Atomic Improv Vol. 3 continues with more transcriptions of Nick Johnston’s beautiful improvisations. As with the previous volume, Ryan Fisher transcribed these improvisations for us to study. This follow up to the previous two volumes was released on August 2015.
Below is the first of the 3 videos that are transcribed in Atomic Improv Vol. 3.
Transcription #1 begins with a Lydian chord that goes on into lyrical long flowing lines, legato phrases, palm muted melodies and into more legato phrases. The blues phrases in the middle are particularly tasty too. Then, the solo develops into more shred-filled goodness before heading back into more chords and ending with some really fast runs. I love the camera work too in this video & the video quality is even better now than in the previous volumes.
Transcription #2 has a variety of different ideas that go ALL ACROSS THE FRETBOARD. Seriously great shred kind of lines, blues ideas, chordal ideas, double stops, you name it. There’s an abundance of cool lines here & Nick sounds like he’s just having fun.
Transcription #3 has a lot of nasty sounding higher gain drenched lines. If you’re looking for more aggressive ideas, this has them. It begins very deceptive tho with clean gentle sounding minor chords before Nick builds up to darker and rocking lines. The lines range from arpeggio based phrases to Van Halen inspired legato phrases with some tapping. In between, the cleaner chords appear to provide punctuation to the lines.
Amongst the first three volumes of Atomic Improv, I gotta say that this one has some of the most rocking & in your face ideas so far. I love all three of them (for different reasons, moods and tonalities) but this one is probably one that I’m going to dig into to add some aggressive edge to my playing. The tones are beautiful and Nick’s lines are top notch as usual.
Pros: Great lines, so many good ideas to learn & dissect.
Cons: This volume does not include Improvisation Insights PDFs as the previous ones did.
TLDR: If you dig the more aggressive side of Nick’s playing, this volume of Atomic Improv might just be what the doctor ordered.
You can get Atomic Improv Vol. 3 here: https://nickjohnstonmusic.com/atomic-improv
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