Robert Conti's jazz guitar method (no scales, no modes)

[NSJ]

Again, I think it's fair to say that you could make the same claim about Mickey Baker, William Leavitt , Jody Fisher, Ted Green etc. etc. etc. They don't necessarily ONLY teach the fundamentals of how chords are made , though they may at times.

At a certain point you have to know how to build voicings and such. There's no getting around it, but there's also no arguing the fact that 98% of all jazz guitarists learned a great many voicings by rote from old guitar players or from methods such as these.

I have to tell you, I never read a single page of Baker, Leavitt, Fisher etc. or any kind of method book. i first picked up the guitar to learn to play the guitar as well as Jazz at the same time, as an older adult. Pretty much right before I joined this website. So I studied with a private teacher for a few years. Learning from the ground up . I guess that makes me a weirdo.

But I learned how to pick up and approach stuff systematically: like with chords -- Break up the fingerboard into string sets, always start from the lowest note to the highest note, from the nut to the 12th fret.

I have the Ted Greene chord chemistry as well as the George v Eps harmonic mechanisms all three volumes. These are basically reference books, turn to a page, find something interesting, work with it, move it around the fingerboard, apply it to Lines, tunes, Progressions , steal it .

One thing I've discovered : you can practice 1 million things, but the bread-and-butter is the stuff that comes through regularly without thinking, all the stuff that you've fully internalized. Which is probably a fraction of everything that's been learned.

I guess with chords -- there's always 1 million voicings, but for me what I have internalized to a certain extent ( everything's a work in progress of course ) are all the triads, triad inversions, spread triads, and 24 Versions of drop two, three, 2 and 4 for each type of chord.

[MarkRhodes]

I think a critique of Conti's method is as follows is

1. It's basically plug and chug without really understanding why and trying to come to grips with music as harmony that's related to Melody . Instead of trying to understand music in a fundamental sense and come to grips with it, you basically get a series of grips you can just throw in. If one spends the time to understand how chords are built, you wouldn't need any of those plug-n-chug stuff.

This is certainly one approach but it needs to be said that Pat Martino was gigging (-gigging!) before he knew the names of the chords he was playing, let alone the scales. He learned to reproduce the sounds he heard on records. He didn't know the names of those things. I'm not sure Wes did either. (And Pat has his share of "plug and chug" licks. So did Charlie Parker.)

Conti is not anti-academic. He knows what he's doing. His emphasis is on playing. He believes that if you understand music theory but can't play, you're not much of a player. If you can play, you may not be ready to teach music theory, but if your goal is to play, so what? (Think of the good novelists who are not prepared to teach creative writing at the college level, and also of the many who teach creative writing at that level but who can't write good novels, or poetry, or drama.) It seems that people who learn to actually play know / learn / intuit / pick up the theory they need.

Frank Vignola---who can hang with anyone---recently said, "One of the keys to learning how to improvise freely is to first build a large vocabulary of licks, over a variety of jazz styles, which you'll eventually make your own." Frank knows his theory (-his "Modern Guitar Method" course is thorough) but he learned to play first. (I think he was gigging in his teens.) Bucky PIzzarelli was on the road before he finished high school.

This approach worked for Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino and Grant Green... (Not that they were students of Conti but that they came up the same way: playing, learning to make the sounds they heard on records come out of their guitars, learning tunes, getting gigs and learning how to entertain crowds.)

[mr. beaumont]

I think for most folks, there needs to be a balance...we talk about the greats, how they learned...but these were some of the greatest musicians of all time...with some of the best ears ever. Are we really expecting the same results?

It's also different what you hone your ear on. Many of these greats went right into jazz, or at least were playing jazz early on. Many of us here played three chord rock tunes for 20 years before we even thought about playing jazz. That skews the learning process.

What I like about Conti's teaching is the focus on playing music (though I'd forcibly remove an eyeball before I'd spend a month learning "Oh Susanna")...that gets lost a lot...jazz is MUSIC. MUSIC is SONGS, not techniques, charts, graphs, etc.

