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Hey Jeff, options are very important in jazz.

Somehow TikTok has a different alogerithm. This video made around 5K views in a few hours on TikTok with 20 followers and now we can compare. On YT around 250 views with 47000 subscribers. Makes sense to upload some more videos on TikTok to bring more people to this website here. :-)

BTW - Tik Tok is only a test which I will continue since it is easy to get lots of traffic with no followers. As an example - when I upload a performance video on YT I get around 500 - 700 views with 47000 subscribers. On TikTok I get the same with 20 followers. One video which I uploaded recently made over 9K views. That one will come on YouTube on sunday. I am curious what will happen with it there. But I have no plans to switch the eudcational video's to an other format. The long video's in 16:9 will remain.

Hey Greg, thanks for your feedback. I will keep it up - as described in the prior text.

Yes YouTube will remain a hosting plattform as long as possible - but they changed the alogerithm this year. How did that affect my channel ? I have been part of the Swiss YouTube Creator team back in 2015 and I always had a traffic from 80000 - 120000 views per month. It in fact made sense to follow trends because this leaded to ongoing traffic, since older video's still got views. Now by the middle of 2023 the traffic has dramaticaly changed, even I am doing the same thing I did over years. To put this in numbers - it's around 30% loss. When I go for popular themes or pull factors it creates some traffic for 3-5 days and then the visability stops again. So I have to create a mix of popular themes to get some traffic out of those 3-5 days but the focus is now to complet the system here on this website. That's what I did from summer 2023 till now and I am glad that in fact the system is complet here. The next step is now to keep high quality content up as you described using YouTube as a hosting plattform but to power up the community here. So it is upon you guys out there to make the plattform a really cool place. I am offering a very fair and professional system here for the benefit of all users but it will not work without the community. I am doing my part as good as I can - but the community also needs some contribution from you guys out there. I noticed on Twitter thanks a lot for that. That's the help the community needs to getting it running.

Slowly the holiday season is over and I will be starting with the full scale work by monday 8th january. I have used the holiday time to make a full analysis of my entire artistic and educational work. This also included a study of the competion. Normaly I don't really check what others are doing because I believe in the power of the own creativity which should not be influeced by others but for some reason it was the time to really check what the world and the guitar world in specific is doing out there. It was the right time because I noticed 2 things. There are in fact some really great young players out there which challenge the entire professional guitar scene. They pushed guitar playing to a really new level which is exciting and inspiring for me. And there are a lot of other great players out there who present themselves pretty well on the social media platforms. On the other hand - I have been in internet buisness and internet strategies since 1999 and I always had the right intuition in which direction the future goes. One thing is clear. The big times of social media plattforms is over. Facebook as an example has become a platform which in not trendy and not hip anymore. And the entire platform is way too complicated, user-unfriendly and slow. Instagram is part of facebook - so this is the same story and it's really hard to get new followers there. There is no strategie which really works in an economic way. I made some really good succes on Tik Tok with no followers : https://www.tiktok.com/@hpcrazy73?_t=8ipMCnGL4Ft&_r=1 The main problem is that you can spend hours and hours in social media strategies and you only get a very little payback for that and this does not work anymore - at least when you are an independant artist as I am. So the strategy has to get back to the core buisness and this is in fact CREATIVITY. And here comes an other problem. Spotify is now making a cut to all content which does not reach 1000 streams at the moment and gives all money from those streams to the artists which have reached more then 1000 streams. I guess the other platforms will follow or there will be new platforms which offer a fair service to artists and producers. With digital music distribution the best strategy would be to get your own fanbase and build up your brand to make yourself independent from any changements in user policies or royality payouts - but on the other hand you also need to be present on the trending platforms. So here the strategy must be to play your cards in both worlds at the moment and focus on your brand. The brand is what makes an independent artist truely independent - having an own platform is also a key feature in this whole strategy. Why having your own platform ? On a own platform you make yourself indepentent from alogerithms which cut off most of the creativity. The AI discussion in the musician and creative works world is really big at the moment. Can AI replace creative workers ? It is a challenge I must say but it's is also a great tool to save a lot of time which helps to fullfill the tasks in this " digital mess ". The solution at the end of the day is again the question what is artistic work all about ? It's about emotions and to transport emotions to people. Thats what it is all about - in any creative art. So the focus has to be on this - the creativity and to make yourself free from the bounderies of alogerithms and platforms but still using them as a tool. And that's the way to go - focus on the core, the emotions of music and the people who enjoy the result of all this. My brands which I will give all my energy are : HPCrazy Guitar Academy - Make this a source for all players out there who really love guitar playing want to learn guitar because they love guitar so much and don't go for flashy promises of learning guitar in 2 months. Farbmusik - This is my invention back from 2006. I restarted the concerts in 2022 and I will continue this work. Farbmusik is a new way of seeing music above the only 2 dimensional view of genres. The genres are the colors which are expressed with music. There I will start to work on new music now. I will send parts of it to the digital music distribution platforms but I will also share exclusive content only here on this platform.

