Dan Arcamone

In this follow-up to his first chords class, guitarist Dan Arcamone applies his personal approach to chord building to 2-5-1 progressions , using Miles Davis's Tune Up as the vehicle. Instead of memorizing stock voicings, you'll build chords from the same scales you'd use for soloing and come up with chord sounds that might not sound as traditional. What's covered Visualizing the scale for each chord up every string: D Dorian for Dm7, A melodic minor for G7 (the altered sound), and C Lydian for Cmaj7 How each note of A melodic minor functions against G7 (9, 9, 3rd, 11, 13...) Picking interval groupings you like — a second plus a sixth, stacked sevenths — and moving them through the whole scale up the neck Connecting the shapes into complete 2-5-1s in C, then transposing through the keys of Tune Up (D, C, B) Moving the same shapes across different string groups for more options Improvising over Tune Up with these chord ideas By the end, you'll have a method for expanding your chord vocabulary and placing specific colors — like a 11 — anywhere in a voicing that sounds good to you. An 18-page PDF is included. Skill level: intermediate.

Guitarist and composer Dan Arcamone teaches a way of building chords from the scales you already use for improvising, using Freddie Hubbard's Little Sunflower as the working example. Rather than memorizing stock voicings, you'll learn to pick the intervals and sounds you actually like and assemble your own chords from them. What's covered Learning a scale (D Dorian for the A sections) up and down each individual string as the foundation Building two-note voicings from intervals you choose — seconds, fourths, sixths — on adjacent and skipped string sets Combining interval groups into three-note shapes and mixing them for variety Giving your comping a melodic shape — a more pianistic approach to moving chords up and down Voice leading between changing chords and keys, including moving against the bass (the Emaj7–Dmaj7 bridge of Little Sunflower) Keeping common tones between chords, and using the Lydian sound for major chords Strengthening fingerboard knowledge along the way Aimed at intermediate to advanced players, this class will get you thinking about the specific sounds you prefer and give you a practical method for turning them into new, interesting chords for comping and beyond. A 3-page PDF is included.