While listening to and familiarizing myself with the recordings of many of the New York jazz musicians of the early 2000s, I noticed that the contrapuntal aspect was becoming more and more apparent in composition and improvisation. Although this concept can be found in different eras, notably in the playing of the pianist Fred Hersch or the guitarist Ted Greene, its spontaneous, systematic, and controlled use seems to be the hallmark of jazz today, particularly in the playing of the pianist Brad Mehldau and guitarists such as Gilad Hekselman or Pasquale Grasso. I developed a deep interest for this concept and my efforts to understand it resulted in a doctoral thesis in performance, an album, and ultimately this method. You can hear the use of this concept throughout my album released in the fall of 2021 on the Arte Boréal label: Sens uniques.
This book presents the methodological approach I developed in order to conceptualize, analyze, and ultimately adopt the two-voice contrapuntal style. The various pedagogical tools and strategies presented in this method will allow guitarists to quickly understand and master the many aspects related to this subject.
