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Conti has a real gift for being a "long distance" teacher. The "paint by numbers" approach is really the first step in a long jouney through the art of chord melody that continues with his chord melody DVDs, where he takes one tune per DVD and walks you step by step through the tune, showing you embellishments while getting a solid grasp on how to interpret his arrangements. Then, he has the series of books of chord melody arrangements. If you learn some of the DVDs and play through some of the arrangements in the books, you will get a real sense of his harmonic vocabulary. Then, you can dive into "The Formula", where he shows you how to come up with your own arrangements. Then, while working out of the Real Books applying these ideas, you can refer back to his arrangements to see how he handled certain musical situations.
Originally Posted by Reckhart54
The beauty of it all is that he is able to get his ideas across so that you really can do it by following his books and DVDs. It all traslates directly to actually making music all the time. He has great arrangements, and he has materials to show you exactly how he does it. There are no gaps. So many materials I have worked with seem to teach some aspect of knowledge, leaving you to struggle with trying to apply it to actually playing chord melody. Conti, in each book or DVD, focuses on one thing, making sure you get it and then apply it to real music. So there really is a lot more than "paint by number" to this. The "paint by number" aspect is, in my opinion, a brilliat means of getting you to actuallly create and play chord melody arrangemets right away, so you can get a sense of how it is done without having to know all the information needed to be proficient first. It is in the process of doing it that you get context so you can understand the other materials that really get into it. So Conti's way of getting you going right away in "Assembly Line" really pays off as you progress. He isn't giving you some kind of shortcut, but instead getting you into context so that the whole process makes more sense. It is a fun ride. Good luck finding a local teacher who ca do as well.
When you have completed "Assembly Line", you will have a very useful and complete vocabulary of chords that enables you to harmonize ANY melody note in ANY key. You will be able to open a fake book to any tune and create an arrangement as you play. It willtake a long time to become proficient at using all this information, but you will be able to do it, slowly from the time yoou get through the book. It is fun to do, so you wil be doing it a lot, and by doing it a lot, you get better at it over time. You will be assimilating a lot of information, so give yourself time and be patient with your progress. When you are comfortable with the process taught in "Assembly Line", you can go on to "The Formula", though I would recommend at least becoming familiar with some of hisarrangements to get a feelfor what you will learning in "The Formula".
TonyLast edited by tbeltrans; 03-22-2013 at 10:37 PM.
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03-22-2013 10:27 PM
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Yes, I'm referring to Conti's "Precision Technique," a volume in his Source Code series. I will probably want to add to this later, but the big, obvious changes I see / hear so far relate to three things: Originally Posted by edh
1) I use the thin pick Conti recommends, a Jim Dunlop nylon .38. (I had to use a .46 first, as the .38 felt just too thin, but now I'm at home with it.) Conti knows many people play fast with a thick pick; his concern is that a thick pick will "catch" on strings when a player digs in too deep. This may not happen to everyone but it certainly did to me. I often felt like the pick got in my way. But with a .38, it can't because it's too thin to catch! (The pick "snaps"--Conti's word--across the string more than it drives through them.)
2) The exercises are long and varied, ranging from 20-something measures to over 40. Uninterrupted eighth notes. They aren't scales and they aren't arpeggios, though they incorporate some scalar runs and triad "sweeps" (-though Conti recommends they be picked down-up-down-up, like everything else, at least in the beginning.) Also, several exercises require fingering notes on consecutive strings with the same finger, sometimes requiring a position shift, so you can't barre the line, you have to move your finger back and forth while moving to a different string. It feels awkward at first but it really develops that finger. (Using the index finger and the pinky as pivots for playing along the neck is central to Conti's approach and he chose exercises that require a good bit of that.) Conti adds several exercises of his own after some of the Wohlfahrt exercises; they focus on double stops and moving horizontally up and down the neck with ease.) So instead of taking a short figure--such as is done in Mel Bay's "Technic" and Mickey Baker's book--and playing it up and down the neck, one plays exercises that require many skills to be used in sequence, which is much more like playing music than conventional guitar technique exercises
3) The exercises are melodic, making them fun to play, yet they are a real challenge to play fast on the guitar, so you won't wear 'em out in month or so!
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The Conti Books-the Chord Melody Assembly Line and the Formula are simply excellent for the solitary learner. These days I have little time to gig, but still wish to maintain my interest in playing guitar which is something I have done for over fifiy years.
The subject of chord melody and how to self-arrange for the guitar has always fascinated me and of all the method books I have seen (which is probably most of them by now) these are in my view by far the best.