You are welcome Jeff

Hey Jeff you are welcome - I personally love the " Play - Rest " concept a lot.

Here I show you how to play Reggae Guitar on the example of the Bob Marley song " I Shot The Sheriff ". Here you can download the files associated to this tutorial :

Here I show you 3 mixolydian jazz guitar licks which represent the main 3 concepts of using the mixolyidian mode in any jazz guitar setting. Here you can download the files associated to this tutorial :

Hey guys, first of all - HAPPY NEW YEAR to your all I wish you a great life and guitar journey in 2024. Here are now the latest updates : Blogs There is a new feature available in the Academy since the beginning of Dec. 23. This gives you the opportunity to have your own account here on this website and share anything you like. You can have as many categories in your blog account as you like and you can share anything you like. One really great feature is that you can share your pracitce plans and routines to me or the community to get a feedback or some suggestions what you can work on since there are so many lessons available here on this website. You find the blogs here : https://www.hanspeterkruesi.com/members/blogs/ Here you find some technical information if you have difficulties to open up your own blog : I will also enlarge my service to the community by sharing some really exclusive content to the community in my blog : Community Interaction I am glad that the community starts to interact more now here in the academy. The main idea in fact was always that you guys can use this community to interact with eachother. Learning from the experience from others is in fact an important thing on the ethernal guitar journey. You are all free to comment anywhere you want. You can open up your own topics in the Students Club if you hit the " Join Button " or it's also possible to make any comments on any blog post. Check out the topics in the Students Club here : https://www.hanspeterkruesi.com/members/forum/79-topics/ or check my latest blog entry about " Playing Fast Guitar " or maybe you want to share your " Next Year Objectives " here : or the current discussion here in the latest tutorial. John from Carmal IN is sharing a really cool story : now lets move on the the latest tutorials : Blues Easy Blues Guitar Solo : Here I show you how to create great and easy blues guitar solo's over the entire fretboard. All you need to know are 3 minor pentatonic positions and follow my tips. Slow Blues Guitar - Timing Fundamentals : Timing is 50% of music and in slow blues it's probably rated even higher. So here you can learn how to get an organic timing and how to build great timing automatisms that you can play freely on any slow blues and sound great because your timing works. Rock Ueber Blues Rock Guitar : Here I give you some cool ideas to play a really cool ueber blues rock guitar riff with a drop D tuning + give you some ideas how to play a wild solo by using the phrygian nat. 3 scale. And by the way - I upload my version of this track on Tik Tok - I had only 20 followers. This got me nearly 10K views there. I might upload that version soon on YouTube. Precise intermediate rock guitar : This tutorial is for all intermediate rock guitar players who want to work on their timing and precision in playing. This is a " MUST HAVE " for all rock guitar players. Jazz Secondary Dominants : Here I teach you the theory of the " secondary dominants " in major and minor chord progressions. If you are into jazz guitar this tutorial is a " Must Have " even it might seem to be hard to understand at the start. Once you got the trick is really easy - like riding a bike. with that tutorial comes a really important working sheet which helps you to get familiar with Secondary Dominants : Music and Outlook 2024 When I remember back to the beginning of 2023 things all seemed to be working nicely and smoothly but the alogherithm of YouTube has changed during this year and new uploads are getting new viewers only for a few days and then they don't get rated to much anymore in the archive. That made my traffic go down approx. 20-30 % even though the content I am uploading is high quality. So I decided to give more energy to this community with the goal to make it more independent from the pressure from the algorithm of social media platforms. That has the big advantage for you guys that I don't need to focus all the time on popular themes which are supported by algorithms and I can focus on offering you guys a perfect online guitar academy which also covers the really important themes. You can take the " Secondary Dominant '' tutorial. This is so important if you want to play a great jazz guitar but it's not a popular theme at all. Also digital music distribution which change by the beginning of 2024. Spotify will not pay artists any royalities anymore if you don't reach at least 1000 streams per submitted track. I feel I don't want to support this anymore. I still think about this - but probably I will also pull the full artistic work to this website here and only upload limited music to digital platforms. And again this has the same benefit that the music has not be limited in it's creativity by the algorithms of digital streaming platforms. I will try to find a middle way in this but the desicion is made to try to find an offramp. You can support this new concept for your own benefit by sharing this website to your guitar friends. So these were the latest news here - thanks for supporting my work and being here in this community and the high quality work will be continued. Best HP

