So I'm just curious if you've been working on this, how's it going?

Neat exercise Greg. I messed with it today. Great for beginners like myself. Like your visual format as well. Black is nice.
I would like to see the you play the entire piece that you start near the end of the vid, that's a cool bassline.

cheers,
kev

Hi Kevin,

Glad it's working for you. I till can't get used to the white notes on the black background myself!, but if it works for you then that's what I need to hear.

The bassline at the end is just me messing around. Maybe I'll use it in a tune someday. I like practicing this kind of exercise as it really frees up the two hands from each other, and can be expanded endlessly as your imagine allows.

How's it going for the rest of you?

Greg the hard contrast between the black and white makes for an easier read for me, I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's the starkness of it all, if I can use that word to describe your format.

As for the tune, I figured you were just jamming, but dang that is catchy.

cheers,
kev

I've only seen the first 2 minutes so far; I'll have to watch the rest later, but right off, I like the volume balance between your voice and the Stick. On the "Basic Free Hands" DVD, your voice is very low compared to a very loud Stick. (That could have something to do with the stereo spread in my sound system...)
One quick observation: Coming from a drumming background and seeing a lot of Stick videos of players with less-than-stellar time (a huge pet peeve of mine), I really like how you clearly show the 16th-note rhythms and the beat counts against the quarter-note pulse. What would make it even better would be to either stick a mic' on your foot so that the pulse can be even clearer to the ear, or have an audible click track. (Setting up occasional incidental clicks might be a huge pain, so I think the mic' by the foot might be the way to go.)
That's it for now; can't wait to check out the rest! VERY COOL!!!

Thanks again for the feedback, Kevin. The reactions of people on this forum are always really helpful to me in designing new materials for learning.

Greg, got your CD and love it. I just got my stick last week and I look at my strings and at the tuning end (nut) the strings almost touch the fret bar and. on the pickup end they are about a 1/16 above the fret bar. This is the way I received it in the mail. It seems like I have to press harder on the high side of the stick and less on the low side of the stick. I sight the stick from the pickup end and it is straight. Is this something that has to be corrected or is it normal? I sent an Email to Emmett and he said that he tuned it as close as he could get but I thought it should be all the same elevation between the frets and the strings.
Jim (Harpo)

Greg, As you know, I don't have my stick yet, but I've been watching the heck out of every training video I can get my hands on. I can't imagine there's been a better time to be new at this instrument, I've never seen such clear audio/video lessons on any other instrument, ever. The multiple angles of synchronized video along with the large, clear graphical instructions and examples are simply perfect.

The only change I'd suggest would be when you switched from Am to Em, then from Em to the section where you switched from one to another some of the instructions flashed by very quickly on the screen. Now, I love your faster paced instructions as the super slow stuff on some other videos can get tedious for experienced musicians, but text should probably remain on the screen long enough to be read. Really a very minor suggestion, and this is spectacular and I hope to see many more like this in the future.

Love the free noodling with a theme relatable to the lesson at the end, too. Thanks for everything you do!

~M

Greg,

I have your book and have seen some of the videos. I will probably end up with more of your instructional material in the future. I think you have a knack for understanding and teaching technical excellence. Do you have any videos geared towards getting the improvisational feel of the instrument you say is so spectacular?

So far in my travels on the instrument I have been relying on my bass instincts and parallel structure instincts for improvisation.

Thanks,
Daniel