I learned jazz (well, what I know of it, I'm no expert) mostly on my own and from a piano player. He told me to do everything I possibly could by ear, best advice I ever got. I remember telling him I had worked out a "chord melody" to Misty, and he looked at me as if to say "You want a medal or something? I play harmony and melody simultaneously all the time." Then I played it for him and he said, "ok, work out 5 more, don't get cute and start getting too complicated and playing them the same way every time, this is jazz, not a party trick." He'd ask all the time "what tunes are you working on?" Never "What voicings are you working on?"

Best advice I ever got. So because I wasn't going to get the theory side from him (He'd often tell me what I "could" do, but rarely why, just how) it was up to me to figure out the "why." Before I joined internet forums, I thought I had invented drop 2 and drop 3 voicings. I actually didn't know there was a system to how they were formed, I just knew they were playable! Ah, ignorance is bliss, huh?

[MarkRhodes]

What I like about Conti's teaching is the focus on playing music (though I'd forcibly remove an eyeball before I'd spend a month learning "Oh Susanna")...that gets lost a lot...jazz is MUSIC. MUSIC is SONGS, not techniques, charts, graphs, etc.

Conti talked to Wes once after a set in a club in Philadelphia. He said Wes's advice was, "Play as much as you can and learn good tunes." Conti's main emphasis is "Play the guitar!" It's an activity. You have to do it. And you apply it to songs. (That's an emphasis that Bucky Pizzarelli and Frank Vignola made in a clinic in, I believe, Toronto. They had just finished "Fly Me To The Moon" and Frank said, "Every turnaround you need to know is in that song!" Then Bucky went on a riff about taking one song, playing it for a week, then ripping the page out of your fakebook and throwing it away. He's all about internalizing tunes.)

There is a caveat here: if you don't want to play standards----if you don't want to play in that tradition---then you'll have to find another path. But if what you want to do is play jazz standards, I think the best way is to start learning tunes and playing them over and over. Then start playing around with them. They become part of you. Gradually you notice how this part of one tune is like that part of another one, and that this cool line could also work somewhere else. Obviously, if you don't want to 'make the changes,' this won't help you! ;o)

When people ask to hear you play, they want to hear you play songs. If you say you don't know any songs they wonder, "What the hell have you been doing all these years?" (I'm not directing this at anyone here personally. It was once true of me.)

Great story of Mimi Fox going to Joe Pass for a lesson. He asked her to "play something." She did. "Play something else." She went through a half dozen things. He said, "Thank f*#@ing God. You have no idea how many guys come to me for lessons and they can't get through a single tune!" (Something like that.)

[goldenwave77]

What I like about Conti's teaching is the focus on playing music (though I'd forcibly remove an eyeball before I'd spend a month learning "Oh Susanna")...

When I say "learn" to play this, let me be clear. To learn the basic melody takes a few minutes, at most, if you've heard it before, as most people in this country have. To learn the 6 different chord forms, that Conti wants you to use, takes a bit longer...at least a week, if you haven't analyzed chord forms up the neck, because he's giving you A chord forms, C chord forms, and E chord forms. (If you want to play everything up an octave, then you need to double this, esp. as the higher neck chord forms are unfamiliar to most people.)

To learn to play, and do the chord changes, quickly, fluidly and smoothly, at tempo, takes much longer, with a chord change on every note. That's where my 2 months comes in.

Conti's general teaching style...is to present full, chord changes for each note...so when he gives you 5 or 6 different 2-5-I's with alterations, and some substitutions, as he does in The Formula Book, for each lesson of the 20 or so, in that book, it just takes a while to get the finger fluidity. But he is very, very fluid in his shifts....not everyone will choose to play in his style, but he is right in that fluidity, and technique will build over time.

In his Intro's Endings and Turnarounds book, he gives 125 "gridded out" e.g.'s of common chord progressions and movements, with accompanying melody note movements. So, you learn the sounds, you get them under your fingers, and you'll understand as much theory as you need to. Honestly, for altered dominants, I hear the alterations as just added "spice notes", and if you hear a sharp 5 dominant setting up a movement to a minor chord, it's pretty straightforward stuff. But once again, to build the finger shifting facility just takes time, and surely it does come.

[snailspace]

To learn to play, and do the chord changes, quickly, fluidly and smoothly, at tempo, takes much longer, with a chord change on every note. That's where my 2 months comes in.

