Student Reviews: A Guide to Practical Comping - Part 1
by Jamie Taylor
“Connect the islands of your knowledge of applied jazz theory”
Jamie’s course is a tour de force of pedagogical brilliance. He focuses upon the harmonic aspects of jazz guitar comping (not much about rhythm here) which he approaches from a good number of interrelated angles. Some or many of these angles may already be familiar to the student. What is so magnificent in this course is Jamie’s insightful explanation and reasoning about basic matters, and then his exciting demonstration of techniques for extending and interconnecting the basic principles of the topics that he covers. Those topics include: shell voicings, different voicing strategies according to whether a bass player is involved, bass line comping (on guitar), chord cognates (same fingering yielding different chords depending on choice of root), drop 2 voicings, the chameleon nature of diminished and half diminished chord voicings and how they can be leveraged to form chord substitutions in an applied context, basics of chord melody and voice leading. You have likely visited and possibly concentrated upon a good many of these topics. But Jamie’s masterful presentation is bound to get your harmonic thinking and feeling flowing in new ways; new synapses will form, islands of familiarity will become connected by new causeways, and your archipelago of knowledge and skills risks becoming... a continent. Thank you, Jamie, for this treasure chest!
The magic of Jamie is that he truly acts as a catalyst. I really knew everything presented in this lesson (drop 2 and 3, bass lines etc.) and yet something changed in me, a tiny change of persective that made me pick up the topic with new energy and coming up with results that I did not dare to hope.
Jamie Taylor is a remarkably gifted teacher. I plan on purchasing all Master Classes that he creates. This Master Class (and part II) are the best instructional materials on comping that I have ever seen.
This is by far the best comping / chordal lesson I have ever seen !<br /> Jamie's tone is very nice and he guides us through all the very important and core comping from bass line comping to melodic with a very Practical guide line. <br /> I have to say I knew 98% of the shapes involved in this class but the way they are explained and combined into real music is fantastic. I just wish I had this class 10 years ago ... Gives you tons of material to work on standards for years ... and I m now jumping into Part II<br /> Thank you Jamie