New Stochelo Rosenberg DVDs!!!

dennis · December 2009

oh btw, regarding caveat emptor comment... you know it's not really buyer beware... since I specifically told hyperhipmedia to clearly state that TABS were not included... if you read the descriptions on the hyperhipmedia, it's clearly there ... it's not highlighted but it's definitely not in small print onor is it hidden ; it's clearly in themain description.

It s very important for me to establish an honest relationship with people who want to buy my products, so i'm definitely not hiding anything...

btw i dont want to into the details of anything but making these DVDs is extremely expensive, and hyperhipmedia is a small and new company that was built from scratch with no financial support from anyone but ourselves...

my first rhythm guitar dvd sold well enough that i was able to REINVEST that money into the soloing dvds... which themselves were then reinvested into making tim's then wawau's then stochelo's.. etc... meaning when i get money from these dvds, i get enough the amount of work i put into it to survive and make other things....

the free playalongs that i'm about to release... i had to spent money to make those... and btw for those who are waiting for them... i m afraid you'll have to wait longer.. it was already 6 months and the making but i have to REDO everything for quality reasons i'd rather not mention... so that means i lost quite a bit of money already for something i'm about to release for free... and i have to redo them in the upcoming months, meaning i have to reinvest money again....'

ooh and once last thing, gonzalo's stuff is great. I saw some of it and I really liked it! he's one of my favorite players

Jazzaferri · December 2009

Dennis

I really appreciate the work that went into your 5 and the 2 Stochelo DVD's. I am probably going to get in trouble here but I think all these are superb as is and anyone who wants tab is being LAZY. :shock:

Django, Stochelo for sure didn't use tab and look where they ended up. 8) I can sight read notation and am Ok with tab and only use either now if there is no sound available. I agree with your philosophy that EAR IS BEST :twisted: .

Bones · December 2009

Can someone chime in on how to slow down the solos? I love his playing but picking it up at the speed that he plays is beyond my novice ear. I'm sure it must be possible to grab clips with some software and slow it down but I'm not computer savy.

Thanks

smilinjack · December 2009

Then why even take lessons at all.
Why take an eternity to decipher something?
Take a walk down the street and let me know how many people are impressed with Your playing as oppesed to how you learned to play a piece.
A lot of talk here singles out players who are reffered to as "Hobbiests".
Most muscians and especially jazz/Gypsy Jazz ones DO NOT make a living playing.
Thats why most teach and even great plyers do a lot of workshop/festival gigs.

"Django, Stochelo for sure didn't use tab and look where they ended up."
Great, Why don't You get intouch with them next time You need rent money?
And please post Your schedule here so we all can come out and support You.

smilinjack · December 2009

Listen Dennis,
That's decent of You to offer the lessons, but don't think I'll be getting up there anytime soon.
I own the first set of DVDs You did along with the Adler one and now the latest, which will be My last.
The one that you did the actual instruction on was the easiest to follow as You played slowly enough to follow and the Camera angles were better.
I don't think You have the intention of bamboozling anyone with these DVDs and I can certainly appriciate a guy trying to make a buck!
And as far as Your finances are concerned; well, it's a cruel ole' World.
This and the Adler DVDs have somewhat of a Computer Geek tone where as they assume that You have prerequisite knowledge of the material to the degree that You don't dare ask questions.
Do I learn things from them? Absolutely! But it's much too tedious and time consuming to figure it all out when You bought it to simplfy the process. That time should be utilized woodsheding on what You learned.
Of course having a good ear is wonderful. It would also be great to be able to stand up to a Major Leauge pitcher and get hits. But even at that, the only score a third of the time!
A cat of Your calibur could have easily done the transcriptions for the salient solos and lines featured.
The Rosenberg DVD is moving because it's got his name on it, not because it's a good teaching aid.
Why couldn't Rosenberg write out his stuff? Did He do this Gratis????

smilinjack · December 2009

And the Final blow!
This is the Big Insult!
This is the Impossible!!
This is the absolutely too much!!!
I demand from You Lé Satisfaction!!!!!
Here is the Material posted on You Tube, By none other than Mr. Chang.
Is he living in an alternate dimension or some parallel universe?
Is he a Capitalist, Socialist, Communist, Bolshevik, Marxist, refusenik or just riddled with Hubris?
Save Your money folks!
How can I return this DVD?

rimm · December 2009

I THINK SOMEONE NEEDS A HUG

By the way, Dennis's credentials are that he is a really nce player and that he actually got his finger out and produced something of merit. The end.

Oh and Dennis, when you were at the hotel in Samois, what was the second name of Jason your english friend-lovely player and top dude?

Elliot · December 2009

rimm wrote:

I THINK SOMEONE NEEDS A HUG

By the way, Dennis's credentials are that he is a really nce player and that he actually got his finger out and produced something of merit. The end.

Oh and Dennis, when you were at the hotel in Samois, what was the second name of Jason your english friend-lovely player and top dude?

I THINK SOMEONE NEEDS TO STAY OUT OF THE DISCUSSION.

Invariably you see online people with this type of beta-dog dismissal/kissing up meant to replace what is valid criticism in forums. Let's face it, anything at $60 per DVD and over should include TAB just like every other one does these days. If it was a treat or a rarity it might be a different story, but tablature is expected in material that costs half the price. Could it be that In the Licks series we have pattern without theory, and now with the Stochelo, theory without pattern, namely TAB? I don't know for sure, but if the viewer is left with the feeling of not REALLY being helped, just demoed, it is understandably frustrating when he is looking at spending weeks of work making the material usable. We'd like to be in Samois hotels too after all, partially with the money we saved by not having to buy 40 incomplete books and videos and partially by earning money playing out sometime or other...someday...the end.

dennis · December 2009

Well it seems, a lot of issues need to be addressed here.

