Welcome!

Elliot

Lango-Django wrote:

Thanks, Elliott, and by the way, thanks for alerting our fellow djangobooks.com members to the existence of the Givone method several months ago. It was your enthusiasm that originally led me to give it a try... so naturally, it'll be all your fault if I fail at this.



Since you seems to be the most experienced student using this method, I'm going to get the ball rolling here by asking you a few questions that I expect others, if there are any, will soon be asking, and trying to answer for themselves...

I'm currently working on track 21, page 21; a 'linking' exercise which puts together five patterns based upon the five shapes. I'm finding it tough; I can barely manage to play it at half speed.

The pattern is just a bit too long to memorize, and I just can't read tab quickly enough to be able to sight read it much faster than I already play it.

Looking ahead at pages 23, 25, and 27 I see similar exercises, and they look even tougher. I'm guessing it would take me several weeks to master these linking exercises, and I don't find that they really have a lot of musical value.

I'm considering perhaps just devoting myself to the individual 'five shapes' exercises and not worrying about the 'linking'.

I've looked ahead in the book to the "Cadences and solos" and those pages don't seem to really have much relation to the stuff I'm currently slogging through, and I like them because they are much more satisfying to listen to, they don't sound like finger exercises.

What do you think? Did you put in the time to really master these page 21-23-25-27 exercises or not? If so, did you find a lot of benefit when it came to learning the "cadences and solos" stuff that followed?

Thanks,

Will

Hi Will,

You reminded me for a second back when I was in High School I used to give my little brother a 'money back guarantee' on Frank Zappa records - ! I wish I could offer that now!

Yes, I can do the 'enchained' exercises forwards, backwards, and across the same position for each of the four, and I'm still doing them. Your brain may be arranged differently from mine, but I couldn't do squat until I wrote out each position in a nifty little chart. I made circles going up, and filled in the extra notes going down with dots. I sent a copy via snail mail to jkaz since he expressed interest when we were first talking about it. I suggest people make a chart as well. I couldn't just post it even if I did have it scanned in, which I don't, because it is the crux of the whole thing, and as mentioned we don't want to infringe on our man Givone. Anyway it was easier when I could see each pattern I was playing in my head...which took a few months to do btw, not weeks! (Do yourself a favor and note where the root is when you do this.)

I'd be glad to send anyone else who's passed the test of owning the book a copy of aforementioned chart, although working them out by yourself can help the learning process for those involved, too. I admit I still take peeks at it now and then just to get me started. One day I was practicing playing them with the television on and the commercial happened to be in G and my exercise just fell in with the jingle and all of a sudden I got that rush, 'look at me, I'm flying' feeling, and just that little stretch made me inspired to continue - I actually left the ground that time for a few seconds.

I've gotten a bit slogged down with the task of researching exactly which notes are happening for each position of the Cadences and Solos, but I can trace the larger patterns easily enough. That's where I basically am today. This method is definitely a meat-first sandwich but it is enjoyable and I'm learning a foundation to draw from, and not just a bunch of licks or whatever. So far the linking part just gets you from one pattern to the other along the low E string then up the particular scale, I'd say mostly for practice, but I would suppose that one would want to be able to link whatever fragment of the scale needed to get to the next chord pattern at some near future point, something I'm hoping to pick up along the way. Oh, yes, as you've noticed he does throw in a 6th or 9th for example sometimes, I think just for added flavor to avoid the white-bread feeling of straight major arps, e.g., when using them as complete phrases.

Elliot - P.S. I'm really glad you guys are falling in with this! - imho it looks like the real deal in terms of a rounded instructional method.

Passacaglia

Elliot wrote:

Anyway yes, this is Method, not transcription, and once you realize how the 5 positions are arranged - and memorize- you'll see the value in it, namely that they follow what must be the classic Django formula of approaching scale (or chromatic) notes, up the arp, to more chromatic notes ending in a figure like a hammer-on/off and back down. The descents are more straightforward, and once you get up to speed you can use the descending patterns to blaze like Jimmy if you want to. I especially like the m7th run at the 10th fret ( the II or A form) for this.
Elliot

Hey Elliot - and others using the book.

Firstly, thanks for this sub-forum, and Elliot, for exchanging a bit on the method. I likely betray how little I know with my questions, but I sense some real meat here that I'd like to master. First and foremost, I simply played all the tracks to hear the guy; and found the sound absolutely GJ, absolutely beautiful. Can't really put it in words, except to say it rang my bell from the first, loudly and well.

