Vol. 3 – Ticket To Improv

As always, Robert's Lessons are a 5 out of 5!

Working thru vol. 1 project 1, page 1 of the TTI series. Very practical, pragmatic approach. Mr. Conti is a good teacher, talks plainly about what you need and what you don’t. I do have some theory background but its easy to see that working thru the mechanics of the material is more beneficial to playing than boatloads theory. Doing comes first, understanding later. Great material so far and looking forward to exploring more. (Lusting after an Entrada as well, have to see if I’ve been good this year and tell Mrs Santa.)

Great material! It's balanced between enough explanatory text to make sense of what you're being asked to do, and simple, direct guidance on how to pull off the cool tension tones that add the zest to jazz changes.

Robert could have made the materials more voluminous by going into endless fluff and extraneous observations. Instead, he opted to give players the meat of jazz thinking in as little as a few sentences in each of the sections.

If you plan on teaching jazz at the college level, by all means stick with the Modes-Go-Round of abstract, difficult to assimilate materials. If you want to be able to get up on a bandstand with a Real Book and not embarrass yourself in front of serious players, get this and do your woodshedding. You will be surprised at what once seemed utterly incomprehensible makes simple, logical sense...and that you can begin to use right away.

I posted elsewhere that I tried learning jazz guitar about 12 years ago, but gave up due to lack of time. I got several of the Conti DVDs, but barely got started. Now that I am retired with plenty of time, I plan to get started again with the Conti DVDs. What I like about them is it gets you playing very jazzy sounding solos from day one. For me that is very important to keep my interest and motivation to keep going.

Wow! - This stuff is getting better all the time! I can't believe how the barriers are falling - It's like Bob said: "All sorts of doors will open, and all sorts of lights will start to go on" - They are! My right hand fingers are pretty much automatic now, and my performance passable on almost 3 songs. Even the open 6th string Em9 chord at the 7th fret is finally getting tamed as well. It was hard to play that clean at a reasonably fast speed when you're passing through a sequence and combining a finger roll at the same time! lol Still, as with all this stuff, you know EXACTLY what you SHOULD be playing, so the obstacles are only physical and not mental. One particular 'light that's turned on' is that there is absolutely no need to be stressed with any of this - (Yeah Bob I finally GOT that one! lol) When I follow what Bob says on the DVD's "everything else DOES take care of itself" - I know, I've proved it myself. Sorry for hogging the testimonials board, but this stuff is so good I can't keep it to myself. Jules. Awe inspiring tuition from a man at the top of his game.Jules.

If you want to learn jazz guitar there are only two words you need to know ROBERT CONTI! Just received TICKET TO IMPROV and i am amazed this was the best $25.00 i ever spent on guitar instruction and i have tons of books. Mr. Conti makes jazz guitar fun. i don't give a **** if you know which mode goes over the I IV IIV progression, i want to make music this dvd makes music fun while teaching. Pop the dvd in your computer, grab your guitar and start to blow over changes! If you want to explain why you used the flatted F# over the II IV IIV change go to Berkley if you want to make music and have fun go to ROBERT CONTI! Looking forward to the next lessons while i work on the first video Thank you Mr. Conti.

I would like to once again tell you that Bob Conti is my guiding light, through the murky waters of guitar instruction out here, what a wonderful person to be so open and offer to us mere mortals out here in guitar land his talents! I listen to Jazz every day and of all the players and all the courses out there Bob is the best PERIOD! I am still not advanced enough for much of the material and still in the improv #3 but as soon as #4 comes out I will be on it. I hope to someday get to Vegas so I can see Bob in person..

Never had time to learn guitar until now. So I bought the improv series (and the Conti guitar) about 6 months ago. It was a little tough at the begining. But like the man says "it's not rocket science.." Thank you Mr. Conti.. All it takes is a will to learn, and a lot of practice. It is a little easier when the teacher is a master player.

For lack of a better word, Robert, you're awesome, thank you, I've been looking for material like this for a long time. I knew there had to be a different way, and this is it! As I am not getting any younger, in short, I am grateful you do what you do. Would like to meet you sometime. Best Wishes, Art