When I started working on The Chord Melody Assembly Line, I remembered I also had the Play Pro Chord Melody Today! DVD (which I hadn't done much with before that time). Once I completed Chord Group 1/Lesson 1 in CMAL, I started to see what was going on, and wanted to get started on a real tune. Pro Chord Melody helped me to see the method in action on something I'd want to play for someone, and got me excited about learning the next lessons in CMAL. I'm about 1/4 of the way through it now, but it's already got me thinking about tunes I want to work on, and how many different ways they can be played. It's a ton of fun -- because I'm finally starting to get it, after all these years -- and I wish I'd started sooner.

[West LA Jazz]

Regarding whether Conti's teaching is "up to snuff" or not or whether his chords are clunky or his chord melody induces bad rhythm.

I think you might be missing the point entirely. There is a WHOLE world out there, and by that I mean students who will never grace a bandstand in it's purest sense. To them Conti is a GOD SEND. He shows them what CAN BE and then the thirstiest of these students will take those teaching and go on to find their moorings in a musical world. Some of them will play as if they never learned a single chord from Conti. Why? It's because they used Conti to understand other teachers they couldn't understand until they met a Conti DVD.

It's when Hans from Germany comes to America or England not speaking a lick of english. He watches Arnold's movies to learn the basics of english or he watches Eastenders if he's in the UK. Now, Arnold's movies may not win an Oscar but boy they're everywhere. Luckily, Hans has a creative mind and so the little english that Arnold imparts via his movies turns Hans into one heck of a heat seeking guitar player. HE SEES WHAT CAN BE. He uses that block of knowledge to grow and become the best Hans can be. If that is the case, then Mr Conti has succeeded on a par much greater than the hundreds of college trained musicians who end up discarding their degree to work in other fields.

I get it, a many of you fine blog neighbors are used to Mercedes benz, but Kia makes a mighty fine car and guess what? Kia sells more cars than Mercedes to boot!

Try to entertain this thought from Han's point of view.

And I thank you, kindly!

[snailspace]

Regarding whether Conti's teaching is "up to snuff" or not or whether his chords are clunky or his chord melody induces bad rhythm.

I think you might be missing the point entirely. There is a WHOLE world out there, and by that I mean students who will never grace a bandstand in it's purest sense. To them Conti is a GOD SEND. He shows them what CAN BE and then the thirstiest of these students will take those teaching and go on to find their moorings in a musical world. Some of them will play as if they never learned a single chord from Conti. Why? It's because they used Conti to understand other teachers they couldn't understand until they met a Conti DVD.

It's when Hans from Germany comes to America or England not speaking a lick of english. He watches Arnold's movies to learn the basics of english or he watches Eastenders if he's in the UK. Now, Arnold's movies may not win an Oscar but boy they're everywhere. Luckily, Hans has a creative mind and so the little english that Arnold imparts via his movies turns Hans into one heck of a heat seeking guitar player. HE SEES WHAT CAN BE. He uses that block of knowledge to grow and become the best Hans can be. If that is the case, then Mr Conti has succeeded on a par much greater than the hundreds of college trained musicians who end up discarding their degree to work in other fields.

I get it, a many of you fine blog neighbors are used to Mercedes benz, but Kia makes a mighty fine car and guess what? Kia sells more cars than Mercedes to boot!

Try to entertain this thought from Han's point of view.

And I thank you, kindly!

That's been the case with me. I have a ton of books, and -- although I learned a little from each of them -- they were the cure for insomnia when it came to understanding how to make music and play tunes. Literally. On more than one occasion (since I do much of my practicing after my wife and kids have gone to bed), I have actually started to doze off, guitar in hand, while playing some teacher's ii-V-I lesson, or another one's chord inversion exercise. When I tried to use what knew about arpeggios and target notes to improvise, the going was so laboriously slow (hence the "snailspace" username_ that I'd just set the instrument down and go to bed, promising myself I'd do better tomorrow -- if I felt like practicing at all.

Right now, I'm working on one of Conti's chord melody DVDs, and instead of reading about concepts, I'm applying them -- at the tune level -- and seeing what's happening under my fingers and hearing it in my ears as I work through an actual piece of real music that I'll be glad to play for anyone, once I finish learning it.

