Robert Conti Assembly Line from zero

**eduardosanz** · 03-07-2016, 06:40 AM

Hello,

Having just received my copy of Robert Conti´s "Assembly Line", I want to start this thread in which I will post my (hopefully) advances in this chord-melody approach to the genre, giving my views on the book (and dvd) and asking the questions that will arise.

I decide to write in this beginners subforum instead of the chord-melody one because I am certainly a beginner and the thread is intended to help others with this book or material. My idea is to try and post every two to three days telling my daily experience. Of course, others opinions and views are more than welcome.

As my first post in the theme, I will tell that I was expecting a book, but instead is more like a magazine or booklet to my eyes. The edition is pretty well done though, with quite a lot of text and the references (examples in Conti´s terminology) are shown in standard notation (no tab). The text is very clear and direct to the point.

As far as de DVD goes, it is very well done, with high quality of sound and image.

As a first lesson, it is shown a group of 18 chords (Group C). I think most of them are drop 2 and drop 3 voicings, with roots in the 6th and 5th strings, and a couple of 4th string roots. As I said, I am a beginner with no experience in this kind of jazz chords, and as so, these look a bit scaring to my fingers, not because of the stretches (at least the dont seem like that, most of these voicings span 4 frets only) but because of the finger position (pretty diferent and apparently harder than the usual cowboy and barre chords used in rock or blues) and usage of four fingers, inluding the pinky in most of them.

As a final point, ant to put things in context, I must say that I will only be able (for now) to dedicate 30 minutes per day to this material.

I will keep telling how my fingers are doing with this new chords to me.

Thanks!

**goldenwave77** · 03-07-2016, 09:15 AM

Conti's book is 55 pages of dense material. Dense in the sense of no fluff...just essential to what he is trying to do.

136 basic chord voicings covering major, minor, dom., diminished, augmented and min. 7, flat 5 chords.

No need for tab...you literally have the melody note indicated in the examples...match it up to the right chord diagram, and play it through. (This will also teach you the fingerbd., and also help your reading skills.)

(I found it helpful to pencil in the melody note in relation to the particular chord form underneath the diagram, e.g. is it a 9th, a sharp 9th, etc?!)

Also, draw a blank chord grid diagram for 5th and 6th string root forms, and label where the tones are....e.g. 5th under top string octave for 6th string forms, 2 frets to the right is the 6th....you'll begin to see this in your "mind's eye". I also found highlighting the roots on Conti's diagrams helped a lot with learning them...once you see the relationships and get a handle on the fretbd. layout, your understanding/facility will get exponentially better.

It will take a while to learn these...I spent more than a month on "Oh Susannah"....stay with the program, and don't be tempted to shortcut the chord forms he gives you.... cement his chord palette into your memory, and then expand it later....don't worry, you'll begin to see new chord forms almost automatically. Reinforce the learning by using simple fake book songs....even Christmas carols are good, as they are simple and you already know most of the melodies.

70 degrees on Wed. in NY...time to dust off the clubs and hit the links.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 03-07-2016, 04:14 PM

Yeah. I always refer to the "book", because I mostly spent my time with the written part. It's really a "companion booklet" to the real product, as far as his company is concerned, the DVD. Still think it's a tremendous value. When I looked back at it, a few months ago, it seemed almost infuriatingly simple. But I guess I was pretty simple as well . :-) Goldenwave described very well.

**Al Br.** · 03-07-2016, 05:15 PM

[QUOTE=goldenwave77;627444]I spent more than a month on "Oh Susannah"QUOTE]

Two weeks and counting. Know the chords, just can't get the fingers to flow smoothly in all cases. Good thing patience is my only virtue.

**eduardosanz** · 03-07-2016, 05:37 PM

[QUOTE=Al Br.;627585]

Originally Posted by goldenwave77

I spent more than a month on "Oh Susannah"QUOTE]

Two weeks and counting. Know the chords, just can't get the fingers to flow smoothly in all cases. Good thing patience is my only virtue.

Have you tested yourself with the metronome? I did today. I can not play the 18 chords of the Group C
faster than 30BPM...truth being i had never played these voicings. I know it sounds ridiculous but it is as it is.... I am sure in a couple of weeks things will work smoother.
Any other experience?

**lawson-stone** · 03-07-2016, 07:31 PM

Just concentrate on smooth, economical movements and a steady pace, however slow. As Jazz Guitar Yoda might say, "Come speed will."

**eduardosanz** · 03-08-2016, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by lawson-stone

Just concentrate on smooth, economical movements and a steady pace, however slow. As Jazz Guitar Yoda might say, "Come speed will."

Yeah, I am trying to do so. I am not worried about my actual "speed" of merely 30 BPM, I am sure it will go faster with time. I am just trying to go 3-4BPM faster every day, and in a couple of weeks my peace will be much better.

