Back in 2021, I reviewed Juan Dhas’s video, What Makes a Strong Solo? Part 1: Melodic Clarity. Recently I watched some of his newer YouTube video and decided to revisit some of his instructional material and realised that I never reviewed the second part of his video on Mike’s Master Classes.
This video is a continuation of the first video which talked about melodic clarity. This time Juan discusses two other elements: rhythm and phrasing.
Just like the first video, this video is equally concise at 19 minutes and 42 seconds. On one hand, I do like that Juan keeps things to the point in the video, but on the other hand, I wish he did take more time to give more examples on what he teaches.
The first half of the video gives us different exercises to help develop stronger rhythmic phrasing. I particularly like his suggestion on how to apply bebop phrasing into your solos. Usually most lessons talk about the actual notes, but Juan discusses the rhythmic part which is really cool.
The second half of the video talks about phrasing, sharing his thoughts on space, contrast and articulation. Juan is an excellent improvisor with very expressive phrasing so I was definitely interested to hear his thoughts on this.
Juan’s teaching and explanations are good but I really wish it was more detailed and had more examples, perhaps even with some written examples. As it is, the class is more of a mini masterclass sharing more conceptual things. For some people this might be enough but some guitarists might require more examples for the concepts to make sense.
If you’re an advanced player, this video might feel enough, but for beginners or intermediate players, it might feel too brief.
All in all, I would recommend this video along with the first part together. As a standalone video it does feel kind of short compared to most offerings on Mike’s Master Classes. But, for the right intermediate guitarist, this video might give some food for thought to help you improve your single note soloing. Juan is a wonderful player with beautiful elegant fluid playing – I really hope he will make more videos in the future on Mike’s Master Classes.
Pros: A good second masterclass on these rarely discussed topics.
Cons: Video is short relative to other Mike’s Master Classes video, also no notated musical examples are included.
TLDR: Recommended for intermediate guitarists who want to develop stronger single note line soloing on the rhythmic and phrasing aspects.
You can buy this video here: https://mikesmasterclasses.com/courses/what-makes-a-strong-solo-part-ii
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