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Some of the things that I appreciate about Conti are:
Originally Posted by bobheff
1. His chords are never "finger busters" stretching across 6 or 7 frets. They are ALL playable and very doable in context with slow, deliberate practice.
2. He has a very complete presentation between "Assembly Line" and "The Formula".
3. He provides plenty of application of "The Formula" with his chord melody collection series and the "Pro Chord Melody DVD series, along with his "Just Jazz Guitar" collection of his chord melody articles and associated teaching videos from that magazine.
Over time, as you become comfortable playing with his approach, you will start experimenting with moving away from a chord for every melody note, thinning out where you wish to hear that and being as dense as you want where you hear that.
While working with this material, listen to a variety of solo chord melody players and also piano players. You want these to seep into your musical mind so you can start getting a feel for various ways to play the tunes.
With Conti's approach, you are always playing tunes and learning through that process. As he says in one of his videos, there are many paths to take, but hopefully they all lead to the same place - playing your instrument and making music.
So just relax, take it slow, and it will come. Get comfortable moving from one chord to the next and then from that chord to the next, and so on.
A guy named David Sudnow had a piano course teaching cocktail piano that was very similarly structured so you were "learning everything in the context of the tune" and always playing music. I learned to play piano that way. He talked at length in his course about how to practice and it pretty much boiled down to being able to move smoothly from one chord to the next by practicing "on time, perfectly" so you don't teach your hands to make mistakes.
Tony
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05-31-2023 07:28 PM
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Just taking it at face value, it seems counter-intuitive.
Doing more and reducing to less, as opposed to the opposite - when more is, well, more challenging.
It seems like a perfect pedagogical recipe for inspiring resignation.
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Hmmm. What is the end goal here? For me it is playing songs EVEN if it means simplifying a chord melody arrangement. As noted Conti himself is a proponent of this. The suggestion about adding more and more chords as you can seems much more fun then struggling through a dense chordal arrangement a grip at a time. A well played melody can stand on its own even without any harmonization. Less is more. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
The goal is making “music” no?
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@Jazzjourney4Eva
I'm only at the very beginning of Conti's introductory course ("Source code") where he gives a grip that can go below any melody note for a given chord type (he begins with major) and then has you practice that on the first few measures of a simple tune. It's really meant to illustrate a simple recipe for harmonising a melody & not intended to suggest that you play a melody this way for the purposes of actually making music. Suggestions for actually writing arrangements are largely (I think) in the followup course.
Conti's approach suits somebody like me because I'm a hobby player with little time for practice. It gives me a fairly limited and achievable goal to use as a platform to launch from. If I had the time I might be more inclined to take a different approach: e.g. learn all my triad, drop2, drop3 etc. voicings in all inversions taking note of which interval is in top, supplement these with some other voicings & slowly learn to use these to write tasteful arrangements.
In hindsight, the title I gave this thread may be misleading. I'm not really practicing "chord melody" so much as I am trying to build up the chordal chops that are needed for this. Specifically: having a chord ring out and then smoothly (and quietly) switching to the next chord with no break in between (insofar as this is possible).
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Good points. This series of Conti books is the "Source Code" series. His stated intention is that this series teaches HOW he arrives at the material in his other series (both DVD and book) for soloing and for chord melody. Think of it as when you write code for a piece of software, that is the source code, which you then compile into an executable program. The "source code" in Conti's products consists of the books and DVDs that walk you through how he creates the "executable programs". The "executable program" in Conti's products would be the DVDs and books that take you through playing a tune that he has arranged as a chord melody solo or created a solo to blow over changes with. Originally Posted by bobheff
The three books applicable to chord melody in the Source Code series are "Chord Melody Assembly Line" (which you are currently working through), "The Formula" which you would work through next, and "Intros, Endings, and Turn-arounds" which you can get to at your leisure when you are already arranging and playing chord melody versions of tunes and want to expand to polish them a bit.
To me, the real value of "Assembly Line" is that Conti specifically structured it for self-teaching. In that book, he greatly limits you to one "correct answer" for each musical situation so there is no guesswork or chance of getting it wrong. The problem (in my opinion) with working alone (i.e. without the guidance of a teacher being right there to answer questions) is that you may not really know if you are doing it right (i.e. getting out of the book or DVD what the teacher intended). With "Assembly Line", in each musical situation, there is only one cord form for each melody note. When you finish the book, you should be able to just sit down with a lead sheet and create similar chord melody arrangements. Grab a fakebook and just crank them out. When you can do this (I suggest doing this with 15 or 20 such tunes to really get a feel for it), you are ready for "The Formula".
In "The Formula", you will learn how to build on what you learned in "Assembly Line" to generate all manner of chords under the same melody line so you never have to play it the same way twice. What Conti says is that when playing for a general audience, you can't take off on freely improvising (blowing over changes) because that audience wants to hear the melody. So instead, you can improvise under the melody with the harmony, and "The Formula" shows you how to do that. What you end up with, having gone through that book, is arrangements very much like those in his "Signature" chord melody series of arrangement books and "Pro Chord Melody" DVDs so you can do it yourself.
You are still being presented with a chord under every melody note, and it is up to you to change that texture as you feel from one moment to the next. Some people will criticize Conti's approach, but then there are many other approaches to learning chord melody that people can take. Hopefully, in the end, we all end up in the same place - playing tunes that we arranged instead of always being dependent on some book to provide arrangements for us to play. Based on what you have said, I think you understand what Conti can do for your particular situation and it seems to me that his is a good match for your needs. I would suggest that you:
1. Purchase both "The Formula" and "Intros, Endings, and Turn-arounds", and maybe a book or two of his arrangements so you can see/play through what the result of "The Formula" will be for you in real life application.
