Welcome to Tim Kliphuis Studio — an online school dedicated to gypsy jazz for string players, whether you’re trying improvisation for the first time or you’ve been playing jazz for decades and want to specialise.

Everything here is built around one goal: to make you a stronger, more confident improviser. There’s a structured monthly path if you want one, and a deep library if you’d rather wander.

How a typical month works

Each month I publish a Theme of the Month — a single topic to focus on. Three things flow from that theme:

• A new lesson each week exploring the theme from a different angle.
• A Challenge built around the theme, where you record a short video and I give you personal feedback (Studio Enthusiast and Studio PRO).
• A group lesson on the same theme (Studio PRO).

You don’t have to follow the monthly theme. The library has hundreds of lessons, etudes, licks and exercises going back to 2022, and you’re free to wander. The depth of your exploration is entirely up to you.

The single most common question from new members is: where do I begin? Here are two short paths. Pick whichever fits where you are right now.

If you’re new to jazz

1. Read this guide first — at least the next three chapters. Five minutes of orientation saves an hour of clicking around.
2. Enroll the First Aid Kit Crash Course. It’s designed exactly for this moment: a lick for every chord change so you have something to play in a jam session before you understand the harmony.
3. Pick this month’s song. Spend a couple of weeks learning the song’s theme (my video is there for you), trying stuff on the backing track at an appropriate speed for you, check out any etudes and watch the selected lesson videos. Don’t worry about “knowing” the chords yet.
4. Take part in the Challenge if you’re Enthusiast or PRO. Even one short clip is enough — the point is feedback, not perfection.

If you already improvise

1. Check out the Theme of the Month – this song is suggested learning (theme and improvisation) but if you already know it, feel free to make your own plans.
2. Filter the Library by tag. If you’re weak on rhythm, filter by Rhythm. If your bowing is shaky, filter by Bowing. The library is hundreds of lessons; the filters are how you make it small.
3. Try a Theory Pill. They’re short and they’re where I unpack the harmonic vocabulary that makes gypsy-jazz sound like itself rather than generic jazz.
4. Sign up for a group lesson if you’re PRO. Bringing a tune you’re working on is the fastest way to get unstuck.

Tip. A 30-minute practice session is plenty if it’s structured. Five minutes of warm-up, fifteen minutes on this month’s material, ten minutes on something you actually want to play. Repeat for a week.

The Studio is built to stay out of your way. There are two navigation bars at the top of every page.

The top bar

Holds your account menu, My Practice and the search icon. It always reflects the account you’re signed in with.

The main nav

Stays with you as you scroll. From here you can reach every part of the Studio:

• Dashboard — your home base, with the Theme of the Month and what’s next.
• Crash Courses — short, topic-specific deep dives.
• The Library — every lesson, lick, etude and exercise published since 2022.
• Backing Tracks — play-alongs for every song.
• Challenges — the Challenge of the Month and past challenges.
• The Green Room — the members-only community forum.

Search is in the top bar — useful when you remember a song or technique name but not where it lives.

The Dashboard is what you land on when you sign in. It’s a snapshot of what’s active right now in the Studio.

From here you can see, at a glance:

• This month’s Theme of the Month.
• The current Challenge (if you’re Enthusiast or PRO).
• Your upcoming group lesson sign-ups (PRO).
• The “Live with Tim” widget that shows you the next time to connect with him with your questions (for all Studio members)
• Recently published lessons.
• Your bookmarks and progress.

If you only have a few minutes today, the Dashboard tells you where to spend them.

My Practice is your personal workspace inside the Studio. Everything you’re currently working on lives here — songs, exercises, tips, etudes — alongside your notes, your streaks, and a view of how you’re progressing through the library.

You fill the My Practice page with lessons from the Library and Songs pages, so you can plan a practice path before starting. To add a Library lesson, go to the overview, find your lesson and click “Add to My Practice”. Same with Songs: go to the overview and select Songs for your Practice there.

You reach it from the My Practice link in the top bar.

What you’ll see

The page is built around four areas:

• Your stats at the top — how many tunes you’re currently practising, how many you’ve put aside for later, your current streak, total notes you’ve logged, and the share of the library you’ve engaged with.
• Tabs below the stats: Practising (what you’re actively working on), Practice later (the “I want to come back to this” pile), Resting (tunes you’ve set down for now), and Most loved (anything you’ve hearted).
• Library progress in the right sidebar — a per-category and per-level breakdown of what you’ve practised, watched, or not yet touched.
• Your insights and Practice schedule — your most-practised technique, your most-logged category, your practice frequency, and how many missed days before the Studio gives you a gentle nudge.

Adding something to My Practice

Anywhere in the Studio — on a song page, a lesson, an exercise, a tip — you’ll find a button to add that item to your practice. Once added, it appears in the Practising tab here.

Each card shows the type, the difficulty, the title, a notes field, and the date you added it. Click into the notes to log a session: how long you practised, what you worked on, what felt good, what didn’t. Those notes are private — only you see them.

Moving things between tabs

• Done with a tune for now? Move it to Resting. It stays in your history but stops cluttering your daily view.
• Saw something interesting but not ready to start? Drop it in Practice later.
• Tap the heart on anything you love and it shows up in Most loved.