Learned arrangements can be helpful in many performing situations and most players I have met default to using favourite phrases or harmonic moves. There is nothing at all wrong with that approach. However, the ability to use the tools that Conti introduces us to in a guitar context helps move playing away from an over-reliance on the musical ideas of others towards creating something much more personal and possibly original.
gstarfire
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Man, I'm going to have to get this material. I'm working on "Precision Technique" and the first volume of "Ticket To Improv" now. I thought I would go next to "Jazz Lines," as that would build on my improved technique and present new challenges. I'm thinking that this material might make a nice contrast to that. Chord melody is a weak area for me, mainly because I want to sing any tune I would wish to play in CM style, so I haven't stressed this. But it would be great to play a chord melody AND sing a chorus (-"for a guitar player, he's not such a bad singer")....
Has anyone here used Conti's "Intros, Endings, and Turnarounds"? (The title may be slightly off but it's another volume in the Source Code series.)
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This. I have never been satisfied with my own arranging efforts until getting into Conti's chord melody books. He gets to the point and everything you learn is in the context of playing tunes, rather than exercises preparing to someday play tunes IF you can figure out how to connect the content of all those exercises to actual tunes. If there are any shrtcuts to the learning process, it is to focus on playing tunes. The only reason that is a shortcut is that the end reslt is to play tunes. The process, no matter how you approach it, takes years to mature as a player. We are all in that process somewhere, and that is what we have in common regardless of what method or path we choose. Originally Posted by gstarfire
Tony
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I ordered "Assembly Line" yesterday and look forward to getting to work on the material.
So what was the consensus about a study group on "The Formula"? I saw much interest but nothing further.
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We could certainly follow through with that it proposed by the OP. I think the best way to do that would be for somebody (OP?) to post about The Formula and follow-on posts about it will happen, and there is our study group.
Tony
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Study groups are tricky things. Fep is to my mind the go-to guy for info on study groups. I think the group he started, on Ellliott's "Intro to Jazz Guitar Soloing" (-or something close to that) is the most active and effective group going. I asked him for advice before starting a group and he thought (-as I recall) the key was the material you were working with. (Just because a book is great doesn't mean an active study group will form around it.)
I think Conti provides a good possibility for an effective group. One problem with many groups is that someone starts it and is then expected to keep it going by himself. The most effective groups give many players reason to offer input. This is why "The Formula" might be good---people could show what they are doing with the material, or ask questions about how to handle an unusual progression / turnaround. (I haven't seen "The Formula" yet, so I'm flying blind here.) I think the best groups are started but not really led---or, a few different people make substantial contributions, field questions, keep the conversation going, etc.
With Conti material, Conti is the teacher and his lessons tend to be clear and specific. ("Do this here.") Since several people seem to be working on his material, it seems a natural that a group could form. It might inspire some people to 'take the plunge' and try some of Conti's stuff, and inspire others to take something they've had for years down off the shelf and re-fresh their memory of the material.
I'm keenly interested in this and hope something happens, but as I don't even have "The Formula" yet, I'm certainly not the person to start such a group!
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You have the Ted greene forum, I don't know if you would call it a study group but its close I guess....People try and dissect what ted did, how he did it....some post videos.....A conti forum would be good...I went through the Formula, like I said before. I'm just a rank amature...and I enjoyed it...Its not info you never heard before....but watching him explain it in his Dvds is excellent...He doesn't ramble on like some of these guys with PHD's in music that try to teach a person how to arrange a simple tune....
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Well, he does ramble on, but its digestible...
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Ha! I know what you mean. I like him a lot---most of my practice now is devoted to his material--but for someone whose creed seems to be, 'less talk, more playing,' he does talk a lot. Originally Posted by artcore
But I think the main difference he is drawing is between learning theory and learning to play. (He's not against theory but he is adamant---and correct---in insisting that if you want to play well you have to play a lot. Understanding theory is another pursuit. Further---and I think he's on solid ground here too---it is easier to digest the theory one needs in light of things one has learned to play than it is to turn theory lessons into tunes or improvisation. Playing comes first.
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I'm unfamiliar with the Ted Greene forum. Originally Posted by artcore
As for a Conti study group, do you think it should be built around "The Formula" or about all his material / method? As I mentioned before, I don't have "The Formula" yet; I just ordered "Assembly Line." I would join a "Formula" study group in order to support it and also expecting to get to that material ASAP and contribute to the group.
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We seem to be discussing several facets of Conti's materials in this thread, so why not continue to do so? Sounds like a good idea to me. That way, we all get exposed to the various books and DVDs he has to offer and get a sense of what they are and how they work.
