Arianna Powell

PRESENTS

Chord Melody Arranging

Learn how to play stunning solo-guitar arrangements.

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WHo it's for

Intermediate-Advanced

Hit a plateau with solo guitar? Looking to step up your songwriting skills? This is the perfect Master Class for you.

Time

3 weeks

Arianna will guide you through 6 levels of step-by-step instruction with interactive TAB and daily assignments.

Outcome

Chord melody mastery

You'll leave this class with a greater understanding of theory and skills to compose your own solo guitar songs.

Keep going

Take the next step

Once you've mastered chord melodies, keep progressing with more Master Classes and learning paths.

What you'll learn

Join your mentor Arianna as she breaks down her unique system for composing jaw-dropping chord melodies.

Fuel your songwriting with practical theory
Spice up your chord game with reharmonization
Tackle advanced fingerstyle jazz vocabulary

Curriculum

Stay focused with this step-by-step learning program designed by our expert team of music educators.

2-Week Plan

Part I. The Fundamentals of Harmonizing Melodies

Learn the conceptual and practical foundations of chord melody playing.

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In Part I, Arianna will walk you through how to harmonize with intervals using 3rds, 6ths, and 10ths, every chord in the diatonic scale, and secondary dominant chords.

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Throughout this section, Arianna will refer back to her #1 rule: Always keep your melody note on top of your chords. Always. This means, for any chord you play, the top note of the chord should always be the melody note. This also works in reverse: choose a melody note and any chord that fits under it is one that you can potentially use in your harmonization.

Part II. “The Corner Store” Harmonization Walkthrough

Put what you learned into context by examining an original chord melody of Ariana's

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In Part II, Arianna will pull back the curtain on the decision-making process behind her chord melody The Corner Store. You'll learn how to harmonize the song with basic diatonic harmony, secondary dominants, and chromatic bass lines.

Part III. Gospel Harmony and “Doxology”

Dive into a second chord melody to learn the art of reharmonization

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In Part III, we’ll move into gospel harmony by examining the hymn Doxology. Hymns are great material for harmonizing because their melodies tend to be simple. After harmonizing the song, you'll learn how to change the mood by swapping in a new set of chords (or reharmonizing the song).

Parts IV-VI

We'll cap off the Master Class with a series of musical resources and bonus lessons.

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Part IV. Extra Concepts / Techniques

In Part IV, Arianna introduces concepts you can use to fill spaces of chord melodies and outro cadences.

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You’ll also learn ten additional standalone concepts and techniques to fill out your harmonization toolbox. Becoming a great chord melody composer requires a diverse array of creative techniques to draw from – this section will help you build out your songwriting toolbox.

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At the end of this section, Arianna offers bonus lessons on how to get gigs, create guitar parts in a pop setting, and achieve great tone.

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Part V. Licks

In this section, you'll learn 10 easy and 10 advanced fingerstyle jazz licks. These will help you add new jazz-fueled sounds to your vocabulary and develop your own playing style.

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Part VI. SongSquad

Finally, we'll wrap up the class by challenging you to learn three original tunes (called SongSquads) by Arianna that tie together everything you'll have learned in the rest of the class. For each song, there's included TAB and a breakdown lesson video.

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Frequently asked questions

Are you a guitar, bass or piano player who feels like you haven’t made progress in a few months… years… or even decades?
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You’re probably stuck in what’s called the ‘intermediate plateau’. This is very common and can be very frustrating.

What’s the cause? Well, it’s pretty easy to learn the basics on any instrument. Learn a few chords and you can play hundreds of other songs. Learn a couple of scales and you can play some lead.

But what then? Triads? Modes? Arpeggios? The phrygian scale?!

Without a clear plan and learning system you fall back to playing the same things over and over again. Or you bounce around free lessons online but nothing seems to stick. It’s a recipe for a lot of practice without much progress.

That’s where Pickup Music can help. We specialize in taking players stuck in a rut and turning them into advanced musicians.

We do this through Learning Pathways that take you on a step-by-step journey towards mastery. We give you a highly structured system that shows you exactly what to work on each week to make serious progress.

These Learning Pathways take the guesswork out of your practice routine. You are guided through a proven grade-by-grade system with daily lessons, play-along practice exercises and interactive workouts.

But it’s not all about theory. We apply everything you learn to real music. That’s why every grade of our Learning Pathways build up to performing a song with a live backing band. This simulates what it’s like to play a real gig, with real musicians. It’s the absolute best way to learn.

You can also get 1-on-1 video feedback on your playing from our expert coaches and can attend weekly live lessons. This personal feedback makes Pickup Music the closest thing to taking in-person lessons, but at a fraction of the cost.

So does this method actually work? Will you see results in your playing?

The most common thing we hear from new members is that they’ve made more progress with Pickup Music in a few months than in years of teaching themselves. As one member recently told us, “I'm finally seeing progress for the first time in many years”.

Want to hear about other members’ experiences with us? Read our independent Trustpilot reviews.