Hot on the heels of his fantastic DVD on Gypsy Jazz Rhythm Guitar, Montreal's Denis Chang has just released a game-changing four DVD box set focusing on the art behind soloing in the challenging style. A dedicated student himself, Chang has traveled the world to study with some of the genre's leading players, and that hard-won knowledge is on display here.

As with his rhythm tutorial, Denis makes no bones about his teaching style: this is a traditional, listening-based way of learning, and the set doesn't include any written materials. From the start, he reminds us of the importance of ear training; without it, improvisation is likely to be nothing more than an academic collection of scale lines and arpeggios. By focusing on the sound of the lines, rather than just their shapes, students quickly come to understand their malleability. It' something Chang returns to often over the course of the DVDs-the idea that he's not teaching isolated licks or lines, but giving you the building blocks of a style.

After an extended introduction (where he lays out his teaching philosophy and shares some tips on transcribing and practice routines) Chang launches into a section on licks that he calls a "foundation for improvisation". Detailing the nuance of each one, he delves into fingerings, picking direction, and the slurs and articulations that give each line its own sound. A split screen helps students focus on each hand in turn, and he performs his examples at varying speeds to make certain they're understood. Students who miss written examples will benefit from turning on the discs subtitles, which include fret numbers and up-and-down arrows indicating picking notation. As each phrase is dissected, Chang is careful to remind us that the ultimate goal remains creativity. Mastering the lines is important, but being able to manipulate them- to add or subtract notes, to reshape their rhythm, etc-is what gives it individuality. "Be creative-mess around," he says, noting that the phrases he's using as examples are just "puzzle-pieces", not the entire picture.

As the discs go on, the level of detail is astonishing. Some of the fret by fret instruction of earlier examples is purposely left out; again, Chang stresses the importance of ear training. But he's also generous enough to take examples very slowly to make sure everyone can keep up on some level. Examples cover everything from classic ii-V-I phrases to Rhythm Changes ideas to the more esoteric details that give Gypsy Jazz its own unique flavor-ghost notes, octave embellishments, chord soloing et al. He also takes time to discuss the importance of music's more intangible elements in a section on the classic tune Dark Eyes. After first demonstrating a commonplace-and woefully static-take on the melody, he then breaks the tune down, showing how simple melodic embellishments can make a tune one's own.

All in all it's an amazing piece of work, at once a compendium of incredible phrases and tools for improvisation and an inspiring take on what it means to be a musician. In an area where so many others advocate a slavish approach to what's come before-jazz loves its heroes-it's refreshing to find one so encouraging of experimentation. When he counsels students to come up with their own favorite fingerings, he makes reference to Django's limited choice of positions, and the musicality that allowed him to overcome that: "whenever he soloed, it never sounded like positions, it just sounded like music." It's a passing observation that neatly sums up Denis' own approach to the music.

The discs, available now at the HyperHip website, may seem pricey at first, but compared to private lessons they're an incredible bargain; they easily hold a year's worth of study material. One important note is that to a certain degree the discs build on each other; it's well worth buying them as a set to get the most of the experience.