Has anyone popped for this Cory Henry tutorial?

[jazzpiano88]

And then there's this orthoganality.  Classical:   Specifically channeling the master (Beethoven).    I could watch this type of stuff all day.  The subtleties are fascinating!

 

Seymour: "You play Beethoven you're way, and I'll play Beethoven his way"

 

 

[Josh Paxton]

2 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

The last and maybe only time I've ever popped for something like this was the Dr. John New Orleans Piano VHS, long enough ago for each of those words still to mean something. Which is VERY LONG AGO. 

 

I learned a lot of valuable information from those tapes, and almost none of it was how to play like Mac.

[GovernorSilver]

4 hours ago, Al Quinn said:

I’ve noticed that there are two types of music education which are very different (i.e., these thoughts are for students who already know how to play their instrument and aspire to be an artist):

1) the teacher shows the student how to play like them (or some other great player). I have friends who tell me about their lessons with top notch musicians where the teacher shows them licks. It makes me cringe. I don’t see how that has much to do with art. I think this type of education is mostly a waste of money unless, of course, the student actually wants to sound like the teacher.
2) the teacher shares concepts that the student can work on. The concepts are shared so that the student can get in touch with who they are and what they have to say. The student is encouraged to explore and find they’re own voice while trying different concepts The teacher can also share productive ways to practice various concepts. The goal is to advance the student along their path, not the teachers path. I think this type of music education can be very helpful.

 

A few years ago I took Chick’s online class. It was strictly the second option. He wouldn’t even answer a question about what scale to play over a particular chord. I remember him answering “only you know which notes sound good to you.” Without telling anyone what notes to play he demonstrated his process for finding notes that appeal to him.

 

I hope Cory’s class is option 2. He’s such an amazing player! Hopefully, he can articulate how he got there.

 

Cory tells a few stories, like meeting his hero Stevie Wonder, but what I've seen so far falls under your #2.

 

I bought the course because it was on sale and it's Cory Henry.  The cost was cheaper than yet another synth/digital piano/keyboard workstation I don't really need.

 

I didn't grow up in the same type of church, same culture or anything like Cory's background, and I don't specialize on keyboard, so playing like him is just not happening for me.  I am ok with that.

 

The entertainment of watching Cory show stuff was worth the cost.   One criticism I have is the transcriptions are not mistake-free, but then again, I've rarely ever seen a mistake-free transcription.

 

All JMO of course

[Al Quinn]

4 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

I studied with John Mehegan when I was a teen.

That’s great Rob. What a wonderful foundation to build your artistry on, which you’ve done so beautifully! Am I remembering correctly that John had a role at Juilliard with their jazz piano program? My memory’s not great so I could be off on this.
 

I bought and studied John’s books (I remember four of them) when I was in my early twenties. At the time I was a decent rock organist aspiring to learn jazz piano pretty much from scratch (since I didn’t have a piano until I was 19 and wasn’t exposed to the music as a kid). The man was a wealth of information!

[Al Quinn]

13 hours ago, Dave Ferris said:

I was hanging out at LA clubs soaking up the legendary players like a sponge.

I did the same in Manhattan and learned so much watching my hero’s close up. Seeing Tommy Flanagan and Kenny Barron at Bradley’s were some of the best lessons I ever had. Best experience of all was sitting about three feet from Mulgrew at Smalls — nuts!

 

 

[Mitch Towne]

My approach when watching or purchasing instructional videos is to get as much as I can out of seeing how the player plays it and if he offers any insight as to why he played a particular run or “lick.” Because I have a pretty good knowledge base at this point, I can usually “sus out” what a player like Joey D was thinking when he played an outside lick, for example. Then, I attempt to train my brain to think that way. 
 

It’s all about getting as much out of it as you can and applying it to your playing. If you are a beginner and are watching Joey D’s classes, a lot of it will be over your head (although he does start with some great basics). But you can still try to grasp onto a concept you like and just work on that for a while. 
 

But, at the same time, there are concepts that are relatively simple that can add some serious sounds to your playing that one could refer to as a “hack” or “secret trick.” But they are only really useful and applicable if you already have some knowledge. 

[Reezekeys]

10 hours ago, Al Quinn said:

Am I remembering correctly that John had a role at Juilliard with their jazz piano program?

 

Yes, John taught at Julliard. I remember hearing from somebody (could have been John himself) that Chick was a student in one of his classes. Their times there definitely overlapped.

 

I had his Vol 1 but never went beyond that. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I wish I had gotten deeper into the earlier styles of jazz, of which he was a master (we did explore block chords but that's not exactly "early", lol). I think one of those books has John's transcription of Tatum's version of "Aunt Hagar's Blues"... John had a serious ear! I had a Charles McPherson record with a song I liked on an 8-track in my car - you can't rewind those. John & I went out to my car, he listened to it once, we went back into his studio and he wrote out the chord chart for the whole tune!

[Nathanael_I]

It’s probably easy to get one’s money out of this and similar things if his playing interests beyond the enjoyment factor. I’ve paid more than $150 for an hour lesson.  Surely there’s a few notable things that hit home and help one as much as an hour lesson?  I don’t think the bar needs to be super high here. He’s not a conservatory teacher.   He’s a master player.  There’s food for the hungry, but it’ll be real work to get the wisdom into one’s own playing.