Phrasing

a

Picking up the reststroke technique has totally changed my idea of how music works. By practicing slowly and focusing on every stroke, I've become acutely aware of the decision-making that goes into every musical movement. The limited number of choices that the technique provides (downstroke, upstroke, swept through...am I missing any?) has forced/allowed me to focus on even the tiniest moments. Take the chromatic run as an example, ...the reason it's so impressive is that it's not just a blur of notes; you can hear the guitarist deciding to play every note (and, as we know from this forum, precisely if it is a down or upstroke).

I was wondering if this limit approach also applies to phrasing. Where was Django when he came up with all those great lines- in an experiential, interval by interval state, or the realm of grand ideas and impressions? My guess is that he dealt with things in a microscopic, moment-to-moment manner, and that his playing was so consistent that it sounds like he's giving voice to preconceived ideas and phrases.

It's kind of like poker. You don't know exactly what's going to happen, but if you get really good at reading every seemingly microscopic decision that occurs, then you can use probability to maximize your chances of winning and reduce your chances of loosing. The best poker players appear to be totally in control, almost as if they are clairvoyant or can create the future.

I'd be willing to bet that Django worked in the same way. That he had no big ideas about where he was going. That he gambled his way through tunes by focusing on the immediacy of his own playing. If anything, big ideas probably got in his way- it would be like trying to guess the last card before the first has been dealt.

I'm sure that with time, he was able to recognize and develop musical paths that worked for him, but where did it all start? How did he make that remarkable come back after his accident- how was he able to play such seemingly complicated music with only two fingers? My guess is that he was already used to a simple, sort of empirical way of working. Even his most Wagnerian pieces (like Improvisation) probably began in this way.

A sort of unrelated side note: I've tried figuring out some of Django's music with two fingers (my hand feels like Tarzan, swinging from note to note), and now I can really FEEL the notes I'm playing. I can feel the momentum of my hand moving coalesce with my musical thought.

Please feel free to either comment on the above or talk about your own approach to phrasing.

MichaelHorowitz

I'm convinced that like all great improvisers, Django had a standard vocabulary of patterns that he used to create his improvisations. He rarely, if ever, was creating anything at the eighth note level. He played some of the same patterns for nearly 20 years. He was thinking in terms of phrases...mixing up all the ones he knew to create something new. But the phrases themselves were carefuly constructed and practiced before hand.

I don't think Django did much pre-composing of solos. Obviously, a few of the unaccompanied pieces were pre-composed. And on some songs he definitely had a loose game plan, but it never came out exactly the same way twice. Like so many of the versions of Nuages....many of them have the same elements with the harmonics, the chromatic run going into the bridge, the double time triplets on the bridge, etc. But never totally the same....and some versions are totally unique.

'm

SoulShade

Good observations a and Michael, thanks for the discussion. I know for me I have problems when I think too much...although my technique has nothing to do but improve! -s

dennis

and here i always thought django learned through tabs he downloaded on the net.... :roll: :roll:

Carter O`Brien

Django had a standard vocabulary of patterns that he used to create his improvisations. He rarely, if ever, was creating anything at the eighth note level. He played some of the same patterns for nearly 20 years. He was thinking in terms of phrases...mixing up all the ones he knew to create something new.

I'd have to ask how chromatic runs fit into that theory, though, as they seem to me to serve numerous functions. At least for me personally, the chromatic and semi-chromatic runs are the most distinctive part of this style, they jump right out, just screaming with energy and excitement.

A chromatic run can be used as a bridge to connect two phrases; a chromatic run can be a "guitaristic" way to simply move to a new spot on the fretboard; and a chromatic run can be an improvisational phrase in and of itself.

Especially once you start having these runs altered a little bit here and there, I would have to consider to that improv - for example, the almost-but-not-quite descending chromatic run over D7 in the famous I'll See You in My Dreams solo is breathtaking in and of itself, it sounds like Django was just inspired at that moment!

MichaelHorowitz

Carter O`Brien wrote:

Especially once you start having these runs altered a little bit here and there, I would have to consider to that improv - for example, the almost-but-not-quite descending chromatic run over D7 in the famous I'll See You in My Dreams solo is breathtaking in and of itself, it sounds like Django was just inspired at that moment!

I'm not saying that Django wasn't improvising..because he totally was. I just think that it's important to realize that he's working with larger pieces of prepared material to create those improvs. The chromatic runs are no different....you have to time those just right to make them sound good...he obviously spent time experimenting with them at different tempos to see what works and what doesn't. You mentioned that he altered them "a little bit here and there." That's part of the deal when you work with phrases....you have a phrase down and then you adapt it to a rhythmic/harmonic situation. Al improvisers "fudge" their favorite phrases into whatever song they're playing...but the basic phrase was still worked out ahead of time.

thanks!

'm

a

ok, so maybe django didn't come up with the phrases on the spot, but how did he work them out in the first place...did he have impressions of them in his head, or did he just start noodling around with simple intervals and eighth notes at very slow tempos? process or artifice? both ? any clues would be very helpful.

