Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

Hi!

This morning we discovered that you must have a US credit card and address to use Square. Sorry about that! If you’re outside the US, here’s what to do instead:

1. Go to our lesson scheduler at tuckandpatti.com/schedule-an-appointment.html.

2. Schedule a lesson. When you “Select Lesson,” you’ll see our regular prices, not the $100 prepaid discount price. Ignore this.

3. The first time you schedule a lesson you’ll be prompted to register with us and put in a credit card number. Note: The Zip code field on the credit card page cannot be left blank, so fill it in with “11111”.

4. In the “Notes to Tuck & Patti” field tell us how many prepaid lessons you want to buy.

Our system will email us, and we’ll tell it to charge your credit card for that amount. No one, including us, will ever be able to see your credit card information.

You are now registered and can easily book more lessons any time.

5. If you are not ready to actually schedule your first lesson, cancel the one you just made, and schedule the real lesson whenever you are ready. Make a note in “Notes to Tuck & Patti” that you have prepaid, and you will not be charged again.

6. Very important:
•You must completely unblock cookies in your browser in order to use our system. Otherwise you will receive strange, misleading error messages at various points and be unable to complete the booking process. This includes mobile devices. You can always block them again afterwards. Go to Preferences or Settings in your browser to do this. This is almost always the answer to any problem with our system.

•You’ll know it worked when you see a big, green box saying “Your appointment has been confirmed.” Be sure you see this; otherwise you haven’t finished the process.

If you have already prepaid via Square, just follow the directions above to schedule your lesson whenever you’re ready.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Of course, contact “Tuck Support” at lessons@tuckandpatti.com if you run into any problems with our lesson scheduler.

We’ll look forward to seeing you.

All the best,
Tuck

P.S. Here’s our original email in case you missed it:

Limited-time discount on prepaid lessons with Tuck and Patti!

Hi!

A lot of people have asked about vocal and guitar lessons, for themselves and as gifts. The answer is yes! We are good at it, we love it, and we feel a responsibility to share the knowledge.

Our regular rate for a one-hour lesson is $150 in person and $160 via Skype. For a limited time we are reducing the price of all prepaid lessons to $100. You can buy as many as you like.

We tailor every lesson to fit the individual. We enjoy working with beginners and professionals alike and welcome all styles of music; our goal is to help you achieve your goal.

We will only sell a limited number of these prepaid lessons, so please buy yours now.

Buy Now!

We hope to see you soon! Have wonderful holidays!

Love,

Tuck and Patti

P.S. About the lessons:

Voice Lessons:

I believe that good technique is essential to expression. At the same time, I realize that every singer has a unique instrument, and I am committed to helping you navigate the path to finding your own voice, in an atmosphere of trust, support and honesty, while never forgetting that this is supposed to be fun!

Together we will explore: The physical mechanics of singing, warming up, breath control, intonation, increasing your pitch, dynamic and expressive ranges, effective practice, vocal health, the song, the melody, the harmony, the rhythm, the lyrics, learning how to hear, listen, respond and interact, communicating your intent, connecting with the listener, opening to improvisation, choosing your material, using stage fright…. These are only a few of the issues facing every singer. Let’s sing through them all. I am dedicated to helping singers of any style discover the ability to share what lies in their hearts, an unabashedly honest expression of a message of love and hope through the medium of music.

Guitar Lessons:

A lot of guitarists are fascinated by the complex, one-man-band style that has become my specialty. On the other hand, my style is really a combination of all the different styles I studied before Patti and I met. As a result, I’ll be happy, whatever your style, level or goal, to help you become musically more yourself and the best self-teacher you can be.

I’ve discovered that I have a gift for recognizing, defining and solving problems and for simplifying the complex. This translates into helping you to quickly demystify the fingerboard, visualize, internalize and master scales, arpeggios, chords and melodic patterns, understand harmony and its unique manifestation on the guitar, improve technique so it works for you rather than against you, increase speed, reach maximum expressive intensity, play with greater authority and stronger rhythm, improvise more successfully, perfect the links between ear, mind, fingers and heart and generally enjoy practicing and playing more than you ever have.

