Review by Howard Keith (Farmhouse Studios)
Review by Reuben Dimech
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Review by Peter Borg
Review by Patrick Harvey
Review by Robert Tomasuolo
Review by Alexei Sammut
Review by Samuel Sultana
Review by Daniel Rosner
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By Patrick Harvey
"The following is a testimonial portraying the influence that Jean Pierre Zammit has on me as his student, as a guitarist, and as a musician.
I consider myself as an intermediate guitar player. I have been playing the guitar for the past 14 years, where I learnt everything on my own, from the very first simple chords to the later pentatonic scales and some other guitar techniques. I spent a couple of months learning with a well established guitarist in Malta, but I wasn’t satisfied of my progress because I felt stuck, I was seeing no progress, and I felt I was wasting my time. I always wanted to move to a further level in my guitar playing, and I did not want to remain to ordinary intermediate guitarist. I continued to learn guitar on my own for a number of years, until recently I met Jean Pierre by pure coincidence. Learning that he is a very good guitarist and a dedicated tutor, I decided to give it a try and approached him to start attending lessons. Now that I have been under his tutorship for approximately 6 months, I can say that I am very satisfied for a number of reasons.
Jean Pierre is a great lead guitar player. He has a sound knowledge of music, great techniques, accurate speed, a heavy booze of creativity, and a modern/versatile style of playing which makes him quite unique, differing from the traditional/classical rock guitarists. These, according to me, are the most essential characteristics to be a guitar virtuoso nowadays, and definitively I am very happy to learn the guitar from a person having the above characteristics. Nevertheless, these are not enough to make one a good guitar tutor.
Jean Pierre focuses a lot on the relationship with his students, and for him each student is an individual being with different musical styles and opinions from others. That is why he deems important to teach on a one-to-one basis, and I must say that to the contrary of my previous experience with a guitar tutor, I started seeing progress in my guitar techniques thanks to this method. I was able to perform licks and pieces that I didn’t imagine doing before, and I finally began to understand essential guitar concepts which I was oblivious to. Moreover, Jean Pierre is not after projecting his own styles, ideas, and concepts to his students, but he stresses a lot on the individual creativity of the person. He believes he is there to give the necessary means to his students (i.e. guitar knowledge and techniques) in order achieve their true potential in guitar playing.
Another reason why I am satisfied with Jean Pierre is that he does not focus to diffuse a curriculum of scales and techniques to his students, but he rather focuses on the person as an aspiring guitarist with definite goals! In fact, I was very surprised that we spent a lot of time in our first lesson discussing our musical tastes, opinions, and our favorite styles. Jean Pierre wanted to get to know me first, and he asked me what I want to become and where I want to go with my guitar playing. From the very beginning he clearly showed me that he is not there to just teach me to be a good lead guitarist, but also committed himself to give me a sense of direction in my guitar playing. The input of guitar knowledge is a means to an end, and Jean Pierre makes sure that his students are endowed with the relevant knowledge techniques to reach their goals. I appreciate the fact that he is willing to hear my concerns about my goals, my style, my playing, my band, and everything that has to do with music. Thanks to his guidance I am looking at music from a different perspective, and he is teaching me how to be analytical, self-critical, and pro-active.
In a nutshell, my experience with Jean Pierre is a very positive one indeed, and may I state that the fruit of his teachings are tangible. It is not about a one-way dissipation of guitar knowledge, scales and techniques. It is rather a system where guitar playing is seen holistically within the context of a formation of an aspiring musician. Indeed Jean Pierre influenced me quite a lot, not to copy his style tough. He influenced me how to emerge the real guitarist that lies in me.
Finally, I cannot conclude this essay without pointing to Jean Pierre’s passion in guitar playing. Together with his musical knowledge, techniques, speed, creativity, and versatility which I previously mentioned, passion is that extra ingredient which adds personality, feelings, and emotions to his playing. Deep Joy Within is definitely a passionate and superb piece of songwriting endorsing all the above mentioned qualities. Anyone who has a good musical insight can realize that Jean Pierre’s quality can match to well established guitar prodigies around the world, and with the right management and marketing he can definitively make it.
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