-string banjo technique (besides its obvious importance to history)!
A brief description is in order: Chord Melody is the technique of playing a song’s melody by playing rhythm chords with the melody note on the 1st string, usually without regard for proper/interesting voice-leading. It is mostly limited to the simple pizza parlor sing-along songs that the banjo is famous (infamous?) for. The plectrum banjo—because of its unique tuning—is the ideal musical instrument for this (Jazz Guitar chord melody is a very different concept, and is much more complex and musically-correct; four-string banjoists could learn a lot from it). Chord melody is the characteristic plectrum banjo technique!
It was first made popular by the great Eddie Peabody in the mid-1920s. One of my complaints about that is that Eddie did not invent the plectrum banjo (despite what many seem to think); he just popularized a simplified method of playing the instrument—a method that easily eclipsed, by virtue of its comparative ease of learning, what came before it! Before he came along, the instrument was played in a much-more technical and serious (but less-spectacular) manner; think Emile Grimshaw and Harry Reser!
Though he was certainly a fabulous banjo player (and by far the most important promoter in the instrument’s short history), the popularity of his style meant a “dumbing-down” of the banjo’s musical potential; ask a serious classical guitarist how they feel about the Rock guitar. In all fairness of course, its simplicity has made the instrument more accessible to more players; the 1950s-70s Pizza Parlor Revival would not have happened without it.
I am not an advocate of the “play-in-a-day” mentality! I know from personal experience that to truly excel at anything takes a life-time of hard work and dedication! Chord melody—especially if it comes as easily to you as it does to me—lulls you into thinking that you have accomplished everything necessary to play songs on the banjo (which I realize is plenty enough for many players). That’s why I had to overcome my dependence on it; I was bored with it and found myself asking“what else is there?” Well, let me tell you, there’s a whole bunch more to the plectrum banjo than chord melody!
Anyway, it is important (maybe not at a “world peace” level, but still. . .), and I just wanted to write a little bit saying how I feel about it today. “Ah, chord melody; I can’t live with you, and I can’t live without you!” What, you say I should get a life? The banjo is my life (and I have my wife’s permission to say so—I think. . .)!