On this DVD, Conti explains plenty about what's going on, but it's mostly about making your own discoveries while playing. He says, "And by learning all these chord forms, what happens is your interest in the harmony starts developing, and it's so much easier to learn harmony and theory. It's not complicated, like some people like to make you think. It's mathematics -- it's simple math. Once you understand the math of harmony, it's a walk in the park."

Maybe other people have learned in other ways. Good for them. However, for any method they recommend, I've already tried it -- or some reasonable facsimile -- and it put me to sleep. Conti keeps me awake -- so much so that my wife worries that I'm not getting enough sleep. Not only that, but his materials will make me look forward to getting my instrument out of the case when I wake up tomorrow.

[West LA Jazz]

That's been the case with me. I have a ton of books, and -- although I learned a little from each of them -- they were the cure for insomnia when it came to understanding how to make music and play tunes. Literally. On more than one occasion (since I do much of my practicing after my wife and kids have gone to bed), I have actually started to doze off, guitar in hand, while playing some teacher's ii-V-I lesson, or another one's chord inversion exercise. When I tried to use what knew about arpeggios and target notes to improvise, the going was so laboriously slow (hence the "snailspace" username_ that I'd just set the instrument down and go to bed, promising myself I'd do better tomorrow -- if I felt like practicing at all.

Right now, I'm working on one of Conti's chord melody DVDs, and instead of reading about concepts, I'm applying them -- at the tune level -- and seeing what's happening under my fingers and hearing it in my ears as I work through an actual piece of real music that I'll be glad to play for anyone, once I finish learning it.

On this DVD, Conti explains plenty about what's going on, but it's mostly about making your own discoveries while playing. He says, "And by learning all these chord forms, what happens is your interest in the harmony starts developing, and it's so much easier to learn harmony and theory. It's not complicated, like some people like to make you think. It's mathematics -- it's simple math. Once you understand the math of harmony, it's a walk in the park."

Maybe other people have learned in other ways. Good for them. However, for any method they recommend, I've already tried it -- or some reasonable facsimile -- and it put me to sleep. Conti keeps me awake -- so much so that my wife worries that I'm not getting enough sleep. Not only that, but his materials will make me look forward to getting my instrument out of the case when I wake up tomorrow.

One day, there shall be a child prodigy who will appear for the first time on the number one rated late night show in the country. This late night show might be on Amazon, Netflix, Hulu or an unnamed portal yet to be created. This prodigy will point to a particular discovery on Daddy's shelf that opened up a whole new universe.
This was the moment the prodigy decided to study the guitar for a lifetime.
When the late night show host asks the prodigy what this discovery was, the prodigy will utter the words, "it was this device called a DVD and I had to hunt around for a DVD player. Luckily, I found one at a pawn shop. When I put the DVD in, this older gentleman talked about learning the guitar as if he were from an old Martin Scorsese movie and boy did he light up that fretboard. And get a load of this!!! What he was saying made ALL THE SENSE IN THE WORLD to me. It was as if he was sent through time to turn on the light in my head. This was the moment when I knew I would try to make a living playing this instrument. And the rest is history". (Audience claps. Fade to commercial).

You heard it here first.

[mispeltyoof]

Couldn't agree more. Although you do realise that if you're enjoying it it can't be proper jazz you're working on ????

[pluck]

best thing i ever did was to buy Conti's books. its a lot of fun learning from them


Pluuck

[snailspace]

best thing i ever did was to buy Conti's books. its a lot of fun learning from them


Pluuck

I agree -- what books are you working on now? I'm doing a combination of Ticket To Improv, Volume One, The Precision Technique, and The Chord Melody Assembly Line.

[CliveR]

Conti's "The Jazz Lines" is the best Jazz guitar book/Cd I've bought.