Tony
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That suits me, though I think the conversation has largely wound down. On another front, I'm tracking my recent order from Conti (-Jazz Lines and Assembly Line) and should receive them today. Hoorah! Originally Posted by tbeltrans
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Hi Mark -- I just received Conti's Assembly Line but won't start it until I finish with Mickey Baker's book (I just finished chapter 16. Thanks to Michael Joyce, Rob MacKillop, and FEP for helping me get this far). I look forward to your comments about your progress through the Conti material. Thx, Joe
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Yeah, I had originally started the thread, but as it kinda languished I just went off on my own. I haven't done a lot of the "Formula" stuff as I've been working on other stuff with my teacher. I agree with your comments regarding study groups in general, and I'm not certain how to go about making a study group out of the Formula book as everyone will be going at a different pace. I guess we could use this thread to post updates on working through the book as well as typos (the chord diagram for the (IIRC) BbMaj7 in the first scenario is wrong - easy to catch if you know your chords but it might confuse a new player).
I've been listening to a lot of Conti lately, and he's a clean, smokin' player. In some ways I see his method books like Hemingway or Joyce saying, "Here's how you use the alphabet to spell words, now go write a novel.".
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It just arrived in the mail! Still in the cellophane though out of the envelope. Received "Jazz Lines" too. I've been working on the "Precision Technique" material for a month now (and also the first volume in the "Ticket to Improv" series, which contains one-chorus solos for "Satin Doll," "Green Dolphin Street", "Autumn Leaves," as well as a bonus, a solo made up of lines from the previous solos but over a different chord progression), so "Jazz Lines" seemed the logical choice. While I was at it, I opted for "Assembly Line" because I'm water-weak at chord melody. Steep learning curve ahead! Stay tuned.... Originally Posted by losaltosjoe
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Mark, when you get a chance to look through Assembly Line I'd be interested in what you think. Right now I have Assembly Line and The Formula at the top of my list of potential purchases. Recently I've started to get into the idea of creating chord melodies, and it seems like Conti's books might be a good start.
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If you ONLY look at "Assembly Line" or "The Formula", you might reach that conclusion, and rightly so. However, Conti also has 5 chord melody DVDs, each one entirely focused on playing one tune, making sure you learn it as well as examples along the way of how to interpret it to bring it to life. From my perspective, these DVDs show you how to work with the arrangements in his "Signature" series of chord melody arrangements. Then, as you get those sounds into your hands and ears, you go to "The Formula" and he shows you how he put those arrangements together. You can then refer back to the "Signature" series as you work on your own arrangements of these tunes, to see what Conti did. It is sort of like looking at the answers at the back of a book, except that there is no one right answer. The "Signature" series provides countless real life examples of how to apply "The Formula". It all ties together like nobody else's products. I wish Conti would present them that way so that people could see that. Unfortunately, the only way to really see it from that perspective is to have them in hand and realize these relationships between one product and another by working with them. But I am telling you about it here as I see it. His products, when put together, are like "On the Job Training", where he shows you what to do and how to do it. Every other chord melody product I have seen, leaves a big gap between presenting the building blocks and how to use them to make music. Originally Posted by ah.clem
So, really, the whole package, if you want to dig into chord melody, consists of "Assembly Line", "The Formula", the "Signature" series of chord melody arrangement books, the series of 5 chord melody DVDs, and "The Formula". With that, you have what you need to learn to arrange your own chord melody versions of tunes and sound good doing it (not to mention a ton of decent arrangements form Conti himself). When you consider how well all this fits together (though it may not be apparent just looking at the site and trying to figure out what to get), it is a complete package and still far less than spending serious money on a quality teacher (if you can find and afford one that really understands and can teach this stuff as well as Conti does) for the next several years on a weekly basis.
In addition to all that, I would also strongly recommend the two volume Barry Galbraith series of chord melody arrangements from Mel Bay. These are great sounding tunes that will provide a lot more ideas on how to make arrangements come alive, and are directly analyzeable (is that a real word?) using the ideas in "The Formula". As far as I am concerned, the only other thing to add to this mix is figuring out solo chord melody by ear from recordings such as Johnny Smith's "Man With A Blue Guitar", Joe Pass' "Songs For Ellen", "Unforgettable", and the Virtuoso series, and other players you might like.
TonyLast edited by tbeltrans; 04-03-2013 at 07:45 PM.
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Tonyy, I'm glad you explained that. I wasn't sure how all those items worked together. I'm starting with "Assembly Line." Tonight I'm working on the first thing, the series of C chord voicings. Most were familiar to me but a few are new, and I never played a long sequence of them up and back that way---good stuff. I can see it'll take me awhile to work through this material! Originally Posted by tbeltrans
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Mark: Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
What you are doing in "Assembly" is learning in what I found to be the most efficient way possible, a complete set of "grips" (as Joe Pass called them) for harmonizing ANY melody note in any key. You learn them in the key of C and then slide them into whatever key you need. These are from the harmonized C major scale (C maj, F maj, G7, Dmin, A min), plus the diminished and augmented scales. Each is taken through all the melody notes you would need to harmonize. These chords yu are learning now will be used again and again through all the other materials I mentioned previously. Nothing you learn in Conti's method is wasted or later abandoned for something else. Conti is very practical and focused on playing.
