Feedback
Please leave your comments, ideas, and feedback for us
using the “Comments” box below.
If you would like to give us a Testimonial, please click the link below:
http://kennywernerlive.com/effortless-mastery-testimonials
Thank you.
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Dear Kenny Werner, I attended a workshop hosted by you in Victoria, BC,
on June 29, 2009. I was drawn to your comments about “the most
beautiful sound” one has heard, with regard to making music. When I was
three years old (I am now 62), my father bought our family a piano. He
sat me down with him at the keyboard and began to demonstrate what it
was and played a C major triad. I have never forgotten how beautiful
that triad sounded, I was astonished and remember thinking I had never
heard anything so fascinating (it was the combining of the harmonics of
the three notes played together that was so astonishingly beautiful to
my ears yet at that time I had no language to describe what it was,
other than the experience of feeling the beauty of the sound). After
your workshop I thought to myself, how over the course of our lives we
unlearn that feeling of surely knowing what we hear is the most
beautiful sound, and then somehow get lost in the wilderness of thinking
the sounds we make are diminished in the quality of beauty, perhaps even
ordinary or mediocre, even learning to put our egos in the way as
obstacles to knowing the beautiful sound exists independent of the
“ego”, that is, paradoxically even though “I” made it (initiated it).
Great workshop, Mr. Werner.
I am inspired to keep on learning.
Yours truly,
Dorrie Ratzlaff
Galiano Island, BC, Canada
www.dorrieratzlaff.com
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“Thanks so much to Mr. Werner and Dr. Colyer for all
the wonderful thoughts, writing, telewebinars, and everything!
I really appreciate it.
I just organized a classical Indian rhythmic theory workshops in Cleveland, Ohio for Pt. Suresh Talwalkar, one of the top tabla grandmasters in India. He came as a guru, not as a teacher… He told us during a lecture that the first of the six qualities required of a devotee by their guru is surrender.”
Take care,
Josh Sherman
Cleveland, Ohio
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, the telewebinars are fantastic! However, I am still having trouble figuring out how to access them. If I enter my name and email in the fields on the right, I am told that my username already exists(following these directions: TO GET ACCESS TO THE REPLAY,SIGN UP FOR OUR LIST IN THE UPPER RIGHT HAND CORNER
OF THIS WEB PAGE . . .)
No links that I click on seem to offer me a link to the actual mp3’s to the old ones. I can find #5 by clicking on the telewebinar #5 link following: “ask your question now:”(which should really now read something more like “access the telewebinar now”), but there is no equivalent link for #4 at the bottom of the page. Little confused by it all.
In general though: It’s incredible work you are doing, thank you!
darcy
What the two of you are doing is amazing! Each time I listen to telewebinars, I learn something new. Keep up the great work, and may we all be liberated!
Hi,
I really want to read this book, but am totally blind. Is there any audio or electronic version?
Thanks,
Brandon
It’s great to receive nuggets of truth in my email!
the help is indeed appreciated, in all the forms you are using, especially the webinar links.
I imbibe daily of this resource, thank you very much.
Hello:
I think your theories are perfect for me. I have taken six 12-week online courses from Berklee Music in Boston. I am a true novice, although I have owned my Gibson guitar since 1956! Since most of my classmates are already playing in bands or teaching in schools, I am left with the feeling that I am out of place in the class. My assignments which I turn in online do not compare with those of the obviously advanced players.
So, I need to change my outlook. Right?
Marshall
Good note for January. Thanks.
I like thinking about music being wholly for the enjoyment of the playing and not prescribed to a particular target. Please keep the emails coming, they hit at spontaneous times and often redirect my head in a good direction relevant to work, music, or just life in general.
Jed
I am so glad I came across Kenny Werner’s effortless mastery- I have been studying and playing piano for almost 45 years and found myself with the “syndromes” he so eloquently describes. I feel like I have been let out of a cage and I am a much happier person for it! Please keep it coming! How do I get a question to you guys- I wanted to know about composing for a certain style-a preconceived direction for free playing? Thanks Again
YOU are doing GREAT! I totally enjoy the news letters and the book that I resently purchased. You are gracefully!! helping me and others to open blocked doors. Blocked with prenup agreements what learning/playing music is and is not.
LOVE YOU FOR THAT!
play on with joy and playfullness,
Morayah
You’re doing great!
regards from Buenos Aires
I’ve came across with your work in a seminar of saxophonist Ricardo Cavalli last summer
So, thank you very much.
Javi
Kenny,
I have read your book a number of times and that combined with listening and watching the DVD have made a world of difference in my enjoyment of music. When I began playing trumpet, I could improvise without worry or attention, as I was just happy to be contributing something to the enjoyment of the audience. That “joy of creating” got lost somewhere along my career and I ended up quitting music completely for a number of years.
When it became apparent to me that I was not happy without music in my life, I began playing again about 30+ years ago and have never looked back. Your book appeared in my life some time after that and it served to support and validate what I had discovered for myself. The joy of creating (music) is paramount in anyone’s life. When you stop creating (anything), you fall into patterns of robotic behavior, repeating (even perfectly) what you have done countless times before. To me that was a death sentence. Reorganizing my life to put creative music back into what I am about has made the rest of life (all the mechanical aspects of existing on this planet) seem not so burdensome.
I now have two successful jazz albums out which continue to do very well and have played with many of my music idols only dreamed of previously. My little website (danjacobsmusic.com) now receives over 130,000 hits a month in over 80 countries around the globe. And, magically, I always seem to have enough money generated through the business of music to stay away a few steps ahead of the economic whip so prevalent in our culture.
If you would like to hear a bit of my playing directly influenced by your book and DVD, check: danjacobsjazz@myspace.com. The solos on “Well You Needn’t and on Stella by Starlight” are live performances recorded during the time I was agressively reading and practicing your materials. The solos are fun for me to listen to, as they were fun to play. You deserve much of the credit.
Thank you for your continuing efforts to spread the word. The importance of your work is inestimable; for in my opinion the life and longevity of any culture depends on the number of artists creating and working in the field, if only to counteract the efforts of those who operate on other purposes.
Please continue.
Dan Jacobs
To Kenny Werner and Dr. Andrew Colyer,
at the first moment I intend to write, to comment Your message with the
words:
You are great!
But better words for that why I appreciate Your email are:
You are true, Your words are true.
This message comes from me, from a person who started his first study in
music at a Conservatoire at the age of 48.
The way I try to encourage my children to follow their creative path in
life, profession is to say: No doubt!
I appreciate the book EM and your messages.
EM: Page 107 – “… Typically, he starts from the beginning. …”
One of my ways to become more and more familiar with the pieces I play after
to be aware of the whole structure of the piece, I start practising at the
end, the last phrase, then the phrase before, after that the combination of
the last phrases and so on.
Another approach – I play “my” music absolute slowly with the deepest
silence I am able to , tone by tone, but hold them together in a great
tension- often accompanied with some of the MegaBrain CDs by M. Hutchinson.
Best, good sounds,
Martin
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