I remember when I began playing guitar (always self teached). I used to follow justinguitar... it was quite cool indeed. He has implemented a program for switching between chords during 60 seconds. Then I started playing with my metronome and I know how fast you can go starting slow. Crawl before walk. So my actual speed is not a problem.

I have already ingrained in my mind the whole sequence in order of the chords in Group C, and I can play all of them back and forward (though at the repeated 30 BPM...). It actually has beeen easier than I first thought.

I know I shouldn´t before having more fluidity with that sequence, but I have tried playing what Conti names Lesson 1, which is the head of the corny Oh Susannah. As my playing is sooo slow at the moment the melody is mereley recognizable, but I can hear it there... so this book looks promising. It is very encouraging hearing from other people like goldenwave and Al.br that playing Oh Susannah can take up to one month...

One problem I am realizing is that, as this is my first attempt with these chords, I need to look at the fretboard to see where to put my fingers, so I can not look at the sheet. That is gonna be a problem because I dont want to memorize tunes, just reading and playing at the same time. Should I concentrate from now in playing without looking at the fretboard at the risk of slow even more my actual peace?

Any comments?

**lawson-stone** · 03-08-2016, 07:47 AM

Your comfort level with the shapes will increase and soon it'll just be how your fingers fall any time you put your hand on the neck. Conti actually IS teaching you theory but he starts with the practices that implement the theory and then it's more meaningful to see the theory as it emerges fro practice.

**lawson-stone** · 03-08-2016, 07:48 AM

Conti is like studying a language via the "immersion" method instead of the classroom.

**eduardosanz** · 03-08-2016, 07:55 AM

Yeah... I ma getting inmersed in his method. Last night I woke up mentally matching the chord shapes with its corresponding notes in the staff...

**lawson-stone** · 03-08-2016, 08:08 AM

Another fun exercise later on is to pick a note on the 1st or 2nd string and try to think of every chord possible that has that note as its top note.

**eduardosanz** · 03-08-2016, 08:20 AM

The one chord from that C Group that is being really dificult for me to grab is X-14-X-13-14-13... C69#11...working that high in the fretboard makes my fingers to struggle there.

**Al Br.** · 03-08-2016, 09:02 AM

Eduardo,

don't know if this will help but it has for me . When you work thru the chord groups start at one and go to the top, then do it in reverse. Then do odd and even. The idea is that your fingers don't get caught up in a repetition of movement and over time changing from one chord to another gets a bit easier. For me the change from CMaj7 to C6 in Oh Susanna is a killer. Hang in there it will come with time. Don't worry so much about speed. Best thing is to concentrate on accuracy and smoothness.

Good luck and enjoy.

**Dio666** · 03-08-2016, 01:19 PM

The one chord from that C Group that is being really dificult for me to grab is X-14-X-13-14-13... C69#11...working that high in the fretboard makes my fingers to struggle there.

I would suggest playing those upper chords down an octave as well. I finished this book a few weeks ago and have been going through the real book since using his method. A lot of the melodies don't go that high up, so I wasn't using those upper forms much, but then it occurred to me to try them down an octave and I sometimes prefer that voicing to the standard lower voicing.

I have also gone through two of Robert Conti's "Play Pro Chord Melody Today" DVD's and they are a great supplement to this if you have the time. I completed "Since I Fell For You" and "God Bless the Child". They sound really great and it's encouraging to see he uses most of the same chord grips as he teaches in The Assembly Line. And I just received the "Indian Summer" DVD and Volume 3 of his Signature Chord Melodies books in the mail last night. I plan to slowly work through these as I continue to apply the Assembly Line method to more tunes. I also have The Formula and plan to start that in a couple of months.

I just hope that I can be an encouragement to you guys just starting out because I'm really happy with this method and style so far and I'm just a little ways ahead of you. I would like to record something and post it but I work long hours and have three small kids, so I'm pretty short on time, so it may be a while.

**Dio666** · 03-08-2016, 03:13 PM

How long did it take you to go through the book?

I think it only took me about two weeks, practicing one hour every day. But I usually pick one or two chord groups every day and run them up and down like he has you do in the book in order to help myself really memorize them. I've had to cheat and look in the book several times, but I feel like I'm close to having them all down cold now.

I like that rendition of "Since I Fell For You". The guitar playing sounds really nice.

**eduardosanz** · 03-08-2016, 05:45 PM

Wow... two weeks. Several members have m e ntion one month for Oh Susanah. I guess it is going to take much more

**matt.guitarteacher** · 03-08-2016, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by eduardosanz

Wow... two weeks. Several members have m e ntion one month for Oh Susanah. I guess it is going to take much more

How quickly you progress is all going to be dependent on how much you already know. If you already know many or most of the chords, then, it's just the process of putting them together and learning to relate to them melodically. If the majority of the chord forms are new to you, it will take longer.

