Chord melody guitar licks have been included in many of these weekly articles, although this week's guitar licks are all focused on playing chord melody.

What is chord melody? 

Chord melody is simply playing melodies using chords, so you take a melodic idea and add chords. Playing chord melody is especially important if you play solo guitar. Solo jazz guitar enables you to play many chord substitution ideas and allows you to be very creative in your guitar playing.

These ideas are not simply limited to jazz guitar, as the chord melody guitar licks can be used in many other styles. When playing solo acoustic guitar gigs, I try to cover as many styles as possible. I often think as a jazz player would when playing chord melody, although I try to incorporate this thinking into all styles of guitar playing.