Steve,
I have played for many years and have enjoyed going “back to the basics” in some of your lessons! You have such a gift for explaining concepts. As I have gotten older, some of the basic things have gotten muddled because I just play, not knowing why. As I refresh myself with “why”, it increases my confidence and expands my playing. Thank you so much for using your gift! You are a blessing!
Just to say thanks for your advice and lessons. I’ve just read your amazing story. I really appreciate what you do in regards to teaching. I have bought a couple of your lessons and frankly they’re undersold. I’ve learned much more with these two lessons than with 2 years of sax teachers. Thanks so much………..
I just started looking at my lessons and I have to say, dude you are awesome. I ABSOLUTELY will learn from you! I started the tenor about 1 ½ yrs ago and have since picked up an alto, and more recently a soprano. I spend most of the time on the tenor, followed by soprano, and have only gotten to the alto a few times. I think I’ll be sticking with tenor. I’m having a great time and hope one day to play well enough to get regular gigs. I’ve been playing keys for about 35 years (gospel), and so I’m following you perfectly with the theory and stuff. Just awesome. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for all the educational information you provide. I am a classically trained musician. Professionally, I am a 4th and 5th grade band teacher. I have played piano and sax for many years, but now I am starting to gig out more. I have always improvised by ear in the past. I have gotten by with my strong sense of pitch, rhythm and melodic contour. However, I want to go deeper. I want to play with a greater variety of melodic and rhythmic ideas to pull from. I have studied to gain a greater knowledge of jazz and improvisational techniques, but I feel like I’m trying to catch-up for years of missed study (which is hard when you have a full time job, a wife, a daughter, a house, etc.) Your approach allows me to go past book knowledge and actually get these lines into my head and fingers. -Ray
Your major diatonic patterns book is great. I”m studying the first twenty patterns (first twenty pages) each day with different articulation each day and slowly increasing the tempo each week or so. There is a noticeable improvement in finger coordination across all keys and its amazing how much more secure I feel on the difficult keys when attempting to play pieces with 5+ flats/sharps. I’m able to sort out the fingerings for these pieces now much more quickly than before, often in one or two sittings when in the past I would have been lost until I did a significant amount of slow practice on the piece.
Your going to do really well with this book. Keep up the good work. And the idea of putting patterns into single key also great. Thanks, Geoff
Your lessons on playing the blues is so clear . I have been through many books on blues playing and not one of them explains as clear as your lessons . Most of them say “Play the same blues scale over all three chords of a 12 bar blues ” Its very misleading . Thanks
I’m an experienced player in the pop/soul/funk areas of music and, previously, classical. Over the decades I’ve been playing, I’ve always felt that I could do what I needed in those styles of music. However, recently I began to feel limited by my use of the same old licks. When I discovered Steve Neff’s website, and heard the audio examples based on the exercises in his books, I realized they were what I needed. I purchased all of them and have been working on them since. It’s very hard work – mind crunching sometimes – because I’m memorizing each exercise in every key, and using different rhythms as Steve suggests, but I can see the development taking place and the old barriers starting to break down already. Steve has obviously put so much of his experience and time into these books and I think it’s great that he’s made it all available for others to benefit from.-Paul
I can see from your instructional videos that you are a fantastic teacher – one that can truly relate to all ages – humble yet very positive in approach – never coming across as superior and yet so totally capable of demonstrating the principles and techniques that you seek to impart to the students. I have gained so much confidence in my playing from “pouring over” time and again these invaluable lessons. Invaluable not only in musical content, but also in human interaction content. I am absolutely loving your latest book Devastating Lines for Jazz and Funk Soloing.
Hi Steve, I can’t express just how much I appreciate your teaching. My playing has improved so much over the past year since I have been studying and practicing with your lessons. It is possible to teach an old dog new tricks, these lessons are proof! Thanks, Michael Byington
I am enjoying your style of teaching, and you’ve done a great job with the videos….good sound quality and well constructed lessons. Balances the more guitaristic material found on the majority of guitar based programs. Jazz vocab is what I’m all about at this point in the journey. I especially dig the fact that you’ve studied with Bergonzi…helps me see his voluminous output in a more bite sized way.
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