The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    My materials arrived last night. Being that Tuesday and Wednesday are the heavy days of my week with regards to my "real job" of coaching football I was not able to thoroughly preview the materials. I got the full "Beyond Chops" course and the Jazz Keyboard part I lesson 1.

    1st impressions:
    Pre-sale--

    Dirk was very helpful. Never once tried to sell me anything. He answered all of my questions and made suggestions as to what I needed as far as pre-requisites to be able to take advantage of these courses. The Guitar course was not in doubt in this, it was only the keyboard part since it is more of a hobby to me than an actual passion. But I do want to get better at keyboard/piano, so I opted to take a preview of just one lesson of that course.

    During the sale--

    After placing the order I kept waiting for the FedEx tracking number that was supposed to be generated. He had warned me he would be out of pocket for a few days so I wasn't surprised when I couldn't reach him, but i did panic a bit when after a week there was still no tracking number. As it turns out, I actually botched my email address on the order form used on the website. It is a little archaic in the world of e-commerce, but that doesn't change the typo on my part....but an updated more modern e-form would have forced a duplicate entry to verify email.

    Dirk actually emailed me the morning that the materials arrived to apologize for something that was so totally not his fault. I am supposed to call him before I begin to use the materials for him to give me the recommended usage of both courses. In his words they are "opposite" of each other in terms of best method for going through them.

    After the sale--

    To be continued...

    The materials themselves--

    Both courses are comb bound. The Guitar Course is as advertised with 6 books, 3 dvd's and 12 cd's. I flipped through the 1st book. I can't say that (with limited time so far) I have found anything totally groundbreaking in the first book, but I will tell you that it is easily the most exhaustive pentatonic resource I have ever seen. It breaks down the major and minor pentatonic by all keys, all positions and what I will call "zones" within each position and transitions from one position to another. I think it will certainly make it easier for me to teach the pentatonics to students.

    The Keyboard course is written in very simple (not dumbed down) language that makes sense to anyone with a decent background in music theory. Again, cursory glance, but I think it will be quite helpful as it develops.

    I will get more detailed as the days and weeks go by.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

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    As far as Beyond Chops 2 goes......I have heard (but haven't asked) that it is available but is quite incomplete (roughly 1/3 of what was originally planned for it. They do not advertise its existence or promote it, but if you ask I have heard they will sell that 1st 3rd that is complete. I can't verify because Dirk and I never discussed it. Dana is apparently MIA to some extent. I don't mean nobody knows where he is, but he is simply no longer involved in the Dick Grove stuff. There is very little on him on the web, or youtube or anywhere else. Who knows why? Doesn't actually matter at this point.

  4. #28

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    I bought the Beyond Chops course a looong time ago, like in the early 90's. I got frustrated with it and stopped and started several times, but finally got through most of it between college and grad school.

    If you have a good grasp of all of the positions of the pentatonic, it could be easy to get put off of the whole course. Don't let that happen! After the pentatonic exercises, it goes into triads, all the positions and inversions. Next, it combines those two things with sweep picking. Then, he has you playing the correct scale over chords that aren't necessarily diatonic, i.e. chord-tone soloing. That's just in the first book. I have no idea what skill level you're at, but I lot of the guys I teach don't have a complete picture of pentatonics and triads or using the proper chord tones instead of just wailing on a pentatonic scale. If you just pick up that knowledge, you're ahead of a lot of guys out there. I'm a rock guy primarily, so I know how easy it is to get trapped there.

    Book 2 superimposes those pentatonics over different "chord families" that the Grove system of harmony is based around, kind of a gateway into fusion, I suppose. If you were so inclined, you could play your way through anything using nothing more complicated than pentatonics and triads. The modes are covered briefly, more in the sense of knowing the chord scales and using upper triads to comp with. A lot of emphasis is placed on minimal movement (playing whatever scale, triad, etc. you want in the nearest possible position) and melodic contour (playing the same shape through different positions of the scale).

    What isn't covered in any detail is altered dominants, as it was to be covered in BC2. This is a real grey are for me, so I give Dirk a call and see what the deal with part 2 is.

    There are some other odds and ends touched on as well, but that is the meat of the course. I believe the pracice schedule sets it up as a nine week "course." So, if you take what you paid and look at it as signing up for a semester long college course or a bunch of hourly lessons, the price is pretty reasonable. If you feel you can use help in any of the above areas, I would certainly recommend the course.

