Reviews

Worldwide Students Speak

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This IS the guitar of one’s dreams…

First, the punch line: After a month I’ve concluded that this guitar is not a substitute, surrogate, or compromise for that more expensive jazz box that one longs for and cannot afford. This IS the guitar of one’s dreams.

I’ll be as brief as I can. I have many guitars. But no real jazz guitars. I don’t play much jazz, but sometimes want to go there, and somehow my .strandberg* just isn’t right. I try to stay away from retail stores because there is ALWAYS something that catches my eye. But, I needed a set of strings and since I was near a store, I stopped by. As usual, I looked at used wall. There was nothing interesting. Walk away. Quickly. But… what’s that? Needing a ladder to get to it, there was a red wine archtop high on the wall. Conti? What’s a Conti? I’d never heard of them. I suspected that it was some Asian product, à la Cort (Nothing wrong with Cort. I believe they made my .strandberg*.) I found someone to get it down and I played for three minutes. I was meeting someone for lunch in fifteen minutes so I had no time to play much. I put it back.

It was two weeks before I was back in that neighborhood. In that time I did some research and if you are reading this, you’ve done the same and I won’t bore you with the details of Robert Conti’s business model to bypass the middleman. None of his guitars would be sold in stores. No distributors. Instead, he sells direct to player. He asks his prospects to trust that the guitar he gives them will make them exceptionally happy. That’s a big ask. You can’t play one to see if you like it.

Armed with this information and with more time set aside I went back to the store. While every other Conti customer needed to muster faith to buy, I had the luxury of actually playing one. The model is Equity, discontinued after the first production contract ended. The guitar played well and seemed well taken care of, 99% brand new. There were very few scratches, no dings. I copied the serial number and went home.

I went back to the Conti website but could find no serial number reference, nor a support page, but I could chat online with Steve. I asked about the serial number, and he told me the guitar was built in 2013. He also said that from what he knew of the previous owner, it should have been well taken care of. Wow. Steve told me the guitar was solid wood, not laminate. He asked me about the price and told me it was a very good deal. So, I went back the next day and bought it.

The next day I cleaned it and changed strings. It was clean but needed a little detailing. The cleaning process brought me closer to the instrument (LOL the truss rod cover on the headstock still had it’s original protective plastic covering). At every turn I was surprised and impressed by the build.

I love this guitar and I consider myself lucky to have it.

T
The Formula
Tancredo Netto - Brazil
I think it is the best

I think you are the only one that explains the magic of chord melody! I admire Conti's method, I think it is the best, a hands on approach and at the same time it teaches the way professionals play. Like we Brazilians say, he doesn't only give the fish, he teaches to fish! I love jazz standards and I hope I will study a lot with Conti's help!! Thank you very much! It's a pleasure for me to recommend a very good teacher and Conti is one!!!

Will re-energize my daily practice routine.

Robert is an entertaining and competent instructor with a wide range of past real-playing experience of the bandstand. Mike provided tech support and sent ZOOM setup instructions before the lesson to avoid wasting time on video-audio snags.

Robert took a few minutes at the start of the ZOOM lesson to review my personal history, music experience, and to assess my technical skills. He came well prepared for my lesson (3 handout documents) with a focus on improvisation, as requested. He “tuned” this first lesson to my level of interest and playing ability.

His approach to improvisation is direct, different, and perhaps unique. He presents a down-to-earth focus on fingering the fretboard rather than using a theoretical approach of pairing various scales/modes to each chord in a progression, one at a time.

Robert demonstrated the wide application of major scale riffs to a surprisingly wide range of chords built from the major scale. This simplification avoid overthinking (my bad habit) which creates lock-up, anxiety, and lag when suddenly called upon to solo on the jazz bandstand. He played these riffs over backing tracks “live” that he called out to Mike who played the audio files on-demand. Both Robert and Mike were attentive to my music lesson. Robert concluded the lesson with additional tips and a clear assignment and challenge to be completed before a future lesson.

To conclude, the “hands-on” Conti method avoids over-complicating the improvisation process and it will re-energize my daily practice routine.

Video Comments

See attached video for Lee's comments

Judge.me YouTube video placeholder
A brilliant approach

The Precision Techniques has helped me hone my technique tremendously and like every Robert Conti Book with CD it is extremely practical and gets you running in the real world playing while mastering the theory as you go so it is extremely efficient and all-encompassing and frankly, better than the dozens of books and classes that I’ve tried. It is a brilliant approach.

Robert's teaching approach stands out

It was a pleasure to spend the two hours with Robert and I must also thank you for the technical assistance and making sure everything went smoothly - I know it’s a team effort on your end.