>That's decent of You to offer the lessons, but don't think I'll be getting up there anytime soon.
I own the first set of DVDs You did along with the Adler one and now the latest, which will be My last.

Well thanks for rhte support until now.

The one that you did the actual instruction on was the easiest to follow as You played slowly enough to follow and the Camera angles were better.

that's precisely the point that i've tried to make. My dvds are intended for all levels... But if you've noticed the 4 improv/solo DVDs are progressive... In the first 2 DVDs, I go over every concept at an extremely slow pace that anyone with a MINIMUM amount of talent could understand... the 2 last DVDs, I go by much faster because, if they are not able to understand the material on those DVDs ,that meant they hadn't assimilated the concepts from the first 2....

In other words, I created these DVDs to replace a live teacher when one isn't available as is often the case for those who live outside paris or even western europe in general.... It can easily take up to 3-5 years to work on all the concepts in those DVDs..

but here's the OTHER thing: to me, most music styles and especially THOSE that involve improvisation are not learned by going to a single teacher and having weekly lessons... to me, it's all about the idea of a community, and being influenced by those around you.

I've already gotten into that in some previous thread so I won't go any further...

But I'll just say that blues, bebop, fusion, or whatever style of music is best learned by being surrounded by it in your everyday life, not by going to one single person... This is the exact same thing as learning a language....

And that really was the point of Wawau and Stochelo's DVDs... which brings me to your next point:

This and the Adler DVDs have somewhat of a Computer Geek tone where as they assume that You have prerequisite knowledge of the material to the degree that You don't dare ask questions.

Yes if you want, they do indeed have a computer geek tone to them... And I made these DVDs not for your "average enthusiast" but for those who really want to immerse themselves in the style... In the lesson portion of the dvds when they show licks... they DO slow them down enough for people who have worked hard on my first 2 DVDs to learn them fast enough....

I gather that you are probably old enough to be my father, and I don't know anything about your life experiences... But I was born to a polyglot father from Asia who's circle of friends included scholars from various European / Asian and American cultures... Add to that, that I was born and raised in a city that is having severe "identity" issues...to say that I grew up in a multi-cultural environment is a very big understatement...

And the reason I'm bringing this up, is to say that I am very fully aware of cultural differences from a social and psychological point of view... Much more so than most people I know.

What I suspect is that you're looking at this from your own point of view ...which is that of your average north american AND which is of course perfectly normal...

that's the thing, while I'm able to adapt very easily to most cultures, the same is not true for others...

whic leads to this next comment:

Why couldn't Rosenberg write out his stuff? Did He do this Gratis????

Trust me when I say, I got the most I could out of Wawau and STochelo... I don't mean this as a bad thing, but they really absolutely have no clue about what they do... they just simply do what they do because that is always what they've done... anything outside of that puts them in a VERY uncomfortable situation...

that is where I come in, I try to bridge this gap between cultures as best I can.. Stochelo barely knows the names of the chords he's playing... and he's not doing that to show off or anything... he really doesn't know... I spent a lot of time coaching both wawau and stochelo, and telling them what to say (while making sure of course that it would be things they would want to say) and how to say it..

So at this point, from your perspective... it was either: Make a Stochelo DVD or don't make one...

last but not least, these dvds are on average THREE hours in length...

I'd like you to check out your average hotlicks or REH videos produced in the 80s and 90s... notably the BRENT MASON hotlicks DVD which is about 60 minutes in length and includes TAB... tell me if you learn anything from it that you can apply to different situations...

better yet, check out the George Benson DVD from hotlicks that came out just a few years ago (again about 60 minutes in length)... TAB is included,... it's just him rambling for an hour and then occasionaly just noodling on the guitar... some of the noodling is transcribed... some of it is also PARTIALLY transcribed... so did you get anything REALLY useful out of it?

Or there's also the John Mclaughlin 4 DVD set where EVERYTHING is TABBED out thanks to MIDI guitar technology.. now are you able to play everything on that DVD, has that really simplified the process for you?

BTW I've owned almost all those instructional DVDs back then when I was a TOTAL hardcore guitar geek. I've watched them all at least once... very few stand out... and they were almost all very short in length...

I've lost count of how many students I've taught since I was 18... I've taught all sorts of people who were interested in all sorts of styles... I'm very used to teaching

now TAB itself is not bad at all... but it doesn't necessarily make anyone lazy but it is often just an illusion... but it's like you say yourself:

But it's much too tedious and time consuming to figure it all out when You bought it to simplfy the process. That time should be utilized woodsheding on what You learned

I believe that for everything i've done, i've simplified the process to its lowest denominator... for my first 2 improv DVDs, the denominator is quite low, for the stochelo and wawau ones, it's a bit higher (more like my last 2 dvds)

In certain Indian musical traditions, the student is taught to SING the line (raga) before EVEN attempting to play it... so they start with very simple ragags before moving on to the harder ones... in those indian musical traditions... it's more than just music, it's also a way of life...

so like i said in my last 2 dvds, if you're having trouble figuring something out that's shown at a moderately slow speed (As opposed to the EXTREMELY slow speeds that I show on my first dvds), then it's a very clear indication, that you should be working on something much simpler..

I've done transcription works for people before, there was one fellow; a nice gentleman in his 50s who regularly asked me to transcribe him jimmy rosenberg and robin nolan solos... I did them and I still ahve them somewhere around...

It's been 2 or 3 yrs now, and he still can't even a 1/4 of those transcriptions, he worked on them for a bit and then gave up... so in the end the TAB didn't really make a difference did it? It just gave him false hope...

I'm happy to share these TABS with you if you want them.