  5. #29

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    I have had a chance to really go through the first book and kind of preview the second book.

    The following is only about book 1

    The beginning:
    1) It starts out, I think, assuming that someone has some basic proficiencies on the instrument. This is understandable since it is not marketed as a beginners method. I do believe, with the right teacher, that this could be used from the very beginning of a guitarists development. But, as a home course using just the books, cd's and DVD's it is probably advisable that someone who is considering it be at least able to read notation up to about Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method grade 2 or Berklee Method volume 1. Not that the examples and exercises are reading intensive, but you do need to be able to correlate the diagram with the notation to know what direction you are playing the patterns.

    2) The bulk of Book 1 (all of it actually) is a primer (a very thorough one) on pentatonic scale positions and connecting mini-sweeps (three note arpeggios) to the various pentatonic positions. It is very well done. I can't say there were any concepts that were new to me, but the sheer volume of permutations that were demonstrated was impressive. I found several little patterns I had never used (or at least pattern combinations).

    Conclusion concerning just lesson 1 Printed Materials

    I have not really gone through the Media materials yet so this may change somewhat the overall review of lesson one. Once my season ends in two weeks and I can devote more time to it.

    From the perspective of where my playing is now, if I had only purchased lesson one and judged it purely from the printed materials I would probably have not bought the rest because I would be comparing book one to my own level of proficiency and knowledge of the fretboard. But being that I have bought the whole thing and have peeked ahead I know that not buying the rest would have been a mistake.

    From the perspective of where I was 23 years ago and from the perspective of my advanced beginners/intermediate students: I wish I had this back then. I will definitely be using these materials in my teaching practice from this point forward. It actually teaches the fretboard from the same perspective that I teach from (using pentatonic scales and expanding from there) but it is far more thorough and organized than what I have been doing on my own.

    I will review the Media items in a couple of weeks to a month and will try to provide a cohesive overall review of all materials as a whole and how they work together. I am definitely not regretting looking in to this.

    And FYI, Lesson 2 really starts progressing into some things I have never really developed properly in my own playing so I can't wait to get to that for myself.

  6. #30
    Hello, I am in contact with Dana and talk to him periodically! His Dick Grove classes and materials are the best of the best and the extreme penatonics course in particular is designed to take players to the next level! Dana is considering starting online classes with maybe 10 or so students and if anyone is interested you can contact me here and I will pass your info along to him!

  7. #31

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    Hello

    Newbie here. Kicking the thread back into life.

    Any news on BC / Dana Rasch?

    Thank you

  8. #32

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    His name was Dirk Price. Think he lived in Ashland Oregon. Was in the guitar program at DGSM in 1983.

    I have 3 college degrees, Chemistry, Philosophy and Dentistry.....in ALL my education I found Dick Grove to be one of the finest educators I had ever encountered.


  9. #33

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    Huh, stumbled across this incidentally...

    Dana Rasch is actually alive and kicking, and his newer program, called Visual Guide Tones, is supposed to be the newer approach to what he did with BC. Now, I have actually worked through the first four levels of VGT (applying it on bass), and with very good results, in term of fretboard familiarity and starting to sound more...acceptable across some changes, when having to solo.

    I haven't looked into his other programs, like Composition Through the Guitar or Chord Melody, but I do like his teaching style and personality. As the matter of fact, I have been in contact with him for the past couple of years, and he has been very helpful in offering help in my work with his material.

    Don't know if anybody here is actually interested in his stuff anymore, but this should be his current website Guitar Technique | Visual Guide Tones Worldwide

  10. #34

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    I joined his facebook group a while back. He regularly posts some good tunes. The guy can play.

    .

  11. #35

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    And his teaching is brilliant. Some may not like his conversational style, but I find it quite refreshing, plus it makes me have new insights every time I look a lesson again.

  12. #36

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    This thread actually made me go back and check DR's stuff again. Well...his Composition Through the Guitar turns out to be awesome, and covers more ground then I expected. And the Dana's Personal Reserve video 11A I find very good! It is about putting horizontal and vertical movement on the fretboard together for a more productive practice session, and it really clicked with me.

  13. #37

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    Well, Dana just started a Patreon site/channel, and it seems rather good offer, with membership levels at only $5 and $10 per month. The lessons are combinations of one-off videos and some of his courses chopped into single lessons. Iguess it might be worth checking out at patreon.com/VGTones

  14. #38

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    Well...and then here is this!