Thank you for your invaluable service to saxophonists!
These two books are well put together. As a professional musician in The United States Air Force, I put 2.5 hrs a day of practice in plus ensemble rehearsals. It is extremely important that I continue to expand my idiomatic knowlege of "the jazz language." Your books are clear, well thought out and easy to apply in an everyday situation. Putting them in all twelve keys also allows the visual learner to look through each lick and really dig in to each note. I hope that you continue to expand your library of books that are able to be digitally downloaded. Thank you for your invaluable service to saxophonists of every stripe!
Nathan Richard Heald
Lead Alto/Tour Director with the USAF Noteables Jazz Ensemble
Woodwind Performance / Music Education / Composition and Arranging
Nathan Heald
lessons
I am a guitar player and have improved my playing by going through your lessons!Thanks for sharing your knowledge!!!! Joey
joe espinoza
I downloaded your Best Major ii-V7-I book and most recently your Minor Note Velocity volume. I am not a huge fan of learning patterns and have found most "pattern" books are good for technical exercise but have little value for incorporation into an actual playing situation. Generally the patterns are not very melodic and I fight with them when trying to use pieces of them. Therefore, I was very pleasantly surprised when I ran through several of your ii-V7-I patterns randomnly, and found several that I liked well enough that I am consciously trying to include them. I had decided that I needed to build a vocabulary of "licks" that would take my playing more into the mainstream and into the next level, and I like your effort. I just downloaded your latest minor patterns, and based on the sound sample that you provided, I believe that they also will be very helpful. Finally, I am impressed that you continue to error-check your work product and send out periodic revisions. Most "very expensive" method books do not. Best wishes. Richard Wade
Richard Wade
Your book helps my students learn the jazz language
As a teacher at a college I have worked with many beginning improvisers. I have always asked students to transcribe and use the transcriptions as a database for the language of an improviser. I have found that students sometimes have difficulty in identifying useable jazz material from transcriptions. What your book on ii/V's has done is to help my students hear the language in an isolated state in order to find the same language in their transcriptions.
These books go beyond...........
These books go beyond simple scale knowledge and practice to creating interesting, dynamic and inspiring lines for the improviser. A lot of us know that having all of the scales and even the theory of their application to underlying harmonic settings is often not necessarily translated directly to flowing interesting melodic lines. These books actually contain compelling ways and mechanisms for the improviser to connect scale and chord tones with grace and varying degrees of colour and tension as applied to both static harmony and II-V-I progressions in both minor and major keys.
Thanks very much Steve!
Playing Steve's patterns really helped me finally understand intervals at the level you need to to progress as a Jazz player. I feel much more comfortable in the keys that we don't allways play in. My fingers are faster, my ears are better, and my understanding of intervals and the right notes to play over Minor, Dominant, and Major changes are at a new level. A funny story from a local jam I used to go to. I hadn't been back to it for a few months, all the while practicing Steve's patterns. Well I went back and had a blast. The guy calls me a few days later and asked me what changed, how did I sound so different. I told him all about Steve's site and told him how great his etudes were. I know this story is hard to believe but I swear it's true. Thanks very much Steve!
I could have saved myself many years and a lot of money if I'd found the books sooner.
As someone not "innately musical", I spent years trying to develop a working, coherant jazz vocabulary that was truly applicable to the kind of music I longed to play. Over ten years, I probably acquired 50 different collections of jazz patterns, riffs, and licks. No matter how hard I worked, or how much time I devoted, I just couldn't seem to "get it together." I was fortunate enough to be directed to your site from and decided to try your "Best Major II-V7-I Patterns." After only two afternoons with it, I knew I was on to something. The ideas were fresh, the format was great, and most importantly: they made sense. I can honestly say that I haven't looked at or used another II-V7-I book since I downloaded my first "Neff" book. It's made a tremendous difference and opened up my playing to a point where I'm now confident I have the vocabulary that I'd been looking to acquire. I could have saved myself many years and a lot of money if I'd found the books sooner.
Steve Neff's material is immediately useful
Like most people I have numerous pattern books, most of which are largely useless, as the patterns are often so abstruse that one is never going to be able to use them in a natural-sounding way. The great advantage of Steve Neff's material is that a lot of it is immediately useful, being based on the jazz vocabulary of the great players. Even the more difficult material makes sense because it is offered as part of a method of developing improvisation based on clear principles. I find I use all Steve's books in two ways. 1) I pick up the material that feels fundamental and work on parts of it at length, which makes it easier to play in the trickier keys in an interesting way. 2) I just play through lots of the material before doing a gig, without repeating it. Because the material is musical this is a great way of getting one's fingers to articulate something new when one gets to the gig.-Professor Andrew Bowie
Professor Andrew Bowie
Opened me up to new ideas
I have been working regularly with both Steve's II-V-I patterns (major and minor) and his Approach Note Velocity books. After over 40 years of playing, I have never worked through anything that has opened me up to new ideas and gotten me out of a playing "rut" faster than these books. I am hearing new things in my playing and so are others and I am constantly getting more comfortable playing in any key. Who says you can't teach an "old dog" new tricks? I just wish I had access to something like this about 35 years ago. Steve can expect that I will be adding his Mastering the Dominant Bebop Scale book to my arsenal very soon.-Randall S. Closson
Randall Closson
Neff’s pattern’s has improved my playing!
It is books like this, that allow guys like me to take that next step from playing around with other peoples lines, to developing my own original “voice”. The way he lays out everything for you to read through and internalize is a real asset to the learning curve. I have never thought of practicing my II-V7-I’s in the ways I do now… definitely one of those “bridge the gap” type books. Neff’s pattern’s has improved my playing! To be honest, I don’t always get that from improv books. I mean, most are rudimentary exercises, which force you back to learning transcriptions, to get some sense of musicality. Not this one though. The format is there, the cadences are there. You develop your own exercises. Great strategy Steve! It’s a gem!