As for my comments on the lesson : Robert gave me plenty to think about and I’ll be putting the ideas into practice in the woodshed. It was particularly enlightening to hear how he approaches improvisation over certain chord changes and this is something I look forward to picking his brains about in future sessions too on other standards. Roberts teaching approach is something that stands out - he has a way of making you feel comfortable and engaged whilst also being very to the point. I particularly appreciated that he didn’t waste precious time just having me play things over and over as from experience a lot of ‘teachers’ seem to do that instead using the time to impart as much advise and information they can on the student - often a means to get more money out of students and not give too much away in terms of valuable information. As Robert said - he’s not here to teach someone how to play, he’s there to show you what to play and why etc. this is exactly what I need. He had me play the lines to get them under my fingers and ensure I understood the concepts and knew that I am to take them away to practice in my own time. This allowed Robert to use all the time available to feed me more and more ideas and pearls of wisdom.

I will most certainly be booking another lesson after I’ve got some more practice in as there are many more things I’d like to ask Robert and certainly a lot for me to learn!

Best and most efficient way to learn jazz guitar

So much easier for me to practice and learn all of the valuable information Robert has shared on these videos! This is without question the best and most efficient way to learn jazz guitar and I plan on ordering more around Thanksgiving! I totally stand behind Mr. Conti's teaching methods 100 percent as they really work! He truly understands what he is talking about and knows how to teach it to others in the most comprehensive and applicable ways possible! It also helps that he is one of the best Jazz guitarists I have ever heard!

Vol. 3 – Ticket To Improv

$19.95

Subject Lesson Songs:

  • 12 Bar Blues
  • All Blues
  • Watermelon Man
  • Bonus Jam over a Conti original, “The Rummy!”

Or

Streaming Video Options (Info About Streaming Video)

Description

The time-tested and acknowledged pathway to become a skilled improvisor is to play your instrument at every jam session or other opportunity that becomes available. That’s exactly how the early greats learned their craft, simply by playing jazz, not wasting time talking about modes, scales or unimportant activities that prevented them from actually playing their instruments. As seen in 25 prior DVDs, the core success of the Robert Conti approach is his ability to teach the jazz language (improv) at the street level, where it actually began.

If you’re an entry level jazz guitarist such as a blues or rock player trying to make the crossover to jazz, Ticket To Improv will take you on one of most exciting and productive musical events of your life. Very soon, you will be impressing your friends with your new playing skills.

As in each of his learning products, once again, Conti delivers another “Motherlode!” How? By teaching you exactly how to start playing an arsenal of lines over the chord progressions to three “must know” tunes that are played in every real life jam session. More importantly, after you learn the first three tunes, he will also teach you how to quickly begin reshaping those lines for usage in other tunes.

Volume 3 Subject Lesson Songs:

  • 12 Bar Blues
  • All Blues
  • Watermelon Man
  • Bonus Jam over a Conti original, “The Rummy!”

Ticket To Improv, Volume 3 Includes:

  • Printable PDF of lesson solos in notation & tablature
  • MIDI files of single note solos & rhythm sections

DVD Running Time: 4 Hours

Customer Reviews

Based on 19 reviews
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Peter Withers
Ticket to Improv

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.)

W
Wayne D Holt
Get down to business and avoid unproductive theorizing

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.

R
Raymond Lindsley - New York, NY
Gets you playing very jazzy solos from day one

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.

A
Arthur Wolford - Westerville, OH
Grateful you do what you do

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

J
Jerry Martin - Florence, OR
Conti is my guiding light

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..

A
Alan Wells - Tennessee, USA
chord melodies...best out there

I have the TTI Volumes 1, 2, and 3.. The chord melodies that Mr Conti offers (free might I add), IMHO are the best out there. They're easy to understand, and they are always hip.. If there is a better way to get this quality of teaching, I've yet to find it.. Thanx for all you do!

J
Julian Wilson - United Kingdom
All Sorts Of Doors Will Open

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.

Streaming Video Option

DVDs are now available in an affordable, instantly available streaming video format. Videos may be watched on any device with an internet connection. Printable PDF download file is included.

Upon clicking the Streaming Video Options button, you will be directed to a checkout with two options:

  1. Streaming + PDF
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limited group of studio & prototype entradas

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black friday sale Details

Take advantage of this great opportunity to save big on the most effective jazz guitar learning resources on the planet – as verified by nearly 5000 reviews.

Through November 30, 2023, use coupon code BFCM23 at checkout (be sure to click the apply button!) to save 30% on all learning resources, both shipped and streaming. Please note that Conti Guitars are not included in this sale event, but we still have a couple of the heavily discounted Entrada prototypes available!