Using your insights

The right sidebar isn’t just decoration. Library progress shows you where you’re strong (high practised %) and where you have room to explore. Your insights surfaces patterns: which technique you keep coming back to, which content category you naturally gravitate toward, where you’re repeatedly running into trouble.

None of this is a grade. It’s a mirror — designed to help you notice things you might miss in the day-to-day.

When you open My Practice for the very first time, the Studio will ask you a few short questions about your background and goals. Based on your answers, you’ll get a starting set of recommended crash courses, lessons, and songs — so you don’t have to guess where to begin.

Privacy

Your practice notes, your streaks, and your library progress are visible only to you. Tim sees aggregate numbers (how many members are using the page, which content is being practised most often) but doesn’t read individual notes.

Crash Courses are structured paths through one topic at a time. Each one is a short series of focused lessons designed to leave you with something you can apply right away — a technique, a sound, a piece of vocabulary, a way of practising.

You’ll find them in the main nav under Crash Courses, or directly at /crash-courses/. The opening line on that page sums it up: “Master gypsy jazz violin, one crash course at a time. Each crash course breaks down a key topic into focused, practical lessons you can apply right away.”

What’s available right now

There are ten crash courses published, ranging from foundational to advanced:

• Getting Started — 10 lessons. The natural place for new members to begin.
• GJ First Aid Kit — 14 lessons. A lick for every chord change, built around the Color System.
• Practice Routines — 15 lessons. How to structure a practice session that actually moves you forward.
• Bowing Exercises — 17 lessons. Right-hand technique drills.
• Bowing Investigations: where do we put Slurs? — 9 lessons. The musical thinking behind slur placement.
• Essential Licks — 20 lessons. The vocabulary every gypsy jazz player needs.
• Famous Progressions: what Licks to play on them — 15 lessons. Putting licks to work over real chord changes.
• Accompaniment on Violin — 13 lessons. Comping rhythm and harmony as a string player.
• Blues Sound — 10 lessons. The blue notes, the bends, the language.
• Chord Subs and Alterations: how to use your Licks in a cooler way — 22 lessons (intermediate). Reharmonisation tricks from the 30s and 40s.

How to choose one

The page filters by level — All levels is the default; you can also narrow to Basic or Intermediate.

If you’re unsure where to start, three good first picks:

• Brand new to gypsy jazz? Getting Started, then GJ First Aid Kit.
• Already improvising but want to sound more idiomatic? Essential Licks, then Famous Progressions.
• Practising for hours but not progressing? Practice Routines — it’s about how you practise, not just what.

How a crash course works

Click Start course on any course card and you’re taken to the course page. From there you work through the lessons in order — each lesson has a video, supporting material where relevant (sheet music, exercises, backing track snippets), and notes from me.

Your progress is saved automatically. Come back any time and pick up where you left off.

Each course also tells you how many other members are studying it. Don’t take that number as a popularity contest — pick the course that’s right for you, not the one with the biggest crowd.

Crash courses pair well with My Practice. When you start a course, drop the song or technique it focuses on into your Practising tab. That way the work you do inside the course becomes part of your day-to-day practice instead of something that lives only inside the course player.

The Library is where everything lives. Every lesson, lick, etude, exercise, theory pill, tip, warm-up and on-the-road story published since the Studio opened in 2022.

You can browse it however you like. A few common paths:

• Filter by category in the top bar — for example just the Licks (43+ entries) or just the Theory Pills (29+).
• Filter by difficulty — Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced.
• Filter by tag — Bowing, Rhythm, Left Hand, Chromatic, Dominant, Tonic, Right Hand.
• Bookmark anything you want to come back to. Bookmarks live under your account menu.

What’s in the Library

The biggest categories at the moment are Tips (around 49 short practical posts), Licks (43+ vocabulary licks per chord type), Etudes (35+ short composed pieces with sheet music), and Exercises (30+ technical drills). The smaller categories — On-The-Road Stories, Workshops, Warm-ups — are where you’ll find the more personal material.

Each month I add a new gypsy-jazz standard to the Studio. Every song comes with the full kit:

• every song comes with a play-along
• the theme played by Tim (learn it from him not from the chord sheet!), sometimes an Etude, and a bunch of video lessons to help you with specifics for that song.

The archive grows every month and stays available — songs from 2022 are still there. Use them to build repertoire for jam sessions and concerts.

Using the backing tracks

Each track plays directly on the page, with the lead sheet and a short reference to the original tune. You can also download a track using the download icon next to the lead sheet button — useful for offline practice or for taking the track to a rehearsal.

About sharing. The tracks are licensed for your personal practice. Please don’t pass the audio files around. If a friend wants to use them, the way to do it is to invite them to join the Studio.

The Challenge is the part of the Studio where theory turns into music. Every month I post a challenge based on the Theme of the Month — a short performance task, usually built around a song, technique, or improvisation idea.

You record a video of yourself doing it, post it, and I give you personal feedback. You also get to watch (and react to) other members’ submissions.

