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Hi:
I worked through the Assembly Line book and I am able to play some songs from fake books, but certainly not "on the fly" yet. I am starting to get into the Formula, but I think I really want to know his chord forms better. As a post I read put it, I think I really should know how to use the Conti Assembly Line chord forms quicker.
So here are some questions I have for users of the Assembly Line and the Formula:
1) How did you memorize all of those chord forms including perhaps the ones in the back of the Assembly Line book??? Is there a method that you used to memorize all of these chord forms??
2) How did you learn to play from a fake book using the Assembly Line in such a way that songs can be played "on the fly?" Just a matter of keep doing arrangements? Or is there a methodical way of facilitating the skill of playing on the fly?
Thank you!
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03-12-2014 09:30 PM
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Conti is all about playing songs. You really learn the forms by using them to play tunes. The better you know these forms, the more freely you can experiment with them using The Formula. What I did to learn the forms is twofold:
1. Every day, play through all the forms in Assembly Line going up the scale with each type of form and back down again. This is a drill that I do even though Conti doesn't say whether or not you should. He leaves it to you to decide how you best learn this stuff in that regard. He says, and rightly so, you learn by playing tunes.
2. Every day, open a fakebook to a tune and just play it using the forms. It is difficult at first, but it gets easier fairly quickly (i.e. a matter of weeks). In a relatively short time (not overnight, but not years either) you will be able to quickly harmonize any tune using the forms and adhering to the chords in the fakebook. At that point, you are ready to begin exploring The Formula.
There was another guy with a piano method, David Sudnow, who said that you should "learn everything in the context of the song". If you can't use it to play tunes, do you really need it? There is all manner of esoteric theory discussion in various forums and I always wonder how much of it has any practical application. It seems to me that knowledge of basic diatonic theory is good groundwork, but learn it while playing tunes so you can experience how it applies to making music.
In hindsight from working with Conti's chord melody materials, I am realizing how much I get now from playing other people's arrangements such as Barry Galbraith and others. I am able to essentially ask the right questions of myself to understand how these guys put this stuff together, which then expands my vocabulary. With Assembly Line and The Formula, you learn by doing.
Tony
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Thanks Tony! Actually you and I met before in cyberspace on the Sudnow forum, and it was you talking about Robert Conti that led me to his materials. Great stuff!
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Hey Angelo,
Small world! Yes, Conti and Sudnow think (thought in Sudnow's case) alike in many ways with their emphasis on playing rather than talking about theory. I am sure glad that I had the opportunity to meet face to face with David Sudnow on a number of occasions. He really could play piano well and was self-taught. I have talked to Conti on the phone a few times and his playing stands on its own as a number of Youtube videos and his CDs attest to. We are definitely better for having these guys help us out.
Tony
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Absolutely. The Conti book will get you started, but the tunes are the real teacher. The answers to the "problems" presented by these tunes teach you all kinds of new voicings and practical ways to play things.
Originally Posted by tbeltrans
As far as the "back of the book" chord forms go, add them (and others from everywhere else, including your own) when you've got the basic forms memorized and are ready for something fresh. But keep in mind that, at the beginning, the whole point is to limit things to a couple of voicings for each melody note/chord combination anyway (to give you a jumping off point).
Honestly, I can't remember all of the exact voicings used in the exercises anyway. I don't really play that way anymore, but it was very freeing to have it simplified that way when starting starting out.
BTW, after playing through vol.1 of The Real Book for a while, I ended up adding volumes 2-4. I'd dog-ear the pages of the tunes that I liked and which were somewhat playable. I've got to say, now that I've got a copy of the Real Vocal Book, that's the series to go with for chord-melody reading practice. It's all the stuff I dog-eared in vols. 1-2. Not really any skipping over, as most of that stuff is really melodic suited for chord melody. (You probably don't need to be trying to read bop tunes as much if you can't read through something like "All the Things You Are").
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So, having not delved into Conti's materials, is his system a way to harmonize a top note, more or less, with any diatonic chord in a given key?
E.g., key of C, the Note E (for simplicity's sake, take the E on the 2nd string). harmonized by:
CM7 (drop 2, 1573)
Dm9 (1379)
Em7 (drop 3, 5371)
FM7 (drop 3, 3157)
G13 (drop 3, 1736)
Am7 (drop 3, 1735)
Bm11 (drop 3, 1734)
I already know how to do this, using various drop 2s, drop 3s, triads. etc. . What added benefit is Conti's system? Just curious.