2. Continue to arrange at least one or more tunes a day to continue exploring and building on what you have learned.
3. Continue to listen to other guitar and piano players to get a sense of how they work out arrangements. Some take the dense chordal approach, while others vary texture in a variety of ways. The bottom line is that you play it the way you want to hear it.
TonyLast edited by tbeltrans; 06-01-2023 at 11:16 AM.
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yeah, I was responding to the comment above where it says over time you reduce chords, not add them. In other words it appears that the approach is to start with a chord for every melody note, then reduce for musical reasons. That’s what seems backwards to me, IF that’s the approach. But that’s just one person’s opinion. Originally Posted by alltunes
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right that’s where the Eschete and Thomas books can help. The first has melodies on top and the second is just chord changes with strong voice leading. Originally Posted by bobheff
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Thats how I practice most things, I think. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
If I want to get better at something, I do it as much as possible. So if that means harmonizing a melody note, I want to do that as many times as humanly possible *while I’m practicing.* There are about eighty threads in progress about the Super Chops book right now … you could liken what the Conti folks on here are describing to the idea of playing continuous eighth notes for several choruses of a tune. Does it sound good? No. Is it music? No.
But it’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be practice and, when the time comes to solo, those eighth notes will be coming far more readily.
When I describe this kind of practice to a student, I always ask them if they’ve ever watched a baseball game and seen the batter on deck swinging a bat with a donut on the end. Why would you put a weight on the end of the bat when it makes it so much harder to swing? Because it’ll feel light as a feather when you take it off.
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Thanks for the thoughtful response. I still don’t like it though. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
That is, I make a distinction between so-called “single note soloing” and soloing with chords. Analogies are just that, analogies.
The alternative approach is to “start with the end in mind”. And that is - good sounding music. Pounding a chord on every melody note - of a head - sounds like crap in many if not most situations. This is homophonic music. The accompaniment needs to “stay in it’s lane”, lol. It needs to support, not compete.
The OP does not have time to do two arrangements per day. As of 2023 there are plenty of good resources for chord melody solos/arrangements. (Even Leavitt’s books from decades ago, but there are many, many more.)
What I believe to be much more practical for non-pros is to; (1) learn a decent set of “jazz chords”, (2) work on comping - with a metronome, (3) learn some simple to intermediate solo guitar arrangements, (4) learn/refresh your harmony knowledge , and (5) begin the process of preparing your own arrangements.
John Thomas’ book helps tremendously with #2, and John Baboian has a nice class for #5. There are lots of sources for #1 and #3.
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This thread reminds me of a famous quote:
”Time on the instrument” - Pierre
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I realize this is an older thread, but to address the OP's original request for help I can suggest this advice from George Van Eps that helped me correct the same problem that the OP is experiencing :
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George Van Eps :
....
It is important to remember that the exercises in this book should be practiced very legato. In order
to do so, the notes must be given their full value and must be connected with no pause between them. The
changes from formation to formation must be executed in the least amount of time. Do not stint the value
of the notes in order to give you time to make the next formation. In making these quick shifts, do
not rush the tempo. Plant your fingers solidly and firmly on the fingerboard. After releasing the pressure
on a formation get used to forming the next position while the hand is in motion. Do not wait until the
hand arrives at the location before forming the fingers. This saves time and naturally goes hand in hand with
the legato principle.
The reason legato is being stressed so much is because it is the hardest form of phrasing for the guitar.
Stacatto, the reverse,is the natural form and therefore the easiest one. In practicing legato remember to
re-apply the pressure for each formation. Do not slide around holding the pressure,yet do not to to the
extreme by lifting the fingers too far off the strings during the change. Eliminate all waste motion with
the fingers. The closer they are to the fingerboard, the less time it takes to place them. The mechanics
of these exercises have been carefully planned and tested....
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Thanks for the response va3ux.
What book is the quote from? The exercises mentioned may well be the sort of thing I was initially looking for.
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That is from the George Van Eps Guitar Method, published in 1939. Freely available on the web and print version is still available too. The exercises absolutely will help with dexterity and technique. The 'Old Man' had the mind of an engineer : disciplined, analytical, methodical. Follow his advice and pay particular attention to his General Instructions at the beginning, particularly pages 4 & 5. I didn't do the whole book; I think I went up to exercise 25 or 26. I really made progress when I did this stuff. The fingerings were a challenge at first. Originally Posted by bobheff
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I came into jazz from the fingerstyle/chet atkins world. While I'm struggling to learn how to improvise, I'd say that chords/"chord melody" (really just solo playing) came easier to me after years of attempting to transcribe and play difficult chet atkins tunes. Here is what I would suggest to you as the most efficient method:
1. If you like that book, keep going through it and work on the chord changes. The best advice ever I got from Jody Fisher- stop trying to learn hard chord shapes with the off/on/off/on thing we do. It works well for the first few chords we learn but with more advanced voicings, try forming the shape slowly, one finger at a time, and then holding it really hard for 30 seconds at a time, 5-6x a day. After a few days youll find this helps your fingers grab the voicings way better than the alternative.
2. Play melody lines you like, short ones for now, and then try to harmonize every note. Limit yourself though, or youll be lost/ overwhelmed: eg, only harmonize with 3rds/7ths, only harmonize with bass notes, only with drop 2 voicings, etc. If you dont know what those are, then thats where you can start.
3. Learn solo arrangements from your favorite players. Try to play them well because its fun to recite them, but focus less on perfection and more about analyzing and understanding the structure, theory, and choices in their piece. If there are especially difficult parts, work those up. But dont treat it like a classical piece that must be played 100% perfect.
4. Learn how to harmonize the major scale with different chords. Play a major scale on the top two strings, but harmonize each note with diatonic chords. then repeat this when youre ready with more advanced chords
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