Review: Jon Herington’s Ear IQ: Soloing Strategies

Full Disclosure: I am not a paid blogger, but TrueFire does exchange access to their lessons to me for a review per month.

Jon Herington has been working with Donald Fagen and Steely Dan since the late 90’s on top of his own projects… so if you haven’t hard that name before, consider some of the other monsters previously working for that group. (Derringer, Carlton, Baxter, etc. etc.) What makes this course worthwhile, is that even though these are 10 different solos entirely tabbed out, and have some fantastic licks, the lessons aren’t about that; he’s presenting an idea like considering the character of the song, ending well, singing your lines, etc. by describing the situation and how he’s applying each of these approaches before playing the solo to show the result.

If you are looking for licks, though, the updated and uptempo’d solo on “Bodhisattva” for the “Flash” demonstration is… *really impressive*. But even if you don’t pick up a single lick from this course, applying the techniques discussed to your own improvisation are all useful approaches for making great solos.

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