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His approach starts there. Even Joe Pass often said he had his "favorite grips", so you start with building a set of "grips" to harmonize any melody note. That is his "Chord Melody Assembly Line". If you are interested in Conti's chord melody materials, I would suggest the next book/DVD "The Formula" where you learn to create an infinite variety of harmonies under a given melody line. You already have whatever grips you typically use and apply them in an infinite variety of ways under the melody.
Tony
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So those of us who have already spent years learning the grips can dispense with the assembly Line I take it ? And go to the Formula ? the Formula must be his theory of chord subs and reharms, then. Does he specifically explain concepts such as secondary dominants and tritone subs? Iii or vi for the I chord, etc. Originally Posted by tbeltrans
of is it a case where this grip sounds good as a sub for this other grip ?
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Tony, Matt, Great thread with good information. I wish I didn't have to work so I could spend more time on this forum and practicing this stuff. Tony, I've read many of your posts and you sure have it all down. I also saw your video of When I Fall In Love on the players section of the Conti website, it is outstanding. Navdeep, I wouldn't characterize Conti's approach as a system, but rather a clear insight into his mind when he reharmonizes a standard. If you understand diatonic harmony, you'll discover a new way to approach playing with his non academic down to earth explanations. As Tony stated, you will "learn to create an infinite variety of harmonies under a given melody line." If I did not have so much work related job travel, I could spend days with his DVDs. I saw him play at NAMM in 2013 and his playing was unbelievable. In fact, I think I might be buried somewhere in that picture from NAMM on his website. The high point of that trip was seeing Conti and so many other name players.
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The thing is that Conti doesn't get overly analytical about music at all. He has a few relatively simple ideas that cover a lot of territory. I don't want to give away his approach because that is his. It isn't anything he invented, but his approach to it is. The odd thing to me about jazz in general is that when I have talked to some of the players I have met, NONE of them was analytical about it. They teach seminars that way, but they sure don't seem to approach music that way. Conti's materials are how he approaches music rather than one approach to give out at seminars and another on the bandstand. Originally Posted by NSJ
To answer your question, yes, skip Assembly Line in your case and go to The Formula.
Tony
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Thanks Jerry! I am planning to retire at the end of June, so I will have more consistent time to play music. The problem I have had over my working life is not being able to consistently put time in. There are project starts and ends that take a lot of work time, travel, etc. I go through stretches where I can work consistently at least some time each day on music, and then longer stretches where there isn't time. Retirement is the answer - early enough to have a lot of good years to do something yet. Originally Posted by JerryB
Tony
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I should add that we should always be curious and open to other people's ideas. You have had a great thread going about counterpoint. I really am interested in Sid Jacobs' ideas on Bill Evans for guitar. I think we all have some aspect of music that forms our core and we grow out from there, and always come back to. Mine is Conti. Originally Posted by tbeltrans
Tony
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Hi, Angelpa,
I'm pretty much in the same place as you are: finished Assembly Line and starting work on The Formula. I'm finding it incredibly helpful after many years of struggling to think about chord melody. I've had some luck with the alternative chords in the back of Assembly Line by mixing some of those chords into my comping. They are full voicings, so they sound really rich even as comping chords. Also (though I know Conti refers to his single-line method as "no scales, no modes,") think of the chords as moving from one scale tone to the next—it really helps to organize your thinking. I'm not going to use all of those voicings, but many definitely help with shorter movements!
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Thanks Scot63!
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Ordered Assembly Line
If that works, I'll get The Formula.
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Looking at this again, I'd say: Originally Posted by angelpa
1) Start trying to "see" all of the chord tones within a given shape, and be able to play melodically within a given position more, especially for problem spots. Most melodies have sections which are arpeggiated with large leaps. These aren't really practical to play by moving shape to shape for each note. If you know the note on the first string for a given chord shape, what's the chord tone on the 2nd string, 3rd etc...
2) You should also learn to find the other extensions in that position which aren't explicitly in that particular voicing. Where is the 3rd in relationship to that 9th chord (even if it's not present in the correct octave that voicing). This doesn't have to be an exercise either. Just take a phrase that's giving you trouble because of large melodic leaps, and find a voicing that has most of the melody in it already. To do this...
3) Learn to play up the neck, with more of the melody on the 2nd and 3rd strings. You can easily play in position without moving around so much once you learn to do this. The 2nd string is "where it's at" tone-wise anyway. To get started with this...
