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Trading feedback here
I think several have given this feedback.
Has Tom also produced an app to allow you to turn this practise into actual music when you try to improvise?
Do we have two willing victims to undertake a little experiment over the next six months? It's a thought experiment so lets assume both victims are clones, have equal capability and work equally as hard. the goal of this experiment is to see who can play the 'best' jazz guitar improvisation (I know we all have different ideas of best).
Victim 1 - I want you to work through the chord sequence of Autumn Leaves using the app. I want you to work through the arps/scales in all orders and up to the fastest speed you can.
Victim 2 - I want you to transcribe the lines of Joe Pass playing over the chord sequence. Learn as many lines as you can and play them into the ground. Try to modify them dynamically as play - change the phrasing, mix and match the lines.. make them your own. Grab some more Jazz records and do the same..
At the end of the six months we're going to get both victims to record a solo and hear the results..
I'm not suggesting that there is no value in learning to be able to see/hear intervals on the neck but ultimately the chances of Victim 1 turning in a quality piece of Jazz improvisation is between 'slim and none'
Doesn't just apply to Jazz - I only suggested this as the chord sequence is Autumn Leaves. Could equally be any style..
I like TQ - think he's a great player and he's helped me loads with getting my legato up to snuff. I'm just not convinced the app is actually a way of getting meaningful musical results..
Si
Thanks Ben,
I don't doubt it has some value - the problem I really have is that I've met and talked to lots of people who have sleepwalked into using learning materials like this (and the study of music theory) and forgotten about the most important bit. It's become a surrogate for the actual work that needs to be done if improvisational competency is the goal.
In fact I'd go as far to say that when I suggest to people what they really need to do to become a competent improvisor they look at me as if I'm mad.
The grand irony is that the more time you spend on the things you don't need to do, the less time you have to spend on the stuff you do need to do and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Good news is that there are always more products on the market (that you don't need) that you can go and buy when the last one you bought doesn't work out..
Si
It’s a bit of a chicken or the egg situation for me. Whilst I do completely agree with you @grappagreen I can’t tell you the amount of stuff that I transcribed that meant nothing to me, because I simply didn’t know the fretboard well enough. They were lines that just existed in isolation. Learning the instrument and working on strategies similar to the Tom Quayle app made a big difference as I didn’t have the musicality to make my transcribing work for me. I think the two go hand in hand.
One thing I really do like about that vid is his stressing the importance of using and working with small chunks of info though.
And finally we get to the point Just because people like Tom need to make a living doesn't mean that the teaching products we have on the market are necessary or required. A whole industry has established itself selling dreams and purported shortcuts to something they will seldom help achieve (or certainly not in isolation).
I have no issues with this personally (people can spend their money on whatever they want) except that most of the products divert people away from what they really need to do to achieve their goals. The benefit of most of this stuff is to the teacher not the student ultimately in terms of supporting a sustainable business model.
I know it's contentious but..
Si
The note detection is pretty good but not perfect, as it sometimes doesn't detect when you play the right note, and sometimes registered you've played the right note, even when I've played a wrong note or haven't even played a note at all (I suspect the mic registered ambient noise as having sounded the right note). All in all, once you go through the calibration process, it works 95% of the time, so not a massive problem, but that 5% does break the flow of the exercises. One unexpected benefit of this is that I am very focused on making sure my picked notes are clean and clear, so this con could be seen as a pro!
I am aware that you can get better note detection by setting the app up to be used with an audio interface and plug the guitar directly into the phone instead of using the phone microphone. This will undoubtedly help with this minor issue but is not worth the faff for me personally.
Dev support is excellent as well, I made a suggestion that they implement chord scale naming in the changes training mode, and Tom himself replied my email within a couple of hours, explaining why they didn't do it from the start and mentioned that they would look into making it a toggle-able option.
To address some of the comments above, this app is just a tool, like a metronome and will not teach you how to play jazz. But, it will train you and help you gain some of the technical facilities needed, physically and mentally, to tackle jazz. It is well worth the asking price for the functionality, I rate it 9.5/10.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
I would be very tempted not keen on the idea that the note detection is off , plus my mic has been a bit dodgy on my iPad for a while (ive dropped it a few times )
Another ironic bi-product is that it shows you just how good the CAGED system is, as you suddenly spot how essentially all the intervallic shapes fall into the CAGED boxes nearly every time.
As for playing at speed, theres just no way Tom or anyone is using this system when he's doing those super fast runs. That's years of muscle memory and pentatonic/3NPS scale practice, plain and simple. But for slower, more considered melodic passages this method absolutely works.
As you said though, it's a great app and useful in a number of different ways.
Last point on the speed thing....pretty sure even at uber tempo although both guys won't be internally tracking every interval, they will still be tracking some, and especially the note they end a phrase on.
Ideas for how to use it to work on just the notes of the fretboard:
something for the lazy blues warriors (like me) : some ideas for how to practice to see the blues scales more thoroughly: