Waltzes

Jim Kaznosky

I've been dedicating some of my practice time to getting some waltzes under my fingers, mainly as a result of seeing folks pull these off flawlessly live at DiJ. These are really a great way to work on technique and I definitely feel a difference since making this part of my daily routine.

Currently, I have all of Montagne St. Genevieve memorized. There are clearly some trouble spots in getting this up to tempo, but I really look at this as a warmup piece.
Also have the "A" down for Dolores and and have to memorize the latter half of the B for this.
I'm generally using the Stochelo Waltz DVD as my primary source of waltzes.

What would you consider easy, intermediate, and advanced waltzes to learn?

Joli Gadjo

Chez Jacquet is probably a good one.
I would also try Bistro Fada, Stephan Wrembel's tune written for Woody Allen's movie.

Jim Kaznosky

Thanks...I'm aware of those tunes and really of many of the waltzes. I am primarily familiar with Chez Jacquet and Valse de Niglos from Jo Privat's Manouche Partie recording. I have a haphazard (read: basic) version of Niglos down, but will dedicate myself to that one once I am finished with Dolores.

I find it interesting (and great) that Bistro Fada is now common repertoire these days. That will be further on down the list for learning.

I guess I really wasn't looking for waltzes to learn...just sort of curious what individuals feel the difficulty level of certain waltzes. I figured that this might be helpful for folks trying to learn these songs and might give them guidance as to what to approach first.

I actually consider Montagne St. Genevieve to be in the advanced end, mainly because of the extended triplet section of the B section. I'm using a version most similar to Yorgui's version. I'd consider Dolores an intermediate waltz. There are a few challenging parts, but it is nowhere near as difficult as something like La Gitane, which I consider one of the more challenging pieces.

Bones

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wim

easy ones: cheese jacket, la foule, padam padam, songe d'automne, dark eyes, bistro fada, dans le regard de laura (romane), jitterbug ..

medium ones: dolores, made in france, double jeu, flambee montalbanaise, indifference

hard ones: la gitane, latcheben, la manouche (angelo), mont st gen

Joli Gadjo

Cheese Jacket? Who does that?

wim

oh, sorry, that's what we call "chez jacquet" down under

Joli Gadjo

Pretty cool, I like it.
We also have our own bossa version of Nuages, that we call New Age...
Funny, the French used to do a lot of those during WWII.

Passacaglia

Great thread, Jkaz, thanks. My focus tends to be ripped asunder as easily as the next inspiration in listening, so I've tried to narrow my beam and work on two things only, rhythm work, and in terms of lead, waltzes only. It's slow coming for me, but Dolores is the first on my list and I've got the A down, basically. The only other lead I have is Django's 1937 Minor Swing, and until my chops are up to my ears, I suspect it's waltzes, and rhythm. I had internally asked myself the same questions, re: which waltzes would be considered easier, etc., so thanks again for posing the question.

Paul

Jim Kaznosky

Paul - we had a similar experience at DiJ and it's been your posts about your experiences with Stephane that have really lit a fire under what it is that I want to work on. The waltz is becoming my warmup exercise of choice. I was sort of hoping that this thread would be a catalyst for some serious discussion on these frustrating, yet amazing pieces of music.

My band has two waltzes in the repertoire ( La Zingara and Niglos), one "converted" waltz (Reve Boheme...we start with the trio in 3 at the beginning and play the A and B sections in 4, which allows space for soloists), and one in reserve, which almost never gets played (A Matelo). The primary soloists take the heads on these, but when w play as a duo or trio, I'll get a B section on Niglos. I decided to learn some waltzes about a year ago to get into our repertoire, but had no idea what I was getting into, starting with Montagne St. Genevieve.
To be honest, if I had known that Montagne St. Genevieve was going to be this hard to master to tempo, I might have started with something a bit easier. The A section took quite a while to get comfortable and I find the B section very difficult to do with any degree of speed. I'm using the Yorgui Loeffler version of this as my basis and some of those runs are very difficult to hear. I'm sort of hoping that I got it right, but man...those triplet runs are fast. I still played it before DiJ, but not that often.
I think the fact that I realize now that these are both performance pieces and really great training tools really helped me out. I'm just going to keep on playing these slow and adjust the speed as necessary to try to get up to performance speed.

Passacaglia

Hey Jim - I did mention I've an issue with focus.... :oops:

It was a while ago that I worked Stephane's waltz, got a lot from Patrus's vid of Stephane from DFNW, as well as Adrien Holovaty's great vid; got through A and B, then pretty much went back to focusing on rhythm...except when I feel like I've only got so much time left to learn what I want to learn, so....ahem, it's the '37 Minor Swing, and heads on a few others, pretty desultory, really. Afraid I need to keep in mind some things learned from DIJ....

Anyway, wonderful thread. I'm spending a lot of time working Denis's Stochelo DVDs, rhythm and waltz. Truth be told, I love rhythm, really love it, and waltzes, too - not too sure I have the making of a lead player in me (find the waltzes come more easily than transcribing even just heads on improvisational-based tunes...I think it's the "fixed" sense they sound like to me, very undeveloped sense of improvisation).

Sounds like you are making great strides, congratulations, friend. Look forward to playing with you sometime over the next year.

Paul