The purpose of the Play What You Hear jazz guitar lesson program is to teach the student, with a dramatic pause, to play what they hear.
Seriously, author Chris Standring points out that many guitarists learn to master the fretboard through visualizing shapes and patterns. The unfortunate result is that solos improvised in this way can sound artificial. Chris goes on to say that he believes that many guitarists often have no idea that they don’t hear what they’re playing.
About the author Chris Standring
In the authors’ own words, Chris Standring is a contemporary jazz recording artist, having spent 15 years as a touring sideman and studio guitarist in London and Los Angeles. He has recorded for various record labels as an artist, including Sonic Images, Instinct Records, Mesa/Bluemoon Recordings, and most recently Trippin n Rhythm/V2 Records. Chris is successful in the US, as well as in the UK, his homeland, and performs there in concert halls every year. His music also appears on many compilation CDs.
Who will benefit the most from this jazz guitar program?
Play What You Hear is designed for intermediate guitarists who have at least a basic understanding of the guitar fretboard, as well as some ability to read music.
This instructional course has been designed for enthusiastic bedroom guitarists, college music students, and working professional musicians who want to hone their jazz skills.
Is this jazz guitar course for acoustic or electric guitarists?
Most of the audio examples use an electric guitar, but the course is also suitable for acoustic guitars.
The lesson format
Most of the lessons contain a written explanation, music, and written tabs and audio examples. When appropriate, an additional backing version of the audio examples with a backing band is also included.
Computer Compatibility:
Both as a CD version and as an instant Internet download version, this program will work with all Macintosh or Windows PC operating systems.
The content of Play what you hear
the physical parts
- (1) CD
- Bonus #1 Jazz Guitar Talk: Great jazz guitarists discuss what it takes to play well.
- Bonus #2 Chord Finder and Ear Trainer
- Bonus Guitar Codex #3 – Find any scale or chord in any key and see it in a fretboard diagram along with clickable audio.
- Bonus #4 Guitar Decoder – Play a series of random notes and the decoder will tell you the name of the chord they form.
- (2) Printable PDF files of all lessons for convenient reading away from the computer.
Lesson Categories
- Melody
- harmony
- replay changes
- sentence development
- And now to the music – examples of standard jazz sequences
The negatives:
The Play What You Hear Jazz Guitar Instructional Course does not include video. While this is a bit disappointing, I think with intermediate level skills and above, this is much less critical.
If you only have a desktop computer, you will probably practice on that computer to listen to the audio portion of the lessons and use the built-in tools. However, printable versions of all guitar lessons are included on the CD for viewing away from the computer.
The positives:
The author is a formally educated musician, but he is also a performing and recording guitarist in the trenches. When I took this course, Standring had a Jazz guitar song in the top three on the Jazz charts. In other words, he not only knows these things, but he also lives them.
While this course is packed with many jazz theory lessons, it strives to go beyond learning more stuff. This Chris Standring CD emphasizes playing at a much higher artistic level.
The guitar lessons on CD are extremely well organized and therefore easy to navigate.
There are over 300 well-produced audio examples that really bring the written word to life.
Many of the audio examples have an alternate backing version in which he plays the lead part of a backing band. This nice touch provides a realistic band experience.
The price is especially reasonable considering the significant volume of information included and Chris Standrings’ experience and position in the Jazz community.
The price analysis:
The CD version and instant download version are priced at $97 USD, as of this writing, and include all the items mentioned above. The content of both versions is exactly the same.
Chris Standring’s Play What You Hear contains the equivalent of 6 months to a year of guitar lessons if you were to space them out as if you were taking lessons from a local guitar instructor. A local instructor will typically charge between $20 and $50 per weekly lesson. Your minimum cost of just $20 per lesson for 6 months would be at least $520.
The choice comes down to:
$97 Play What You Hear DVD jazz guitar program or $520 to $1040 local instructor.
Guarantee:
Satisfaction guaranteed or 100% money back, including shipping. There is no shipping charge on the instant download version.
The bottom line:
This Jazz guitar course offers a way to significantly increase the knowledge and tools at your disposal to improvise solos in almost all situations. But I love the fact that this course doesn’t end there. There are many guitarists who are technically or mechanically developed, but few ever cross the realm of the artist.
This course does an excellent job of presenting this concept in an easy to understand format at a very reasonable price for a specialty instructional course taught by a Jazz leader. It is for these reasons that I can easily recommend the instructive Jazz guitar lesson course called Play What You Hear by Chris Standring.