[pluck]

i'm working on"Chord Melody Assembly Line" I lhave the formula and on jaorder is Precision Technique. I' woking on getting the C Major Chord group up to speed Ill hopefully have that done in a couple of weeks and can getcomplete lesson one to my satisfaction

Pluuck

[West LA Jazz]

i'm working on"Chord Melody Assembly Line" I lhave the formula and on jaorder is Precision Technique. I' woking on getting the C Major Chord group up to speed Ill hopefully have that done in a couple of weeks and can getcomplete lesson one to my satisfaction

Pluuck

Great thing about what you're doing is this. I worked on the 5 to 6 chord shapes groups that he asks you to do before diving into the chord melody book his has. I went through this three years ago but I was greedy so to speak. I was working on the single lines books too. I ended up becoming comfortable with moving the chord shapes from fret to fret and even jumping around. And then forgot most of that after I went back to focusing on single lines. Two things about what I did. Learning chord forms the way he had them are great. Even if you forget them as in sequencing them the way he has on paper, the FACILITY that you gain stays with you and helps in different situations. The other thing is that since I didn't move on to playing whole songs with them, I didn't retain them however, if I were to sit down and try to learn a song using those chord patterns, I would be able to after a while of practice.

Conti's chords help me navigate to the "skinner" kind of chord melody my ear seems to prefer. Conti is able to make his style jump of the fretboard. My ears hear melodies differently so I use his teaching to aid my fretboard facility.

All in all, it's learning and it's all good! Keep up the good words.

[snailspace]

i'm working on"Chord Melody Assembly Line" I lhave the formula and on jaorder is Precision Technique. I' woking on getting the C Major Chord group up to speed Ill hopefully have that done in a couple of weeks and can getcomplete lesson one to my satisfaction

Pluuck

+1 to the comment by WestLAJazz. To that, I'll add a suggestion to keep reviewing previously learned chord groups after you've moved on to other ones. I'm on Chord Group 4 --the minor 7th chord groups -- this week, but Reference 4 revealed to me that I had forgotten some of the chords in the first three groups. I had to take extra time to go back and review the others, and now I make that review part of my daily practice time with the book. Nothing extensive -- just playing each group up and down the neck 2-3 times to keep them in memory.

Now that I'm review the old while practicing the new, I'm finding I hardly have to look at the book when going over Chord Groups 1-3 . . . just a quick check now and again to make sure I haven't left any out.

Personally, I didn't spend a great deal of time on Reference 1-3 after I had learned each of the first three chord groups. I practiced them so I could make sure I was putting the correct chord under each melody note, then played the reference until I was "kind of smooth" with it, but didn't worry about making it fluent. I just played it enough to see how the method worked, then moved on to the next chord group. I want to learn all of the chords, so I can start using them on tunes I want to play . . . then I'll worry about being fluent.

Glad you're enjoying the book!

[West LA Jazz]

+1 to the comment by WestLAJazz. To that, I'll add a suggestion to keep reviewing previously learned chord groups after you've moved on to other ones. I'm on Chord Group 4 --the minor 7th chord groups -- this week, but Reference 4 revealed to me that I had forgotten some of the chords in the first three groups. I had to take extra time to go back and review the others, and now I make that review part of my daily practice time with the book. Nothing extensive -- just playing each group up and down the neck 2-3 times to keep them in memory.

Now that I'm review the old while practicing the new, I'm finding I hardly have to look at the book when going over Chord Groups 1-3 . . . just a quick check now and again to make sure I haven't left any out.

Personally, I didn't spend a great deal of time on Reference 1-3 after I had learned each of the first three chord groups. I practiced them so I could make sure I was putting the correct chord under each melody note, then played the reference until I was "kind of smooth" with it, but didn't worry about making it fluent. I just played it enough to see how the method worked, then moved on to the next chord group. I want to learn all of the chords, so I can start using them on tunes I want to play . . . then I'll worry about being fluent.

Glad you're enjoying the book!

Snailspace is right on point! It's amazing how being "fluent" in the chord groups does to your imagination, playing and even listening to other players. I was listening to Joe Pass Virtuoso 2 the other day. He does a solo version of ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET. Hearing some of the chords and lines took me back to Conti lessons. I could "see" what Joe was doing. Outlining chords and the melody with tools I was familiar with. What a concept and eye opening to boot!

Before I stumbled in desperation on Conti, I was attracted to the teaching of Vic Juris.
Let me be the first to say that this man is one BAAD GUITAR PLAYER and very unassuming and self effacing but a monster player.

Some of his stuff is pure music to my ears but DIFFICULT to play or assimilate. His fingerings have obviously been figured out over a lifetime and here I come trying to cop them overnight. WHEW.
Well, Conti broke all Juris's stuff down for me without me realizing it. It's an ear and fingering metamorphosis. In the beginning, (even after becoming "fluent" on the fretboard), it was even a challenge to apply some Ticket to Improv stuff to real life situations (freestyle). Trying to swing (rhythm), facility on the fretboard and inject the lessons at will while trying to add your personal twist and modify (on the fly). It's a journey. This intense dissatisfaction and struggle with technique sent me to Conti's PRECISION TECHNIQUE. After a few months with the technique book, I started to 'see' things in better perspective.

To be honest, even though things became easier, I had to contend with the fact that Conti at his age is still more fleet fingered than I was at a lot of fretboard navigational things. He's been doing this a looong time.

I started figuring out how to omit certain things (Chunks, chord notes, single notes etc) to fit where I was (technically) at that particular time while simultaneously thinking about how I was grooving and if I liked what I heard myself playing. I have a vision of what I'd like to be playing but it's a transcontinental flight away most nights when I play.

Loosely translated, even after becoming "fluent" in playing chords, notes what-have-you,...it took me a long time to play (to my liking) some of the things I learned from Conti. At times it became downright frustrating. Fluency is the first step. Making them fit your groove and essentially owning them in mid flight is a whole other level to strive for. Fun, but challenging (for me at least).

Keep on Keeping On people and God's speed!!

[PerpetualJoe]

The Conti books just click for me. I've had teachers from well-regarded Arts programs/universities and they talked over me, made me feel bad about my playing, and simply acted in a way that made me feel like they were just reaffirming their special status as serious, credentialed jazz musicians. The stuff Conti gets you might be crude in some ways, but the thought process behind it is pretty good - just start playing, here's what you can do with that fake book. I'm an adult learning who didn't have a trust fund and 4 years to spend on a university education in music. If people are knocking Conti's materials I really believe it's because they don't believe jazz music should be accessible. I've had teachers like this who seemed like they didn't want to tell me anything or give me any tools I could use to improve my playing except for rote theoretical exercises...

[tbeltrans]

I have to say that I am happy to see this thread is still alive and well. I went through "Assembly Line" back when it was a book without the DVDs, and then years later revisited it with the DVDs. I have revisited "The Formula" a coupe of times too.

I have a daily warm-up that consists of:

1. Ted Greene's exercise to learn the notes on the fretboard as detailed in "Chord Chemistry" - essentially pick a note at random and find it all over the fretboard. I pick one note every day because it keeps the fretboard ever fresh for me. In this manner, I don't favor any so-called "easy keys" for the exercises that follow below. If I picked C#, then everything below is done with the key of C#.

2. Use that note as the root for playing through the CAGED forms and then the major scale form for each CAGED chord form, and then play that scale along each string (this idea came from Mick Goodrick's "Advancing Guitarist").

3. Play through all of the Conti chord groups.

4. Pick a tune at random in a fakebook and play a chord melody. Do it again, do it again, as many times as I feel that day. This is not writing anything down, but simply playing because I know the forms so well and it doesn't matter what key the tune is in.

That constitutes my daily warmup. It doesn't take long. Items 1 - 3 only take a total of about 5 minutes and item 4 takes as long as I want to continue whipping up tunes. Items 1 and 2 are simply my way of organizing the fretboard so I keep fresh in mind where everything is. We each find our own way to do this, and this is mine.

I know that Conti isn't about scales and exercises. However, this daily practice is a kind of meditative thing that helps me transition from daily life to the practice room mindset. For more about that, read George Leonard's book "Mastery".

What takes longer are the activities that follow, which are all about playing real music. I will pick a tune at random in a fakebook and apply the ideas learned in "The Formula" to it to "doll it up", as Conti often calls it. I will either run through one of Conti's Pro Chord Melody DVDs as a review, his "Just Jazz Guitar" chord melody lessons, or a tune from one of his books of chord melody arrangements.

All this serves as a review of "The Formula" in action. In each case, which ever I choose to do that day, I will analyze what ideas from "The Formula" Conti used to create the arrangement. This analysis only takes a few minutes at most since I am quite familiar with the material. However, I find that constantly reviewing this material not only helps to drill it into my hands and thinking process, but I always seem to come away with new ideas for things to try in my own chord melody playing.