4) Learn to play your favorite voicings down a string set e.g. 1-4 down to 2-5. It's the same shape with 3rd string lowered one fret. (XX3443 becomes X8988X.)
5) Understand that you don't have to play a full chord for every melody note. One-chord-per-note is good when your'e getting started and teaches you a lot about where the tones are, but once you know where the notes are, start whittling away at all of the full chords except on the important beats/parts of beats; at least with the trouble spots. The more you can do this, the more you can read/play on the fly.
6) Practice leading with the melody note. The same way you might play a chord in a rock or blues song by first planting the finger of a bass note, learn to place the melody note on the fretboard and play it first followed by the rest of the chord. Practice this in tunes, as an exercise, until you can comfortably do this as a part of your playing when you want it. This one is huge, in my opinion. It's something that seems to make time just slow down for CM playing, when you were previously rushed trying to the next chord. Closely related to this...
7) Practice swinging into the chord with the bass note on the previous beat/part of the beat. You hear Joe Pass do this a lot: separating the upper chord from the bass. Sometimes he's doing more of what I'm talking about in #6, sometimes #7. But they both "buy all kinds of time" in finding your place on the fretboard.
Closely related to #6....
8) Experiment with trying to finger the note(s) leading up to a new chord in the context of the destination chord instead of the chord your coming from. The eighth note on the "and" of the beat before a chord change, for example, is on an unimportant part of the beat and usually doesn't need a full chord on it. Most people "chop" between chords because they're distracted by the fact that the last eighth note before the chord change happens to be a chord tone.
However, it's also a chord tone of the next chord in most well written melodies. Experiment with what sounds better: chopping the eighth note (which is already incredibly short if it's swinging into the next beat) or fingering the eighth note in the context of the destination chord. This one is super important if you want to swing and play more legato. Classical and fingerstyle arrangers/composers use this consideration in writing, but if you practice it, you can learn to do it on the fly more, looking/thinking ahead. It's akin to the way that pianists change positions well before they get to the "last finger". It "opens up" difficult passages and makes them seem easy.
Sorry for being long. This is what I found helped me the most over about 3 years of experimentation. I hope it's helpful.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 03-28-2014 at 06:45 PM. Reason: clarity
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matt.guitarteacher: thanks so much. Interesting stuff there. #3 sounds particularly interesting. Thanks again!
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Martin Taylor's teaching approach is different from the standard chord melody approach. His approach is based on a linear, pianistic way of playing so you can eventually free yourself from getting locked into chord grips. Like Van Eps and Ted Greene, he thinks more in terms of moving voices. You start with harmonized scales 10th intervals than add the 7th and then, you start moving the 7ths. He's not against chord forms per se, admitting they can be very useful, but more so after one has broken down their approach from basic intervals on up. Bottom line is that whatever helps you make the music you want to hear is a good approach for you.
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Yes Originally Posted by AndyV
I was a member at Martin's school and I really liked his system. The only negative was that his course is based on time - they don't have a DVD you can keep. I got busy and my 3 months ran out. I couldn't keep up with the work schedule I had.
My Conti course arrived yesterday and I'm into lesson 1. I'll be able to get something from Conti, no doubt.
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@DRS, could you let us(me
) know how you like the conti DVD.
thanks
edh
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I'm fleshing out some of the stuff I talked about (in post #16) in trying to answer the OP's original question.
I'm not great with communicating via video. It's long, and I messed up the audio forgetting to replug my usb interface.
But these are the things that have really helped me the most in the last 3 or 4 years since I started with the Assembly Line book by Robert Conti. Most of what I'm talking about is related to my experience playing fingerstyle and not to complex harmonic concepts. Those are above my pay grade and kind of fall outside of the context of Mr. Conti's first book anyway.
Hope it helps.
(Edit: I've got another video on my youtube page of me playing the stuff with better audio if you want to hear a cleaner sound on some of it.)
Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 04-07-2014 at 08:12 AM.
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Unfortunately, I have once again been working ridiculous hours. I am retiring at the end of June, so I plan to make some more videos for my Youtube page, and these will continue with the Conti theme. I have, admittedly, not been playing much guitar at all with my work schedule, nor have I been posting either for the same reason.