Hey John, what a coincidence Thanks for sharing your story.

That's what the focus is here on this lesson.... but I can tell a secret. I also really need to concentrate on 40bpm to be really precise. If you can make it with 40 bpm and only with drum and bass then you can do any blues.

I agree I changed my musical life - it took me more then 2 years to recover and redefine myself as musician to get back on stage. One of the reasons why I am now against the normal education system at music universities. I have been a teacher there too but I left because I didn't agree with that type of musicial education system which does not take the emotional and psychological part of indivduals in account. I do believe that Yngwie Malmsteen in fact is playing in a way which fits his personality. That why it works - but even I used to be impressed a lot by his speed. I never could take more then 20 min of listening to him and now being an experienced player and tutor I can hear that in fact he is also not totally in the " music " zone when he plays. That's probably the reason why I can not listen to him too long. Music which you can listen over and over again is emotional driven music and not intellectual driven one.

I took this little discussion here to start my first really personal blog here :

Here I quickly talk about my story about playing fast guitar during my studies at Swiss music University and how 2 live performances which changed my direction completly in my perception of playing fast and music.

Timing is 50% of music and in slow blues it's probably rated even higher. So here you can learn how to get an organic timing and how to build great timing automatisms that you can play freely on any slow blues and sound great because your timing works. Here you can download the files associated to this tutorial :

In fact that's one of the big tasks to work with modes and make it sound organic and not like switching from one mode to the next. I'll do a tutorial about this in the near future. That can be a very useful add in the playing. I also do that on chords with are only possible to play when you use your thumb that way. Thats great - the familly band

Thats in fact the question - what is music all about ? Can not one note played at the right spot with the right emotion have a bigger value then meaningless runs and chops ? I personally found out the hard way after years of extrem practicing where I suddenly got cut off music standing on the big stages and could not play at all anymore. The way to music has to be the opposite - start with one perfect note at the perfect spot. And that's what I try to teach my students - thats the way to music and happiness in music and maybe one day such fast runs come but then they fit perfect in the moment they are played. In fact music is more then just playing notes - it's a way of life. Maybe for some guys it's the right thing to do to play always as fast as possible and for others not - it's a personal choice and a personal way of living.

Yes what I learned over the years is, that life balance is more important. I can tell because I also went the other way with extrem practicing.

Here's another guy - Greg Howe He has amazing and similar skills like Max Ostro and Matteo Mancuso ... but not so overwhelming perfection like the young players. Well it's still great and professional ... but the difference is what I was just talking about in the post before. Well maybe to compare that with 100m sprint - the winner makes it in 9.76 and the 4th one in 9.85 ....

in fact this was hard work... of all those guys. We will see how it develops - I remember Frank Gambale. In his really crazy times he was absolutly amazing and precise and fast but there was a lot of hard work behind it - later in his career he did not work so much anymore and the small little mistakes came which " normal " pro's have came back but you hardly hear them. You really need to practice like 8 hours daily to play on such a level... I can tell I practiced up to 16 hours daily during my studies - but later I could not keep this high level up - just because I needed to make some money and had other things to do as well but also because the motivation for such extrem practicing times is hard to keep up permanently. The worst what can happen is when you have a girlfriend - then one is not so driven anymore to practice non-stop. I can tell - the past years I put my relation first for once in my life. Now I want to get back to higher practicing levels but still having a life beside music.