Here is the post from ddw4e:
Since my boy Midi already done a review I guess I do one as well.
I going to use the same system like my good friend Diverse used on the hear and play DVDs
Organ Essentials with Hammondman
I will rate them on a scale from 1-5
1. Being lousy don’t waste your money.
2. O.k. some useful information but could save your money by going to your church with a tape recorder and recording some other cat (not good explanations).
3. Fair amount of good licks and progressions and useful information.
4. Good bet should add to your library.
5. What are you waiting for?? Buy this thing!!
Hammondman
5
This DVD is targeted for the beginners and me actually a beginner (although playing for about 5 years on organ...still a beginner LOL) I really enjoyed the amount of information on this and will take my laptop to church one day and view this while on the organ. The organ has midi capability so you can see the chords light up below there is a small screen so you can see his feet on the pedals at the same time as the two manuals.
He had done some incredible moves with the 3-6-2-5-1, 1-6-2-5-1, 7-3-6, and 5-1-4 progressions.
Now for those of you wanted hymns on the DVD, he did several of them and other “testimony” songs and broke them down fairly well. The whole DVD was totally toward harmonic, melodic and pentatonic scales. For example, he did a lesson on Holy, Holy, Holy and the first thing he talked about was that it was based on the pentatonic scale. And each song he did a detailed lesson and performed it several times (for me was a great move since the DVD doesn’t have overlays like the others so that was a plus). He used only 5 keys (C, Db, Eb, F, and Ab) in the whole DVD since they are the most common keys.
Quality: Awesome! Unlike the Howard DVD I can see the pedals a lot better (which I understand because the stand on the Diversi is closed like the Hammond C3s). Now I like if they can do a overhead camera right above the pedals like the manuals…but then again, could be hard to do…but should give it a shot.
He gave some advice to almost every section of the DVD (for example, he talked about not to do crazy chords when doing a hymn...this is very true and to add, not all musicians know how to play hymns but can play all of these other contemporary songs and that’s not a good thing at times…especially if you play at a pro-traditional church.
My ratings
Overall 5
Performance 5 (I was digging the substitution chords!)
Ease of understanding material 5
Explanations 5 (very well since there wasn’t any overlays)
Song choices covering all necessary areas of church service 5