Here a few thoughts on what happens when you use Conti's approach, and maybe I am repeating myself here. Conti's chord forms are well chose and are not unique, since everybody plays them. However, his way of organizing them and utilizing them is something I have not seen other people do. He sets it all up so that initially, there is only one "right" way to play a tune using the Assembly Line approach - one chord form per melody note so you don't have to think about all the other aspects that could be a part of chord melody playing. For self-teaching, I can't think of a better way to do it. If you don't have a teacher to tell you what the correct answer(s) for a given task are, how do you know you are not wasting your time on a wrong direction? The idea is to become very fluid in the process of being able to open a fakebook to any tune and quickly come up with a chord melody style of playing it. It is in the process of doing that again and again and again and again... that you memorize those chord forms in every key and situation. In this manner, you learn by playing tunes using the vocabulary presented in Assembly Line. The thing is, that the way Conti presents this method, ANYBODY can do it. It really is mechanical at this stage because it needs to be. But it doesn't remain that way once you get to The Formula.
Any attempts to make it more complicated than this are not what Conti intended. He talks quite clearly about this on the DVD. I think it is human nature to complicate things. It takes a unique ability (it seems to me) to cut through all that and do What Conti did in Assembly Line.
Then, when you are very fluent with the methodology used in Assembly Line, the chord vocabulary will be very natural for you. At that point, you can start into The Formula. Now, you are learning to use the same chord vocabulary to create new harmonic content under the melody line - play it differently every time and choose those sounds that you like to hear in the process. Again, you are not getting bogged down in theory and exercises, but instead a few simple "rules" used over and over again for endless harmonic variety. As you become fluent in this, you will naturally start expanding how you play the chords - partial chords, arpeggiating, etc.
Everything in its time. When you try to do too much too soon, it quickly can become overwhelming. If you give it time and learn it in the order Conti presents it, it will happen naturally and without all the exercises and theory. He never says you shouldn't learn theory, just that you should do it as you need it to play tunes.
Think of the learning process like this. When you learn to drive, at first you have to think about every movement and focus on doing the right thing at the right time in in the right amount. Off the gas while pushing in the clutch and shifting without grinding. Not hitting the brake too hard or not hard enough to stop, etc, etc. All of this takes up all your brain bandwidth so you can't focus on anything else. When these movements all start to become natural for you, there is more of your brain available to start focusing more on proper steering. Eventually, you can get out of the parking lot and start driving on the street. In time, you become more comfortable with all of the pieces so they begin to flow and your teacher doesn't have to worry about you running over a pedestrian on the sidewalk because finally your brain has enough bandwidth left over to begin seeing more of what is around you as you drive. This, in essence is the learning process we go through with anything new.
For some reason, with guitar, we get all worried that we don't have "talent", or that we will never learn to play, or whatever drives each of us, and we tend to want to get through the work so we can get to the "good stuff" that we see the pros do. At least with Conti's approach, we get through the work by playing tunes so it is enjoyable and we can relax into the process as we gradually get better. No need to complicate it with all manner of jargon and complexities of esoteric theory. Really, simple diatonic theory so you eventually understand how the chords are built and voiced on the fretboard is good enough so you can start finding your own way to play the chords once you have mastered Conti's approach with his vocabulary.
I have observed an interesting phenomenon about learning to play music. David Sudnow pointed it out. The process of learning to play tunes on an instrument (piano, guitar) is not at all complicated, but it takes consistent effort over a period of time. For some reason, many people insist that if the process isn't complicated and done a certain way, it isn't valid. There are many similarities between Conti and Sudnow, as I have mentioned in earlier posts. I think those similarities really stem from the fact that they both felt strongly about this observation and presented their respective methods based on it.
Tony
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I just bought Robert Conti's Chord Melody assembly line and from page one, it was an eye opener. Finally after years of playing chord melody, I found the key to chord melody. It is almost a no-brainer now.
I have found memorizing the chords as they have been presented is the best technique. The chords in the back are just a bonus. Use them as you encounter troublesome melodies.
Remember, the spirit of his mentoring. Play, play play. Forget the tedium of rote memorization.
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I'm glad you're enthusiastic about this. It's the best foundation for CM that I know of. Originally Posted by srvrip41
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Wow....really interesting stuff. I just read through this entire thread, and many of the comments and questions discussed really seem applicable to the challenges I am encountering with my playing at this time. I am glad I discovered this forum.
I kind of feel weird just popping in with such a low post count.....like "Who is this guy? Is he even a player? Does he even have a clue....?"
I'll try to earn some credibility as time goes on......but for now, "thank you" to everyone for the helpful information.
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