Ben Sher

Ben Sher's chord soloing classes from 2022, brought together in one place. Covers Wes Montgomery's chord approach, a series of live sessions on Brazilian-style chord soloing and advanced harmonic concepts, and a Billie's Bounce blues-changes study. Originally taught across four separate live cohorts; consolidated here for easier access. Best for intermediate guitarists ready to deepen their chord-melody and chord-soloing vocabulary.

You might wonder, why these two iconic jazz guitarists? Ben explains, “Of course there are many great jazz guitarists to try and copy, but Grant and Pat have one thing in common that’s great for learning: they both play with incredible accuracy and clear rhythmic precision. So, if you really want to learn how to lay down some very well-articulated jazz guitar lines, studying the work of these two masters is incredibly valuable.” To start off, Ben will provide transcriptions for both Grant and Pat in three styles: blues, modal, and be-bop — or straight ahead. Then, in each category there’s the opportunity to learn one or both of the transcriptions. If you're not that advanced, don’t worry. Some of Grant’s stuff is not that hard to play technically, but incredibly valuable in the phrasing. And if you want a challenge? Try playing along with Pat’s “The Great Stream”! Limited to 6 students. Prof. Sher’s Global Jazz Guitar! This is one learning experience that Prof. Sher is really excited to teach! As a recording artist, Ben has played many different styles of jazz and has three recordings of Brazilian Jazz on the BGI Record Label which feature Lucian Souza, DuDuka Da Fonseca, Kenny Barron, and Helio Alves. He has recorded and performed gypsy jazz with his World Jazz Duo, and played many Hammond organ trio gigs! Ben also teaches several courses in the Brazilian Guitar Style at Berklee including a course in Latin Fusion. This class is a preview of the book Ben will release next summer which encapsulates all of these different Latin styles!

Prof. Ben Sher presents an organized approach to learning samba and bossa grooves to fit different tempos of both Brazilian tunes and classic Jazz tunes that are generally played in a "Latin style". Ben presents five different patterns, all carefully explained, and discusses chord voicings, and rhythmic phrasing to really get you in the groove! Hear Ben play these grooves in context with assisting artist drummer Steve Langone. 32 min 2 pages pdf included

Professor Sher presents his concept called Fretboard Harmony: a study of the intervallic relationships on the guitar neck and how thy can enable you to see and move effortlessly around the neck. Through this concept you’ll be able to move beyond horizontal fingering patterns and travel vertically from bottom of the neck to the top. In this first lesson Professor Sher introduces the basic concept, and then shows how to apply the concept to some fundamental skills including arpeggios, blues and major scales. He the continues with some melodic examples of how to create lines that travel through different registers. There’s ideas for blues, jazz-blues and flowing be-bop lines in the style of Pat Martino. It’s an eye-opening lesson for whatever level or style you are at!