I should also mention Benson picking, because so many people have written to me about this: We tried very hard to take photos/videos to clarify the extremely analytical article I wrote, but without much success. In my experience, the best way to help somebody is to lean over them and let them see and feel my hand on their guitar from their normal viewing angle, comparing to their hand until we discover how best to apply the principles to their hand, body, playing style and guitar. There is always some unlearning involved, different for each person, and it really helps to pinpoint it, so you do not work against yourself without realizing it. I’ll be happy to focus on this if you like. I’m as confident today about the transformational power of Benson’s technique as I was 40+ years ago when it changed my life (thanks, George!).

Duo Lessons:

No doubt you have noticed that improving as a duo is not as simple as becoming better individually then coming back together. We certainly have! The duo format is so intensely interactive, musically and personally, that it brings up lots of other issues, including collaboration, arranging, improvisation, texture, feel, sound, personalities, etc. We’ve found that the best way to help duos is for all four of us to work together to pinpoint what you most need to work on, jointly and individually, to achieve your duo goal. We suggest an additional private lesson for each of you after the duo lesson to focus on how each of you can best work individually to serve the needs of your duo.

Skype Lessons:

If it is not convenient for you to come to us, we can come to you via Skype!

Buy Now!

edit to add, edit to editorialize: Patti and Tuck, I love you too, but in ten billion years I would not be able to go from where I am to this (and likewise no matter how much McIlhenny Tabasco Sauce I shake on all my meals, Palo Alto ain’t New Orleans, this video bridges the gap slightly I really, really, really, really really feel):

Which reminds me, or what brought me here: Jan. 25 at 2 p.m. on a Sunday I am producing and modeling a panel for Palo Alto Historical Association on the History of Jazz in Palo Alto and your story is a good part of it, about your start at The Varsity, and the relationship between The Varsity and Will Ackerman’s label, the early Palo Alto Jazz Festivals and all that. If you happen to be within 50 miles of here that weekend, we would love to have you swing by, and at the very least I will play some of your tunes, periodic and post-Palo Alto, and maybe show some of the footage of the Varsity music scene of that era. Windham Hill, I mean. There are probably 20 clippings from the PTT and Bill Johnson on your early days here. And not to digress, although I always digress, I really, really, really, really digress, in my deliberately construed version of history, jazz starts in Palo Alto kinda late to the game, 1968 or so with a Monk concert at Paly and ends in 2011 when Council refuses to pick up the gauntlet to bring music back to the Varsity, make the meanwhile “post-history” or commentary. But for a PAHA lecture, even as a wake, this might swang a wee bit, if you knows what I means.

and 1:
although the above section is written directly to Tuck and Patti, I took the liberty of writing them via their homepage, inviting them to come to my Jan. 25 panel: quite a long shot, but too good not to try. (Their schedule has them in Japan until three days before and in SF a month later…). Which prompts some perusing of the FAQ section where someone has transcribed a long discussion about their work together these 36 years; here is a brief section about Tuck, Stanley Jordan and George Benson:

During all this time I convinced myself that it was my goal to become a great straight-ahead jazz and soul player, using a pick on an electric guitar, even though I would have nagging doubts: “I love the way George Benson and Eric Gale already did this so much; there’s nothing I would change if I were them, so why am I doing it?” I did not even suspect that it was all merely preparation for a very different path that I was about to discover.

Years later Stanley Jordan showed me how he had done all the same work, except he had the good sense to program a computer to do all the permutations and combinations more quickly. But doing it manually probably helped me realize the goal of keeping my ear involved, realizing that all this was just a step towards expanding what my ear heard and preparing my hands to grab whatever my ear directed.

The article disproves a little theory I had that they met during their Varsity residency: they met in SF although Tuck was at Stanford several years before that. I recall visiting with their assistant Adlai Alexander in Menlo Park during my active days as a promoter, in the 1990s. Not sure where their headquarters are these days, and also they, for the limited purpose of my panel are not necessarily jazz. There is also the tricky subject of sifting Palo Alto from Stanford.