One thing to keep in mind as you work through "Assembly"...this is a "hardy skill". You will be spending months and months getting better at opening a fakebook to tunes on the fly and putting chords under each melody note. I would suggest you do that with EVERY melody note for quite a while until it starts getting easier and at least somewhat automatic because this is the foundational skill that everything yet to come is built on. It takes lots of time and focus to get all of this into your hands. You are learning a lot of chords at once, and it takes time to absorb and "own" them. Conti tells us in his "Signature" series to play these as we want to and we don't have to harmonize every melody note. But for learning pruposes as you get these chords well in hand, I found it to be good to do for the first few months at least.
Also, when you start working with the fakebooks, pick tunes in all manner of keys so you get really good at this in all keys. You will be counting up from your chords in C over and over,but that helps you learn these chords inside and out. Conti does not suggest you run these long chord sequences presented in "Assembly" in all keys. Instead, he has you "counting up" from the chords in the sequence to where you need it on the fretboard. In fact, in "Assembly" he walks you through the process. It really is the best way to do this. It will be slow going for quite some time, but it does get better, and then you have it for life. Since everything else Conti has in his chord melody materials uses essentially these same chord forms, you are really preparing for the really fun stuff yet to come. If you just skim through "Assembly", you will be struggling later on instead of being able to focus on that material. It is sort of like it was in college, don't skim the algebra because you will be "dead meat" in the calc class. But this is way more fun than college was.
Tony
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Tony. I didn't mean that in a critical way, I just meant that these guys are giants and I was trying to express... hell, I don't know, I guess it needed a smiley. Thanks to a forum member here, I found my teacher, who graduated from Berklee and then studied and ended up playing 7 string with Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Robert Conti and the whole New York crowd for a lot of years. He plays more Gypsy now than anything (his group just released a sweet gypsy CD) but he is in that class. I see him play out on the 7 string and it's like hearing and watching magic, but that's what happens with 30+ years of playing/gigging experience. My weekly lessons are like drinking from a firehose, as I imagine studying with Conti in person would be. What I said about Conti applies to Jerry, too. He makes me want to quit my job and just practice. And, as I've said here before, he makes me believe that I can learn to play CM. Hell, I wish I was 40 years younger, I would quit my job and study full-time with him.
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I did not read anything criticizing Conti at all. In fact, I suppose I criticized his site in a way, because I said I wish he would present his chord melody products as the complete integrated resource that they are. My response was just intended to make clear some things I discovered about his products that may not otherwise be apparent. I think it is great though that you find a "live" teacher who can provide the guidance you need. So far, I have had relatively little experience with a teacher (i.e. a few months here and there), but they have either been far too advanced for me, focused only on learning their own arrangements without looking at how they are put together, or focused only on the building blocks and not how to get from these to a finished arrangement. You could say that I did not stay with one teacher long enough, but in fact, I could get a pretty good idea where we were going by asking them about their overall approach. None seemed to really have that "end to end" process mindset. I really think Conti has a particular gift for teaching as well as playing, and think it is a rare thing. Conti covers the whole process in a way that makes it doable for the average guy. That is the reason I talk his stuff up so much. To me, if people are looking for a way to learn to play chord melody, this is one way that really does work well. I don't want to come across as one who must defend Conti, or worse, make people feel as if I am doing that against something they may have said. I do want to make sure that people do understand what he has to offer though because otherwise, they may miss out on the very thing that could help them on their own musical journey. Originally Posted by ah.clem
One other thing I did want to comment on that Conti talks about in his DVDs...he talks about "leaning on the melody" when playing for a non-jazz crowd. He says that most people want to hear the melody clearly and when we take off on lengthy improvs, we lose the audience. He says that a big part of being a musician is knowing and playing to your audience. So he says he prefers to improvise with the harmony under the melody, rather than with the melody itself. That is his approach to chord melody.
TonyLast edited by tbeltrans; 04-04-2013 at 08:11 AM.
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Tony. Understood. I found your advice quite helpful and will probably integrate the Conti sequence into my other studies. I wasn't aware of the 5 DVD set and how it relates to Assembly line and Formula (both great books, IMO). I agree with the melody concept and so does my teacher. At times, in lessons, he goes way out on harmonic limbs to demonstrate a concept to me; on a gig, he keeps the melody foregrounded while integrating runs, fills and chord solos. He always seems to be booked months in advance as a solo or duo with a singer. He's found that sweet spot.
Now, if only I had more time and talent...
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That's good to know. At 54, I have less time for blind alleys and other wrong turns. Originally Posted by tbeltrans
) It's good to be on the right road.
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