How to take part

1. Read the challenge brief on the Challenges page.
2. Record a short video — a phone is fine, an audio interface is better, but don’t let gear be the reason you don’t post.
3. Upload the video to YouTube or Vimeo (steps below) and copy the link.
4. Paste the link into the Video Link field on the Challenge page, add any notes, and click Post Challenge.

The deadline gives me the chance to feedback on all your Challenges at once. If you miss the deadline, you can still upload a Challenge video within 10 days before the post closes. If you submit late there might a chance that my review would come later than the others.

I aim to leave feedback on every submission within a week.

Posting from YouTube

1. Sign in at youtube.com. If you don’t have an account, create one — it’s free.
2. Click Create → Upload video and follow the prompts.
3. When you set the video’s privacy, choose Unlisted. Don’t pick Private — those won’t play for me.
4. After upload, copy the video URL — either from the upload screen, or from YouTube Studio (top-right avatar → Your videos).
5. Paste the URL into the Challenge page.

Posting from Vimeo

1. Sign in at vimeo.com (or click Join to create a free account).
2. Click New video → Upload and follow the prompts.
3. Under Who can watch this? choose Only people with the private link. Don’t pick Password protected — viewers would need the password to watch.
4. Copy the video URL from the video’s page.
5. Paste the URL into the Challenge page.

Past challenges stay open. You can’t join a previous month’s challenge in the leaderboard sense, but you can revisit any past challenge and work through it at your own pace.

Group lessons are small live sessions on Zoom — usually around ten members per session, so there’s real time for each player to be heard. They run on the Theme of the Month, and they’re part of Studio PRO.

Signing up

Each group lesson has one or more time slots. Pick the slot that works for your timezone (the times shown automatically convert to your local time) and click Sign up.

One session per lesson. You can sign up for one slot per lesson — not multiple slots of the same lesson. If you need to switch, cancel your current slot and pick another.

Once you’re signed up:

• The Join Zoom button appears on the lesson page (it activates close to the start time).
• You can add the lesson to your calendar — Google Calendar or any .ics-compatible app.
• You see a countdown to your specific slot.

If you can’t make it

Cancel your slot up to 24 hours before — that frees the spot for someone else. Cancel from the lesson page or the dashboard widget.

Replays

Every group lesson is recorded and posted as a replay a day or two later. You’ll get an email when the replay is up. Replays stay available in the Replay Lessons section.

Setting up Zoom

Zoom is free. If you don’t already have it:

1. Go to zoom.us/download and install the app for your computer (or grab Zoom from the App Store / Play Store on phone or tablet).
2. Create an account with your email.
3. Test it once before the lesson — open Zoom, click Test Meeting, and check your mic and camera work.

Audio matters. Before you join, turn on Original sound for musicians in Zoom. Click the ^ next to the microphone button (bottom left of the Zoom window) → Audio Settings → Audio Profile → choose Original Sound for Musicians. Without this, Zoom’s noise suppression treats your violin as background noise and I can’t hear what you’re playing properly.

A few practical notes

• Make sure your camera and microphone work and that the room is quiet.
• Use a second device (phone or tablet) to play your backing track. Playing the track on the same computer that’s running Zoom doesn’t usually work — the track gets cancelled by Zoom’s echo cancellation.
• Wired headphones are easier on Zoom than Bluetooth.

The Green Room is the members-only forum where the gypsy-jazz string family hangs out. It’s the social side of the Studio.

Things people post about:

• Recordings they’ve made and want feedback on.
• Gear questions — pickups, microphones, strings, travel cases, the lot.
• Local jam sessions, festivals, and meet-ups.
• Specific tunes, licks, and technique questions (often tagged Ask Tim when they want my take).
• Just saying hi.

You can post topics, reply to others, and follow threads you’re interested in. It’s the part of the Studio where you’re not just learning from me — you’re learning from each other.

Everything to do with your account lives behind the same menu: top right of any page → My Account. Below is what each section does.

Updating your profile and avatar

Click My Account → My Profile to change your display name, bio, or contact details. Click Update to save.

For your avatar (the picture that appears next to your forum posts and group lesson sign-ups): My Account → My Avatar, upload a picture from your device, and click Update Avatar.

Managing your subscription

My Account → Subscription Settings shows your current plan, when it started, and when it next renews.

From the Actions row on that page you can:

• Renew — useful if your subscription has lapsed. Choose your payment method, click Renew Subscription.
• Change Plan — upgrade or downgrade between Listener, Enthusiast, and PRO (or switch between monthly and yearly billing).
• Cancel — stops auto-renewal at the end of your current billing cycle. You keep access until the cycle ends.
• Abandon — terminates the account immediately. Use this only if you want access cut off right now.

Payments

Subscriptions renew automatically. To update your payment method, go to Subscription Settings and pick the relevant action in the Actions row.

What happens if a payment fails

The Studio will retry the payment three times over the following three days. If all three retries fail, you’ll get an email letting you know the subscription has expired, and access to member content pauses until you renew.

Email preferences

My Account → Email Notifications lets you choose which Studio emails you want to receive — group lesson reminders, new lesson alerts, forum activity, and so on. To turn all Studio email off, set the status to Unsubscribed.