Dom Minasi

Dom Minasi teaches Stress Points II , the continuation of an improvisation method he invented in the 1960s and has taught to advanced students for over 55 years. The system trains you to hear and use every note over a chord — working one note at a time until "you can play any note you want" stops being a saying and becomes something you can actually do. What's covered Working over looped C7, C9, and C13 tracks, starting with every C7 arpeggio everywhere on the neck Improvising with arpeggio tones only while making it sound like music — rhythm, double stops, and inversions instead of running patterns Stressing notes: adding the 9th, then the 4th, then the 13th one at a time, and learning to lean on each new sound String-skipping exercises that build horizontal, across-the-neck playing instead of position playing Playing intervals rather than scales for better-sounding phrases Extending the approach with the C7sus4 sound Included One-hour video A copy of Stress Points II — 75 pages of challenging material for improving your knowledge of the neck, speed, and ears If you want to change the way you play and hear music, this method gives you a systematic path to it.

Dom Minasi explains and demonstrates how to use pentatonic scales to sound like a modern jazz guitarist — and the chord-building and simple-substitution groundwork you need before the pentatonics will make sense. Working over a I-VI-II-V progression in C, Dom builds each chord up with extensions, shows the substitution rules that connect them, and then picks the pentatonic scales that fit each chord. What's covered Building 7th chords and extensions on each chord of the I-VI-II-V: Cmaj7, Am7, Dm7, G13 — with inversions across the neck The "third minor 7" rule for simple substitution (count up a third, make it a minor 7 — Em7 over Cmaj7), plus related-minor substitutions Why Am7 and C6 are the same notes, and how that shapes voicing choices Choosing pentatonics for each chord — C, E minor, A minor, and G pentatonic over the progression, and how to adapt when a chord has an altered note like the F# in A6 Sounding modern by stressing notes other than the root, in the manner of John Abercrombie and Bill Evans Practicing the progression in all keys — C, F, G, Bb and beyond A practical class for players who want an inside-the-changes route into modern-sounding lines. Video is 25 minutes, with 19 pages of materials included — chord sheets, substitution rules, pentatonic lists for the progression, and an MP3 play-along track.

Dom Minasi teaches the art of "taking tunes out" — playing outside the harmony in a way that's organized, not random. Using Wayne Shorter's Footprints as the vehicle, Dom opens with a fast, very outside trio-style performance (joined by his student Tay on chords), then breaks down exactly what he was doing, step by step. What's covered Converting changes to minor sevenths — how Dom's approach extends the Pat Martino concept by playing Gm7 and Dm7 against a Cm7, using related-minor and major-seventh substitutions Covering a whole tune's changes from a single chord — Footprints has only a handful of changes, and Dom shows how one substitution set handles them all Converting chords to dominant sevenths (thinking F7 over Cm) and using "wrong" notes as passing tones Approaching minor chords from the major point of view (Cm as Eb major) for stacks of available arpeggios Taking it further out: altering the built-in melodic motif (turning it minor-major 7) and reharmonizing the melody chromatically Rhythmic transformation — moving the tune from 3/4 into 6/4 and tripling the time feel Opening a tune with free playing over a single chord before setting up the groove For intermediate and advanced players who want modern, "out" sounds that still connect logically to the harmony. As Dom shows, once you rearrange the harmony, the motif and the meter, the possibilities just keep going.