But I wouldn't view that as being "slower" necessarily. It's just that others have done some of the work previously. There's no way around the initial time that it takes to learn any new chord form.

**Dio666** · 03-08-2016, 06:10 PM

The amount of time it takes probably depends on both your general guitar skill level when starting the book and the amount of time you have to practice. I consider myself a solid intermediate guitarist and I put in a good focused hour of practice every day. The concept is very simple, it's just a matter of getting the chord grips in both your head and your hands and then applying them. It first got tricky for me when the music starting containing chords not covered in the book, so you are required to transpose the chords you know to other keys, but that gets easier with practice. And I'm still getting a little bit better at it each day.

The first group of C Major chords seemed daunting at first, but after spending the first two days running up and down the chord scale and then starting to work through the exercises, the grips became familiar. Then I started the D Minor chords and they seemed daunting, and the cycle repeated. Before I knew it I was on the Danny Boy song and was done with the book.

It may seem like a lot of chords to learn, but I'm using the same grips over and over again, so many are starting to feel like old friends. Like I said, it's finding the correct grip in different keys that's the challenge, and I can see how that will become easy in time. (Lots of time probably).

Having learned three of Robert Conti's arrangements so far, (the free Amazing Grace plus two from his DVD's), I'm really motivated to get this down so I can get to his next book, "The Formula!". I think that is where the real fun is going to begin.

**goldenwave77** · 03-08-2016, 08:46 PM

[QUOTE=matt.guitarteacher;628003]How quickly you progress is all going to be dependent on how much you already know. If you already know many or most of the chords, then, it's just the process of putting them together and learning to relate to them melodically. If the majority of the chord forms are new to you, it will take longer.

Just to clarify re: my comment about playing "Oh Susannah" for a month. I would say that before I picked up this book, I knew probably 4 or 5 of these major chord forms...so my "knowledge" was pretty poor, and lacked cohesion. Probably I'd spent too much time worrying about single-line playing.

That is why I think Conti's approach is valuable: It gives you something that is limited and do-able, but still complete in its own terms. I think I knew more of the dominant forms, but still a lot of these were a revelation...BUT eminently learnable.

As I noted before, the power of chord melody stuff is that it gives you CONTEXT, and if you're starting from a lower level, as I was, it will start to make the fretboard "hang together".

**eduardosanz** · 03-09-2016, 08:05 AM

Don´t get me wrong. I am not in a hurry. I was just mesmerized of the diference in time.

My actual level is really low, and my daily time for practicing this matter is just 30 minutes, so I can not expect huge improvements in a short time, but that´s not a problem.

For the first time I am trully convinced to follow a methodology from A to Z and be able to actually play tunes. So I will keep working on it like an ant...

I keep practising the chords of the C Major Group up and down at just 30BPM, and keep playing Oh Susanah really slow and with no flow at all, even though the melody is beginning to be recognizable. I have tried too with the corny Frere Jacques.

I have to keep working in my articulation: I always play fingerstyle, and as so I notice that if a just play a "block" chord (the four strings at exactly the same time) the top melody note doesnt sound or rings clearly between the harmony of the chord, so I try and play a tiny bit arpeggiating the strings so to make the top melody note ring more clearly.

**MarkRhodes** · 03-09-2016, 10:30 AM

I took out my copy of "Assembly Line" and was surprised to discover that a few of the grips had slipped from working memory. That's okay: I can get them back.

The goal is to get this basic knowledge down and start working with it on tunes you like. Try eight bars from a fake book, any tune you like, whether it is a "must-know" tune or not, just something you like, and find a way to play it that makes you smile. If you can do that once, you can (eventually) do it a thousand times. Part of this is learning grips--which takes as long as it takes---and part of it is learning how you like to play tunes. Dont' worry that you have to put every grip you know in every tune you play.

Tell yourself: "This is not a test. This is a chance to play music."

**vintagelove** · 03-09-2016, 01:10 PM

Can anyone list the songs found in his assembly line book. Thanks

**Al Br.** · 03-09-2016, 02:22 PM

Have the book in front of me. Oh Susannah and Danny boy seem to be the only two.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 03-09-2016, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by vintagelove

Can anyone list the songs found in his assembly line book. Thanks

The assembly line is a how-to book. It's got those two public domain tunes , and then, a lot of 1-2 bar phrases from jazz standards throughout.

**MarkRhodes** · 03-09-2016, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher

The assembly line is a how-to book. It's got those two public domain tunes , and then, a lot of 1-2 bar phrases from jazz standards throughout.

Yeah. If you learn the grips, you can pick up a fakebook and make something of the changes you see there. It will be rudimentary at first. "The Formula" contains advanced you-can-use-this-at-a-paying-gig material, but first things first.