That said, I'm already pretty flummoxed. I get the form shapes, but don't see how the "gammes" really relate to these shapes. By way of comparison, I understand pretty clearly from Wrembel's book, the relationship between fret positions and arp runs, and the corresponding shapes in Wrembel's (simpler) set of 3. To take but one example, I simply don't see how track 13 relates to the forme 4 shape. The same for all the others, in these basic C major patterns.

I have very little theory committed to memory. Given this, is one best to just memorize the patterns, transpose them for different keys, and play away, on songs? Do a song in say, forme 4 - all of it, using the patterns as shown for major, minor, 7 as it approaches m or M, etc.? Or in the alternative, learn the entire book rote, to include the Cadences section, where forms are chosen (I can see a certain logic to it - the proximity of form notes, given the chord - but pretty lost as to the real "logic").

Again, I suspect I betray how little I know. But I'd like to really work this book, and could use a bit of explication on the logic of how the runs and chord forms do relate. In other words, bécasse, je sais, mais je ne le trouve pas "facile de voir la relation entre gamme-accord."

Thanks.

Paul

Lango-Django

Paul, you do know that "gamme" means scale right?

First Givone shows how to play through the diatonic major scale in all five positions, and then he lays out his "forms" for each position, which Include the chord tones and some but not all of the scale notes, and even a few chromatic notes, either to add interest or just to make fingering easier.

The minor scale is a little more complicated because there are actually three minor scales, not one, so his "forms" represent a kind of compromise between the melodic, harmonic and natural minor scales. I think he did a great job on these forms--- they sound really oriental and exotic.

Have fun!

Will

Passacaglia

Thanks, Will. Yep, I did know that (my French is decent, though it's been ages since I've used it regularly). I think what's at issue is that I wasn't kidding on my lack of knowledge of the CAGED system - I really don't know the first thing about it (well, let's say, "no more than the first" as I've since taken a brief gander). So, I think because Givone's was the first time I'd come across at least some aspects of the system, I was especially confused once I looked at the true GJ phrase patterning in G, past the CMaj scale patterns (the chromatic approaches, color notes, etc.). I obviously need to read up on the CAGED system, to get the logic of what's going on - though I suspect "look, listen and emulate" is to be advised.

As it stands, I see he's "mixing scales and arpeggios," using the "3 minor modes", etc., and that this is "a characteristic of GJ guitar...." And it certainly sounds incredible. I just don't have any understanding of the logic behind his usages. Not sure that's even important, but the old "good student" in me finds his discomfort zone. ("Good student" is being used as a bit of a pejorative....once chided, "don't be such a good student...." by a voice teacher. In other words, let go, and see what happens.....).

Lango-Django

Well, Paul, as far as the CAGED thing goes, it just so happens that given the Spanish tuning of the guitar, there are only five shapes for major chords that can physically be played in first position.

Sure you can play an F chord, but if you look at what you're actually playing--- it's just an E chord moved up a fret. Same with a Bb chord, it's just an A chord moved up one fret. An Eb chord is just a D chord moved up a fret, and so on.

So the fact is that all the other major guitar chords are actually just C, A, G, E or D fingerings moved somewhere else on the fingerboard.

That's just a physical fact of the instrument. Givone didn't make that up. But he was smart enough to use that fact as a way to learn a lot of stuff just by learning a little stuff.

*****

Now as to the exact choice of notes that make up each form, I don't fully understand the logic behind that.

It seems likely to me that Givone did a lot of listening to prominent GJ players, and a lot of experimenting.

It seems likely to me that he took his own more complicated arp/scale fingerings and deliberately dumbed them down to the point where they'd be easy enough for simpletons like yours truly to learn.

It seems likely to me that if you put ten top virtuoso GJ players in a room and asked each one to show you exactly what notes he'd choose when playing in each of the five CAGED positions, not a single one of them would duplicate Givone's note choices precisely.

It seems likely to me that, given human nature, in ten years time all of us who are learning from Givone will probably all be playing slightly modified versions of the Givone stuff we're now learning.

So what I'm trying to say that the "CAGED" chord shapes are science, but all the rest is art!

Will

Passacaglia

A belated thanks, Will, for the post. As I mentioned elsewhere, I will probably have to cool my jets to get the "logic" in my brain, and just trust time, playing, my ears and fingers will bring it to a deeper logic. Or, I'll just be the guy in 10 years, in some backwater region of France, a rustic bar, with my Frank Zappa stache and soul patch, long and thinning hair, and, curiously, sounding exactly like Daniel Givone.

At eighth speed. 8)