MichaelHorowitz

a wrote:

ok, so maybe django didn't come up with the phrases on the spot, but how did he work them out in the first place...did he have impressions of them in his head, or did he just start noodling around with simple intervals and eighth notes at very slow tempos? process or artifice? both ? any clues would be very helpful.

He listened to Louie Armstrong, Bach, musette, and a lot of "Gypsy" music. Then came up with, or borrowed, phrases that sounded good for jazz. A lot of what Django did wasn't really that original....so many of his licks are based on things that were already common jazz vocabulary. But it was new for guitar...

It's how he used these ideas to create a striking musical statement that made Django great. But it's important to realize that he was using most of the same tools that most other jazz men were using. Django wasn't really someone who contributed to the progress of jazz the way that great pioneers like Louie Armstrong, Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane did. He was just really good at playing within the pre-established norms of the swing style...and he did it with a unique Euro-Gypsy style. But he didn't really usher in a whole new era of jazz.....instead he tried to keep up with bop era.

'm

trumbology

Michael Horowitz wrote:

It's how he used these ideas to create a striking musical statement that made Django great.

Striking to musicians and non-musicians alike. I'd chalk that up to his superb ability to balance dynamics, flash, and subtlety.

Michael Horowitz wrote:

Django wasn't really someone who contributed to the progress of jazz the way that great pioneers like Louie Armstrong, Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane did. He was just really good at playing within the pre-established norms of the swing style...and he did it with a unique Euro-Gypsy style. But he didn't really usher in a whole new era of jazz.....instead he tried to keep up with bop era.

I'm basically in agreement with this analysis, though it sort of marginalizes players who came up with their own languages that weren't integrated into the mainstream of jazz history--I'm thinking of Monk (his language is dipped into, like bossa nova, as a way to break up a set), maybe Ornette, and /or a few other players. Django came up (or helped come up with) a distinctive aesthetic that wasn't really embraced by lots of musicians until the last three decades. But maybe in 200 years, musicians like Monk and Django will be considered as important as Bird and Armstrong, if in a very different way.

nh

pallopenna

I'm basically in agreement with this analysis, though it sort of marginalizes players who came up with their own languages that weren't integrated into the mainstream of jazz history--I'm thinking of Monk (his language is dipped into, like bossa nova, as a way to break up a set), maybe Ornette, and /or a few other players. Django came up (or helped come up with) a distinctive aesthetic that wasn't really embraced by lots of musicians until the last three decades. But maybe in 200 years, musicians like Monk and Django will be considered as important as Bird and Armstrong, if in a very different way.

I agree. History is for the telling, and frequently that telling attributes important changes to one individual, when many contributed. Bird, Dizzy, Monk, and (a very young) Max Roach all contributed to the development of Bebop, for example. However, I do think that jazz is somewhat unique in its history because a) the entire history of the music spans only about 100 years and, b) in that relatively short span, several people did materially change the direction of the music, as Michael said (there are others too, although not generally acknowledged as seminal: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Herbie Nichols, Miles, and most importantly Ellington). But of course, nobody gets to determine their place in history. What they do get to do is express themselves in more-or-less original ways. I think that Django's music was unique. One could say that although he didn't alter the jazz vocabulary (a la Bird or Trane), he did define his own grammar (I'm a psycholinguist by training...). In a sense Django's music is possibly the first true fusion music in jazz. And, I suspect that his music represented an historic point in the history of gypsy music as well (although I'm totally naive about this, but fools rush in...).

-Paul

Ando

a

I just wanted to say that was an interesting and thoughtful initial post.

I don't know if its theory bears any relation to Django's reality, but it certainly sounds reasonable as a music-making principle.

It may be the only way of being sure you're creating something coherent, because it cannot develop according to any other principle than its own.

More practically, it might mean playing an opening phrase and using its rhythm as a loose template for other phrases, or playing with a particular interval color and using that same color elsewhere in the chorus, or making a certain flash effect (e.g. tremolo chords) the principle of an entire chorus, and so on.

These things make the solos we most often remember because often what we remember best is what we grasp the basic logic of. Think of heads to bebop tunes. Which ones do you remember best? Really, now. I remember the ones I can sing (e.g. Well You Needn't), and these turn out to be the ones the most obvious organizing phrase principles.

They're memorable. They form a discernible group. The good ones are emotionally moving. It's only one way, of course.

Django's best solos to my ear are the ones that are most extroverted and joyous, and I don't care if they're chaotic and all over the place. The best work of Coleman Hawkins (my other favorite) is the stuff where he is most introspective and cleverly suave, like Bach if Bach were born in the Southern Hemisphere. He's more intellectual, I guess.

But in both cases, you get the sense that, while improvising, they were listening to what they were playing and letting it take a life of its own: as if they were listening to their own hearts and realizing how those hearts were connected to everything that was vital and alive.

Listen. Connect. Reveal what's really alive.

/this sounds like it should be in Archtop's area!