DZ
Obviously the best Jazz course I have ever seen, and I have seen a bunch. However, I find Adam's lessons much more useful in terms of pace, depth and the way of presentation. No doubt Peter is a more experienced professional, and there are indeed gems in some of the videos (especially the YouTube series), but maybe Peter has been a pro for too long and has lost the empathy for level 1-3 beginners. Some of the courses, even though with "beginner" in the title, and starts with super-rudimentary interval, major/minor chord building, soon skips to a lot of improv and tips that are not very practiceable and progressive. I myself might be a strange combination, but let me elaborate. I'm not in the music business but I take piano and keyboard series, most of the early times I self-learn, and it's been like that for ~10 years (I'm 36 now). As an adult I learn the theory of things super fast, I'm perfectly aware of the scales, chord qualities, modes, shell voicing, blues form, etc., because I've read like 50 jazz books and followed pretty much every piano / jazz tutor on YouTube. The thing is, knowing something by brain is so different than creating flow of notes confidently by hands. Living in an env without much communications amongst musicians I don't have the privilege to learn by imitation and conversation, so even my technique is probably medium level and I can play ok with clear instructions, it haunts me badly when I sit with only chord progressions and has to come up good patterns just in time. I find Adam's pentatonics series very enjoyable, practicing those patterns makes me feel closer to the feel of improv and they do sound good. However, scanning through all the lessons I find there is still a missing link for people like me. If I'm allowed to speak for my kind of people. I don't really need anything rudimentary so it's not like every lesson has to start with definitions of major/minor/tonality/blues scale/form/pentatonics/altered scale/etc., but I desperately need for some ingredients to start improv, probably step by step. First with ingredients of choice of notes (pentatonics) and probably some rhythms (which Adam had some in the Rhythm course), then with the palettes do some GPS that mix and match the combos of the ingredients. I really love the "call and response" style GPS because I don't have other musicians to practice with, so I imagined that Adam would do some comping and improv, 8 measures, then for the student. The same thing goes for comping, in a reversely way. I know everything is created on the spot but there are definitely patterns that can get us a real kickstart. Also it would be nice to dissect famous standards performances that use certain patterns to put more confidence in students. This way, together with some ideas for how students could explore and push the envelope little by little, then it would be very nice. With all that said, your courses and videos are the closest to what I really loved to learn with. If you need my inputs on build new courses, please do make contact, I'm more than happy to help!
11 months ago
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