As is probably obvious by now, my guitar interest is chord melody playing without having to memorize somebody else's arrangement or even my own. My goal has been and still is to open a fakebook and just play something on the spot. For me, that is fun and not work. I have little interest in "playing over changes" or how fast I can play or performing or making videos. I do this for my own satisfaction. Some people build models, others garden, others solve crossword or Sudoku puzzles, still others collect stamps. I play chord melody.

If folks want to get an idea of what Conti is doing with the way he teaches and arranges chord melody, he suggests you listen to the Singers Unlimited (watch the first DVD of "The Formula") and start really hearing their harmony as they apply it to various tunes of various styles. Fortunately, I found a complete box set of their CDs locally and can say they are worth listening to. It will help you understand what Conti is about with his approach to chord melody.

Tony

[neonshaker]

Amazing to see this thread still going.

Conti and Frank Vignola are the only guys that have got me close to sounding "jazz". So much so that I have found myself coming back to my Conti courses (and consequently this forum after a hiatus which was why I was so surprised to see this thread on the first page).

Something quite meditative about learning one of his solos from the Ticket to Improv series.

[tbeltrans]

To me, if a teacher's approach to teaching matches your particular learning style, then real learning can take place.

My theory about the "bell curve" used to categorize students' performance in school has more to do with the teaching environment matching the student's learning style than being a reflection on a student's intelligence or level of motivation. Not everybody thrives in a classroom situation or with typical classroom lecture teaching styles. This can be seen in particular when a given student absolutely thrives in a particular teacher's class environment and does poorly in other classes. Of course there can be many factors such as the particular student's interest in the subject matter, but there are teachers who are able to transcend that particular problem and draw the student in.

Robert Conti's focus is on getting the student playing music as quickly as possible, hence, his "no scales, no modes" approach. He says that when the student is actually playing music, s/he will then be more motivated to learn what is behind the music and even more importantly, will be more able to understand it because s/he can readily relate that information to what is already being played.

For me, this teacher's approach to teaching matches well with my learning style.

I took guitar lessons on two occasions as an adult. The first was shortly after I got married in the early 1980s. I wanted to learn chord melody. The teacher had me spend an entire summer working through the Mel Bay Johnny Smith book. I spent hours very day practicing those scales, arpeggios, and chords with no explanation of what I was doing or why - just do it. The "carrot" for me that was offered by my teacher was that at the end of the summer, we would then apply all this to chord melody. The end of the summer finally arrived and the teacher took a job in Japan and was gone before we could apply any of this stuff. I contacted a number of other teacher sin the area, but they all had their own methods and wanted me to scrap all the work I had done and start over with their favorite books and methods. I wasn't about to do that so I almost gave up playing altogether.

Instead, I muddled around, finding a bit of this and that to fool around with on the guitar.

A number of years later, I did find another teacher who would teach chord melody playing. What he did was to teach me by rote, his own chord melody arrangements with no explanation of how they were put together or how to approach learning to do such arrangements myself, or how to apply what I already knew, to the process. Instead, it was rote learning to wiggle my fingers so the song came out. After a few such tunes, I realized I was still getting nowhere beyond put a quarter in me and out comes the same song, the same way, every time.

Finally, I saw an ad for Conti's "Assembly Line" book. Somehow, his approach made sense to me, so I went for it. We were just leaving on a 10 day cruise when his book arrived. I took his book and a travel guitar with me on the cruise. At the end of the 10 days, I had devoured that book and was able to start putting together my own arrangements.

Conti and I started conversing occasionally on the phone a bit later on. His "Formula" was about to be released. He gave me a preview on the phone. Using the chord forms learned in "Assembly Line", he started calling out chord forms " play this, play this, now play this", and out came clearly the melody of "Happy Birthday". Then he did it again with completely new chords and again out came "Happy Birthday". After a couple of rounds of this, he had given me a sense of what was really possible and when I got "Formula" I was off and running.

Later, his books were reworked and provided with DVD lessons so I dug into those. His DVD explanations really helped to deepen the learning process. Then, I got into his "Pro Chord Melody" arrangement DVDs, where he starts to show you what you can do to "doll up" an arrangement with his frequent "off the sheet" ideas to add flow.

