Recommended lessons for improving

Buco

To me "in the style of" lessons are more of a curiosity thing. I bought several and like them a lot. I like hearing them talk about their beginnings, their approach, their philosophy about music etc... The learning mostly comes (this is for soloists) from learning their improvisations, learning what they played, either by ear or using Dennis' transcriptions. And then figuring out how and where to use it.

About the most practical advice that I've gotten from any online lesson is the one on the Soundslice with Duved. He goes through several soloing concepts and demonstrates how he approaches them.

littlemark

Duved and fapy are great.

Actually, duved's lessons on sound slice are a like better if you just want one simple thing to buy.

paulmcevoy75

The Duved soundslice is really good at explaining these fundamental Django sounds. I need to go back to it sometime.

Not to push CVH too hard, but for me the difference with him and pretty much everything else I've tried is he's very, very specific about how to practice and has the 'gamification' thing which, if it works for you, really pushes you hard to get better.

It's like I knew on an intellectual level how jazz worked but had a really hard time putting any effective practice routine together. Someone could give me a ii V phrase and I could play it but as far as working it into my repetoire, it was a total failure. Same with transcriptions. I could transcribe something, play it note for note but have zero idea and more importantly no method for getting it into my playing.

Christiaan's method is just amazing for that. It's not like I'm a killer player at all now but I have very specific ideas about what I'm working on and why. Practicing has also become much more fun because I'm thinking (I think!) like an actual jazz musician vs a confused enthusiast. I'm not lost in the woods.

Anyway, I'd still highly suggest it. Getting through one of his books is a huge achievement but there's a supportive community around it.

Addendum: I should mention that I'm in my shop working on tailpieces but CVH is doing a livestream right now where he's practicing and answering questions for book owners, which he does all the time. I was asking some questions about picking triplets at speed and he gave me a perfect answer...something I wouldn't have figured out on my own. Very nuts and bolts stuff, which is perfect.

Another Addendum (someone PM'd me asking questions about the book): It's a little confusing because he markets it as a book, but it's hard to describe. The book is a book. Talking about book II, it's a collection of licks, Major, Minor, Dominant (which are mostly diminished and altered dominant patterns), II Vs in 3 positions and a collection of minor ii Vs. And 2 solos that are written with those licks.

But there's set exercises for each of the chapters. The set exercises are all the licks from each chapter. You have to play them all in a row and then play them in 12 keys. It takes approx 14 minutes for each exercise. You record the exercise and submit to CVH. He reviews it, critiques it and either passes you or tells you how to do it up to snuff.

This is HARD. Very very hard. For me, initially, it was massively challenging. But that's because I had such a weak skill set in the past. The first few chapters would take me like 1.5 months each. Now if I were doing another book, I would be a lot faster, but it's still hard.

It teaches you so much because he's a hard but fair grader. You learn the whole neck of the guitar, how different licks fit or don't fit in different places. It's a performance you have to record so you have to deal with anxiety and stuff. It's just like a boot camp.

There's also a discord group and he's on there almost always to answer questions. It's also a really nice community of people. There's a few people on here who are also on there.

So it's like a book that comes with an online community, a live teacher, a process and access to ask questions.

The price of the book might give you sticker shock. To me it's a phenomenal buy. It's like the cost of 1.5 lessons with a great teacher (maybe 1.25) and it will give you a year's worth of work at least.

Book I was written before the Discord thing, so I would suggest not starting there. Book II is a mix of Django and more modern jazz vocabulary and is probably the one most people have done so there is more common knowledge of that. But you could pick whichever book interests you. They are not cumulative. Book I is great but you don't get the interaction with CVH that to me is the real value.

Also, bizarrely, if you finish a book, he gives you another one for free. Does not really compute to me but I'm not complaining.

This is the link to Book II:

https://vanhemertsystem.fws.store/product/van-hemert-system-book-vol-2-sweatspro-version

lucky

The one that helped me the most was the Rosenberg Academy - there's an extensive song selection and Stochelo doesn't hold back. As your aim is to expand your vocabulary, I can see this being a good fit for you.

Of the others, Joshco Stephan has a site which is similar to RA. Robin Nolan also has a course, he's very good at making the genre accessible and he has a rare ability to be able to speak to beginners and pros at the same time.

MikeK

I'm late to the party here, but I can't let this thread wrap up without putting in a plug for Yaakov Hoter at Gypsy and Jazz Academy. His "triads with enclosures" online video course is superb, and totally transformed the way I play this music. It also helped me the see the fretboard in a new, simplified way which dramatically boosted my confidence on the instrument. You have to pay for it (I think I bought it for under $200 several years ago), but once you buy it, you can download it and keep it forever. He's a monster player, a good teacher, and seems like a really nice guy. He's also easy to reach by email if you have questions.

richter4208

I like Paul's advise a lot about CVH's approach and learning universe. I've spent a lot of time with the Rosenberg academy which I highly recommend. But since the Rosenberg Academy is run by CVH, he has been able to coalesce all that info into a more direct approach with his own books and discord. If I were in your shoes I'd probably join his community, the folks in that community seem really serious and motivated

djazzy

Those two paragraphs above in @Buco's first post.

Phil

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/123458#Comment_123458

Hi Mike, thanks for the reminder about Yaakov Hoter. I actually had the pleasure of meeting Yaakov and jamming with him in Tel-Aviv in 2016. A very nice guy and very generous in sharing ideas. I'll definitely look into his course as an option as I do like his approach.

Cheers!

Phil

DoubleWhisky

I can only endorse what @paulmcevoy75 said about Christiaan van Hemerts "books"/video courses. The books are very structured and packed with material, you get very productive and detailed personal feedback from him with every exercise you send him. You get access to the private streams where he often answers questions in detail for free and the Discord is very active and if you have questions a member or CvH himself normally will help out. It helped me to make real good progress so far, big fan!

paulmcevoy75

DoubleWhiskey is a noted CVH superstar. His progress has been remarkable. There's a few people on there where you can see huge improvements over a year or so.

I'm maybe a little all over the place and less focused on being a pure Django player and trying to make my own way but CVH has given me a real framework for self teaching.