Ticket To Improv
Robert Conti
How do you learn to play the guitar? Only a minority of players begin by getting a method book and working through it from start to finish. Even then, I have never met a guitarist who did not supplement this with tips, licks, and solos learned from friends or heroes. This is a natural, social way to learn and it can be a lot of fun too.
Robert Conti knows this very well and he adopts it as the basis of his teaching in his two marvellous volumes of Ticket To Improv. As Mr. Conti points out, this is the way that the jazz masters learned to improvise, and the same way that he himself learned. An old adage gives the excellent advice to always sit in with players who are better than you, so that you learn from them rather than vice versa. Although aimed at beginning improvisers, these DVD's will have a lot to teach intermediate players as well. Robert Conti is an incredible performer with breath-taking technique, and he is as generous with his knowledge as he is fast with his fingers.
Conti stresses playing above theory, pointing out that you can figure out later why it sounds so good. You have to play the music as well as understand it theoretically, so why not start by playing and have the fun up front? To this end, Conti presents four "projects" in each DVD. Each project is an improvisation on a great standard song. Conti gives you an improvised solo for each one, in multiple ways: he plays it for you on the DVD; he provides the solo in both notation and tablature; he goes through it with you bar-by-bar; and he provides MIDI tracks with the backing accompaniment for you to play along with. These MIDI tracks are a great touch, because you can slow them down to a tempo you can handle, and gradually work them up to full speed. You can also choose whether to have the guitar solo play or not. You can even change the instrumentation if you prefer.
As with anyone that you steal licks from, the quality of your learning experience depends on the person showing them to you. Conti is a true master of jazz guitar, and the lines he presents you with are both tasteful (or as he prefers to say "tasty") and hot. These are lines you can pull out at your next jam session to amaze your friends. Better yet, Conti is no taskmaster who expects you to play everything just as he has written it. His whole goal is to get the lines into your hands in your own style with your own mode of expression. He even demonstrates different ways that you might want to experiment with what he has written. He also gives masterful demonstrations of how to take the notes off the page and make them really swing.
In the course of the first three projects, you learn a variety of terrific jazz lines and phrases. It takes practice to get these up to speed, so by the time that you can play them, you know them. To reinforce this learning, and also to show you how to apply them to new situations, Conti presents a wrapup project that uses phrases from the first three to form an entirely new, appropriate improvisation for a wholly different tune. I took weeks to write this review because I had to try this for myself, and I can tell you that it works brilliantly. In fact, I was so pumped after completing the first DVD that I was delighted to know that Volume 2 was waiting for me. It follows the same basic idea, but with slightly more advanced material - an ideal followup.
As a teacher, Robert Conti is outstanding. He is constantly encouraging, always focussed on your success, and exceedingly generous with his knowledge. He teaches you to rely on your ears for what sounds good, rather than on theoretical rules and regulations. Learn to hear, he says, and you will have no need for a "Theory Godmother". Now, Mr. Conti is hardly theory illiterate, and he does point out some nice uses of a major thirteenth or a sharp four, but you do not have to understand the theory to see what his musical point is. This is experiential learning at its finest.
So confident is he that you will enjoy his teaching that Robert Conti offers a free 55-minute lesson for those who will sign up for it on his web site. You can find it, along with excerpts from both Volumes of Ticket To Improv on his web site at http://www.robertconti.com/ticket_to_improv.html
This is a fantastic resource for learning jazz improvisation, and it works well in conjunction with other studies that you might be pursuing. These DVD's cost less than a single lesson with a good teacher, and you have the opportunity to study with one of the best - over and over again. My final advice: buy both. You will anyway, and that way you will save on shipping!