Will be starting this course soon, anyone have any experiences to share?

[Michael Bishop]

Hey guys,
In the upcoming months I will be starting Johnny’s Improvising with the Major Scale Course and was curious to see whose in the course right now, how it’s coming along for you, maybe anything you would like to share in the way of tips/recommendations before starting the course, a video of you applying Johnny’s lessons in your own playing, etc.? This course is based on Johnny’s song of What Does It Take, correct? Are there other songs here on Johnny’s site where we could apply his lessons to other than What Does It Take? On a side note, I learned all of that song, will be uploading it here shortly; just working on finishing a couple of other projects first. I’m very excited to start this course in particular, partly because I set the goal of completing all of Johnny’s Killer Blues ebook and my goal was to start this course by around June of this year, so it’s a cool feeling to set a realistic goal and meet that goal 🙂 Any thoughts, pointers, insights, etc. you have would really be appreciated, thanks for sharing! 🙂

[Anonymous]

great course Michael – i got as far as the 1st two exercises & put it on hold – its a big long term commitment this one & i didn’t feel ready for it, as i was too lacking in other sax areas at that time, that needed addressing first.

But hopefully i will find time in the near future, even if it is just to do small bits of it, with other stuff that i am currently doing!

[Michael Bishop]

Thanks for the insights Sxpoet 🙂 There’s that word again like I was saying earlier, the commitment 🙂 Yeah, there’s so much here Johnny has to keep us busy, just wish there were more hours in the day..and even then, it probably wouldn’t be enough LOL That’s exactly the reason why I held off from getting into this course when Johnny first released it; I knew there was no way I would be able to give it my undivided attention. For me, it’s better to take just one course at a time and work on that/learn it completely. Once I’ve done that, then I can move onto the next thing.

[Anonymous]

Micheal – theres a well known saying – a Pet isn’t just for christmas, it’s for a lifetime!

These courses of JF’s are just the same, it is possible to start and finish them in a matter of weeks, but in terms of mastering them properly can take years – all the more reason to incorporate more stuff at the same time instead of shutting them out.

In terms of commitment i csn only commit to about 3 different courses at the same time – as always its finding the time & the chops not turning to jelly

[Michael Bishop]

yeah, those are good points. I’m one of those people who has to take it 1 thing at a time. I’m not very good at incorporating lots of things at the same time. Some folks can do it and I admire them for it LOL

[Anonymous]

Ah Michael – Gotcha!

Your mind is telling you – that you can only think you can do 1 thing at a time. When in fact i can see you are multitasking and actually doing several things at the same time in your sax routine.

1st of all you are still incorporating playing altissimo notes in your sax playing, in doing that you are still unconciously working on improving your altissimo finesse, and focusing in that area.

2nd you are working on specific songs in preparation for uploading which takes a lot of focus in getting things right for uploading.

3rd you are working on the blues course – learning licks, trying out various stuff with blues backing tracks

if thats not multi-tasking – i’m blowed what is?

So put your mind aside, miss-trust it, reset your mind.
Its a new day – a new dawn – and i feel real good – yeaaah

[Michael Bishop]

LOL That’s funny 🙂 I just meant one course of Johnny’s at a time, but yeah I guess that is Multi-tasking. I’ve learned plenty enough songs to keep uploads steady for the rest of this year, and that’s no joke. Just happy that we’re settled in and can start them up here pretty quickly. For the blues, the licks/riffs these days just kind of come to me now, don’t really know 100% for sure how something is going to turn out. Johnny’s course gave me rock-solid foundation in Blues 🙂 Just last week with the Blues Society we got together at a bar/grill downtown and my turn came up to solo–they’re letting me solo now. To tell you truth, it was kind of terrifying because my spot to solo was coming up and I had no idea exactly what I was going to do. What makes it intimidating is that the folks in the Bar/Grill are all watching you and the other guys you’re playing with are depending on you; your turn is coming up to solo, etc.. Yeah, it can make you freeze in your tracks to say the least, but I made it through LOL The best thing to do in these situations, for me, I’ve found is just to keep it as simple as possible, solos don’t have to be complicated. I usually will start of with the chord of the scale and use the rest of the notes to fill in the scale as passing notes. If I’m really terrified and stuck on what to do, then usually focusing in the 1st, 3rd and 7th of the scale is a great place to start because it’s these are the notes that most define the scale we’re working with. And sometimes, even just using 1 note to start off a solo works. For me, this approach is working really well when I’m stuck on ideas of what to do, especially with what happened last week downtown and everyone watching you…I can’t even begin to imagine, from Johnny’s perspective playing on a big stage and he has to solo with all those people watching him, that takes absolute 100% knowing what your doing.

