Yesterday I purchased Adam’s “Harmony for Improvisation 1” lesson and I thought it was excellent. Based on the MBH scale I consider myself an “advanced beginner” and I thought that this lesson filled in a big hole in my music theory.
I’ve learned quite a bit on line from guys like Adam, Chris M. and Jason. I’ve also picked up a lot of knowledge from many of you by reading the different threads. So, maybe the timing is just “right” for me and this particular lesson. It really has helped me tie a lot of the concepts together and has got me looking at the instrument from a different angle (point of view?). A lot of what was covered was sort of ‘review’ for me but I think the strength, for me or someone of a similar background, wasn’t as much in the amount of new information as it was in how the information was presented, tied together and how it meshed with what I have already learned. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of new information but I would expect future lessons to start to introduce me to newer concepts.
I would definitely recommend it to any beginner, advanced beginner and maybe even intermediate players.
@Adam: You mention at the end of the video that the next lesson in this series is on its way. When? Also, how many lessons do you think this series will entail? Considering the pace of the first one I could easily see it covering 4 – 6 lessons.
---------- "Take out your false teeth, momma, I want to suck on your gums."-P. Wolf
Jay: I'm glad it worked for you. Yes, I think 4-6 lessons is about right. I'm not sure where it will go.
This would also be the appropriate moment to acknowledge my unconscious debt to Lee Sankey, who dropped by the Gindick camp in Clarksdale in late March and with whom I spent an extremely lively hour talking harp and, more specifically, being interviewed for his new book project, a study of how learning actually occurs on the harp. Although I didn't completely understand his project--and I'm no dummy--the conversation catalyzed something in me. A couple of days later I filmed a pair of YouTube lessons covering some of the same material on chord tones and scale degrees that shows up in the for-pay lesson above. (It was the positive response to the YT lessons, in fact, that led me to decide I should create a serious, comprehensive series on the subject for MBH.)
One thing that characterizes my "new" approach in both the YT lessons and the MBH lesson above is the idea that I can effectively teach harmony and scale degrees on the harp by asking people to visualize, rather than by externalizing the visuals in the form of a tab sheet.
This is NOT an idea that I got from Lee--it's something that has been a part of my teaching for years--but it IS something that represents one of his core ideas, and it's become clear to me in retrospect that the particular conversation I had with him acted as a kind of catalyst, leading me to value my instinctive desire to...well, to avoid the hard labor involved in creating tab sheets by fooling people into paying me for a lesson that involved no tab sheets.
Seriously: I owe Lee thanks for the conversation, and I'm happy to publicly acknowledge that that conversation helped kick me in this new direction--which is also, as I say, a very old direction for me. Back to core values.
Last Edited by on Apr 27, 2010 7:52 PM
Yes, I got the feeling as I was going through the lesson that the youtube vids might have been either "attention grabbers" for the lessons or possibly inspiration to expand your thoughts and ideas in them.
Using visualization as well as some of the metaphors that you are throwing out there (the notes and their relationship to the chord) have worked for me.
That is not to say that I don't love the previous lessons with the tabs. Those are the lessons that got me moving in the direction I'm now headed. However I wonder if maybe they ended up limiting my ability to get deeper in to the harp. What I mean by that is when I play ANY tune now I tend to try to "see it" as it might appear in that tab format. Now, that particular format helped me IMMENSELY to learn timing (or, more precisely WHERE to play the notes) while at the same time made it easy to learn 12 - 24 bars of music. But it may have inadvertently (sp.) kept me from understanding the instrument and basic music theory by acting as a "crutch" and therefore slowed down my true goal of being able to do some basic improv over any given 8 or 12 bar blues progression.
Whatever it is that is working for me it has certainly recharged my batteries and I feel like a kid at Christmas waiting for the next lesson.
---------- "Take out your false teeth, momma, I want to suck on your gums."-P. Wolf
Jay, you've convinced me to buy that lesson. I'm in the same boat as you. Adam's lessons have been very helpful and given me a chance to head in a direction. However, I also try to see things in that tab format!
Hopefully I'll be as enlightened as you are.
---------- I could be bound by a nutshell and still count myself a king of infinite space
I bought the lesson and loved it. Great stuff! It has me practicing on the upper end of the harp for the first time. I'm hoping that future lessons will give me tips on how to apply the root, third, fifth. and why I should think in those terms rather than 2,3,4 ---------- The Art Teacher Formally Known As scstrickland
