The Comping Expo
Robert Conti
We guitarists love to solo. We spend what little money we do have on DVD's, CDs, books, and lessons to learn how to play a killer solo when that spotlight hits us. The sad truth though, is that we might be soloing 5% of the time - if we are lucky!
So what are we doing the other 95% of our performing time? Accompanying someone else. So it is very strange that most of us spend very little time learning to play accompaniment, or "comping." Ironically, I have been told by guitarists ranging from Tommy Emmanuel to Frank Vignola that if you want to be assured of making a living as a guitarist, learn to play rhythm - and that means learning to comp.
It's not as if the publishing industry has been inundating us with comping methods. They know what we want and so we get hundreds of books on lead playing, and very few on comping. I have a few books on comping on my shelf, but it turns out that this is a trickier topic to teach than you might imagine. But now there is hope.
Once again Robert Conti has developed a method that is both innovative and fun, this time for teaching comping: The Comping Expo. You will hear great examples of comping by Mr. Conti from his recordings, video footage, and live in-studio demos. These cover the whole gamut from bossa nova to blues, from ballads to hard bop. They give you the sound of his playing as well as the rhythms. This is important, because while many of these rhythms look complex in notation, they are much easier to get by hearing them.
Next Robert Conti walks you through each tune, referring to the book which has all of the chord charts for each of the many versions of each tune. Then it's time to play yourself. You can go over the changes slowly to get them under your fingers, and then play along with the supplied audio. Because there are so many alternate versions given you will certainly be able to find a couple that you just have to make your own. You get both MP3 and MIDI files for each song, which I think is a great bonus. You can play the MIDI files back at a slower tempo and gradually increase it as you learn. You can also load the MP3s onto an iPod or similar player to practice away from the computer.
This method of "Watch, Listen and Duplicate" is how many of us learn solos and how the great compers learned their art as well. We are fortunate to have such a fine teacher as Robert Conti to lay it all out for us. Any of these arrangements would impress anyone you might play with, as the rhythms are subtle and snappy while the chords range from sharp to lush. As an added bonus, this set is a great chord tutor. Pick up this DVD and you'll be playing those Dominant 7#5#9's quicker than you might think possible. Really.
I think that for an intermediate player this DVD / Book set holds about 3 months worth of lessons, at about $3 per lesson. That's a great price, but combined with this quality, it's a steal!
Buy this great DVD directly from Robert Conti at http://robertconti.com/the_comping_expo.html