To me, the real difference with Conti that separates him from the crowd is that everything you do with his materials, you always feel that you are really learning how to do what he is doing. With many others, you get the sense that something is missing - either in the playing of the tune you are learning or in the technical information you are learning. With Conti, there is a logical reason for everything and you are always very aware of that reasoning and its application.

Though he teaches a chord for every melody note to show the possibilities, he frequently says in his DVDs that you are not a slave to what he wrote on the page. You take it wherever you want to go. You continue learning and applying everything you learn to your own playing. So, exploring other teachers such as Frank Vignola or what you learn from recordings or other teachers can only add to what you already know and can play.

As an example, Joe Diorio made a DVD lesson on solo guitar for Mel Bay a number of years ago. On that DVD, he talks about how the guitar is a chordal instrument and "everything is in the chords". He then demonstrates how to build contrary motion and pulling apart chords by playing parts of them rather than the whole chord all the time. You can directly apply everything on that DVD to what Conti teaches.

Over the years, it has become clear to me that a person can be a "world class" player, but a lousy teacher. Conversely, an excellent teacher may not necessarily be a good player. In Conti's case, he is both a "world class" player AND an excellent teacher. What I don't understand is why any other teacher had not come up with his approach sooner. When you get it, it is so painfully obvious that a student can become embarrassed thinking this is so obvious, why didn't I figure it out before this? That, is a mark of an excellent teacher.

Conti deserves a thread like this.

Tony

[neonshaker]

Robert Conti's focus is on getting the student playing music as quickly as possible

Which, for me, is the crux of his appeal.

I don't have time to practice 5 scales in several different positions and then do it all again in 12 different keys at graduating BPMs. It's not fun and I'd also question whether or not there is any point to it when realistically the highest level I'll likely ever play at is with a few pals who couldn't really care less how outside my lines are as long as we get through the tune.

[LankyTunes]

Just found this thread as I am trying to build a plan for my own playing and systematize lessons for others.

I think that the building blocks vs learning tunes debate winds up being too general.

There are a lot of things that get passed off as needed fundamentals that range from simply overvalued to pretty much pointless to straight up detrimental. (Yes. Some things actually make you worse off for learning them.).

I also think that there is a TON of mental masturbation happening with theory study.

On the other hand: some songs and licks kinda suck and others have near zero carryover to other applications.

In my mind there's zero reason why you can't learn quite useful tunes and licks (as in they teach you things that apply to many, many other tunes) while also learning some very basic tools of analysis to help you see why they work and thus speed up the process of being able to use them elsewhere.....instead of hoping and waiting for magic to make it click.

I also don't see why anyone would want to avoid the very basic level (simple, but hard) things like learning triads and intervals (I think running scales is quite over-rated for everyone and actually detrimental to noobs) to tie your ear, your fingers and the fretboard together. That's what's actually going to get you to playing what you hear anyway.

Over the years, it has become clear to me that a person can be a "world class" player, but a lousy teacher. Conversely, an excellent teacher may not necessarily be a good player. In Conti's case, he is both a "world class" player AND an excellent teacher. What I don't understand is why any other teacher had not come up with his approach sooner. When you get it, it is so painfully obvious that a student can become embarrassed thinking this is so obvious, why didn't I figure it out before this? That, is a mark of an excellent teacher.

This is true in pretty much every field. Most of the greats are naturals, and even though they certainly put the work in, they tend to almost fly by the fundamentals of a thing. They often get away with doing lots of things "wrong" because their talents makes up for the edge the "correct" method might give.

Good teachers are typically above average, but can relate to the struggling student better. They also often come up with better methods for solving problems simply because they had them themselves.

All this is why I take with a grain of salt how the best learn or if a teacher is great or not. A teacher should be good, but the real test is not even if his students are the best, but the distance he has brought them from where they started to where they are now.

[tbeltrans]

I think the simplest path is to "learn everything in the context of a song", as David Sudnow said many times in his cocktail piano course. So, if you focus on playing songs, then what you will want to do is learn those things that help you play songs. Conti with guitar, like David Sudnow with piano, does that.

Simply said...

Tony