Truefire - Robbie Calvo's Power Play: Major Edition (2015)

Any musician that does it really well will tell you there’s only one way to develop your improvisational skills — learn the theoretical fundamentals and then practice improvising, over a variety of changes, in a variety of keys and feels, as frequently as possible. If you already have a grip on the fundamentals, and are fortunate enough to be able to jam live with other musicians several times a week, your improvisation chops will grow very quickly. But if you need a little help with the fundamentals, and don’t have the chance to play out as much as you’d like to, then Robbie Calvo’s Power Play Series will get there just as quick (maybe even a little quicker!).

Robbie’s Power Play Series is a contextual hands-on learning system focused solely on the development of improvisational skills. No tedious theory or boring exercise to struggle through — you will play and improvise your way through the entire series.

Robbie’s 6-minute improvisation workouts are the core learning tools of the series. Each workout features a rhythm track with a series of 8-bar progressions that change key four times throughout the workout,. The progressions and keys loop four times to net approximately six minutes of non-stop soloing and improvisation.

The Workouts are organized by tonalities (Major Pentatonic, Major/Ionian and Lydian) and for each tonality, Robbie gives you a Road Map to follow which includes chord progression breakdowns, applicable scale shapes and patterns, fretboard navigation tips, “sweet note” resolutions, phrasing insight and a variety of other improvisational tips.

“I’ve designed the Power Play Series to emulate the real world experience of playing in a variety of keys and tonalities, across a variety of chord progressions. When jamming and improvising, you really never know what tune or progression might be called out, or even what to do over that progression. My 6-minute workouts will be challenging at first but after just a few practice sessions with them, the student will be amazed just how comfortable and creative they’ve become playing in multiple keys and feels all over the fretboard — on the fly!”

The Power Play Series consists of three modules..

Power Play: Major focuses on 3 Major Scale Types for improvisation - The Major Pentatonic Scale - The Major Scale (Ionian Mode) - The Lydian Scale.

You'll learn to apply and improvise with all 5 of your Major Pentatonic scale forms, 7 Major scale forms and 7 Lydian scale forms across the entire fingerboard.

Power Play: Minor focuses on 4 Minor Scale Types for Improvisation - The Minor Pentatonic Scale - The Dorian Mode - The Phrygian Mode - The Aeolian Mode (Natural Minor). You’ll learn to apply and improvise with all 5 of your Minor Pentatonic scale forms, 7 Dorian, Phrygian and Aeolian scale forms across the entire fingerboard.

Power Play: Dominant focuses on 3 Scale Applications for Dominant chord progressions - The Major Pentatonic - The Blues Scale - The Mixolydian Mode. You'll learn to apply and improvise with all 5 of your Major Pentatonic Scale forms, 5 Blues Scale forms and 7 Mixolydian Scale forms across the entire fingerboard.

All of Robbie’s improvisation performance examples, across the entire series of modules, are tabbed and notated for your reference purposes. Plus, you’ll get all of the rhythm tracks to work with on your own as you learn to craft your own original improvisations.

Grab your guitar and Power Play!