[Marc Justiniano]

Michael, about a year ago or so. I went to a blues society club that always meets on Sundays, a bar not to far from where I live. I took my Tenor sax down to the blues club one Sunday evening. I was a little nervous about playing in front of 30 or so people. In this club they have a regular band that plays along with whom ever signs in and goes up to play. So, I signed in and waited for my turn. Man, was I nervous because most of the guys going up to play could improvise well. So my turn came up. I went up to where there was a regular also sax player along with another tenor player. The band started to play slow blues and the singer pointed to the alto player to solo. Man, was I ever under the hot seat then. After he finished his solo the singer pointed to me and the bands volume went down…man I couldn’t think of anything so I just started to play what ever came to my fingers….man I must of sounded like I was playing rock n roll instead of the blues….lol….lol… Anyway the band started off playing louder after a few minutes of my solo…so I just kept going. I don’t even remember if anybody clapped….lol…. Anyhow I stepped off the stage feeling foolish and got myself a big tall glass of beer. Then I walked out feeling foolish for trying. I don’t plan to do that again until I get my playing up to par. It was an experience but wasn’t too enjoyable. Its not like making a video and sharing it with Johnny and you guys who understand that we are students trying to excel in that art of sax playing. My former instructor Jim and one of his guitar players are regulars there but these guys are pros. I am sure if Jim had been there that day he would had helped me out on what to play but unfortunate for me he was not there. The guitar (Val) player was there and he came up to me afterward while I was having my big tall glass of beer to tell me that the alto player should have helped me out. Anyhow that my experience with playing on a live stage

[Michael Bishop]

Thanks for sharing that experience Marc. So you understand what I’m talking about. I’ve got several go-to licks that I rely on when I’m stuck and just don’t know what I’m going to do, it’s gotten me out a sticky spot a few times. I’ve learned most of Johnny’s 7 licks at the end of Killer Blues in all the Blues Scales and with some creativity I’ve been able to do some different things with Johnny’s licks too. But yeah, there’s those moments where you just don’t know what you’re going to do, your spot to solo is coming up, people watching you, etc.. That’s what happened to me and I made it and it felt AWESOME 🙂 From reading your experience Marc, I think that Alto player should have helped you too..the advantage I had with my experience is these are guys I’ve been playing with since October so I’ve gotten used to playing around them and it’s almost like we can ‘read’ each other. But to just show up like you did and never having played with those guys, have the confidence to just walk up and solo, it takes a while to be able to get to the point. It probably would have helped you to have at least a couple of band practices with them, listen to what they’re playing/get a feel for them, and then the licks/riffs come to you. But yes, you are absolutely right that it’s not the same thing as playing with backing tracks and uploading videos to Johnny’s blog..it’s no where near the same thing and I would encourage anyone who has the access to play around other live players/bands to get out there and do it. Thanks for sharing that experience Marc 🙂

[Dazza]

Guys, this is the sort of course that you can revisit over and over and in fact i needed to watch the vidoes several times to begin to grasp the concepts. I am not sure if it is new or i just missed it but the additional lesson at the bottom of lesson 2 is fabulous. Thanks JF. I began working on this the past few days and it sounds really cool and really is quite simple (if you know your scales and arpeggios!! – of course).

Its really rewarding when you start to string the ideas together but I think the secret is to KEEP IT SIMPLE to begin with and play the loop over and over and add a note or two each time through.

I paid $60 for an hour lesson last week and learned more from Johnnys one video lesson than I did from the teacher and his whole course is $47!. If you haven’t got the course and really want to progress your playing then you better get into it!

Cheers

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