Fast Triplet Lick... Help...

tobykea

Hi there everyone, I'm quite new to this gypsy game as far as playing is concerned. I've been listening to Django and the Rosenbergs for a couple of years now and finally decided to take the plunge and put some serious effort into playing in the style.

I bought the Gypsy Picking book a few years back and there is one lick in there that always had me baffled as to how these guys like Jimmy , Stochelo, Joscho etc could execute at lightning speed.

From memory the lick from the book is exercise 10.2, I may be wrong but it's the minor, minor/maj7,min7,minor6 descending triplet lick.

I've attached a link with Joscho Stephan playing in which He uses the lick.

http://browsermail.com/page.html?p=0000 ... lburzIh74g


The question I have about this lick is are downstrokes used every time a string change occurs? e.g, is the lick performed DUDDDDDUD with the middle 3 downstrokes in the group of 5 being the sweep of the G,B and E strings in for example an A minor triad at the 14th,13th and 12th frets?

I find this very hard to do at the speed say Joscho is doing it at using this picking pattern.

Is there a secret way the guys like Jimmy R and Joscho do this at higher speeds? Like using some sort of alternate picking method in conjunction with the rest stroke method?

I would dearly love to get this lick down.

Regards,

Toby.

dennis

use your wrist... alternate practicing it slow and clean (good timing, full clear restrokes on the downs) and as fast as possible and more or less clean....

anyway, joscho doesn't use the same techique as django and co.... if memory serves me right he sweeps it....

a

yeah, what is joscho doing? he seems to get a really aggressive rest-stroke sound, and it is very clean. it looks like he's using the rest-stroke most of the time..how can you tell that he isn't? it looks a little like stephane wrembel's right hand.

Jack

a wrote:

yeah, what is joscho doing? he seems to get a really aggressive rest-stroke sound, and it is very clean. it looks like he's using the rest-stroke most of the time..how can you tell that he isn't? it looks a little like stephane wrembel's right hand.

Funny-we were watching some Joscho video footage a couple of nights ago and I made the Stephane comparison. It's not just his hand-his body english and facial expressions are a lot like Stephane's. Weird.

Best,
Jack.

a

stephane doesn't move his body as much...actually, he's very still. i always watch his right hand- he's so fast! i don't think he hits the strings that hard (i can tell because his single note stuff is quieter than his tremolo or pompe), but he gets a lot of notes in. he also wiggles his thumb a lot...

AndreasOberg

For those of you who haven't seen Joscho, here is a video-link:)
There is a similar triplet pattern in there..
http://browsermail.com/page.html?p=0000 ... lburzIh74g
Regards
Andreas

a

he's got a real western swing meets django sound.

tobykea

Dennis, can you tell me if the picking pattern I posted originally would be the one guys like Stochelo and Jimmy R would use at very fast tempos for this lick?

I've watched the clip of Joscho very carefully and I don't think He's using any kind of sweep apart from the three downstrokes following through to the top E string (using reststrokes). There seems to be no upstroke type sweep. Hard to be certain though.

I think it just comes down to getting used to this picking style and getting it so ingrained in muscle memory that it's second nature and feels comfortable.

Thanks for all the help.

Toby.

dennis

ya it's correct that's how stochelo and jimmy do it

for that lick in particular , i dont know how joscho does it, but i've seen him play other stochelo licks using alternate picking when stochelo didn't..... you can sort of hear the difference too, it sounds different... by which i dont mean worse or better... just different...

i've seen him play licks that are similar to that descending minor arpeggio and he used sweep picking, he maintains the same hand position, so it's hard to tell if he' s doing upstrokes, but i can see it hehehehehe

anyway i'm back from london, where i acquired an entire new batch of videos that i filmed and that i digitzed from robin's collection.... among which are some crazy playing by andreas ....

btw andreas, at ritary's gig last night, he quoted your solo on "My Kind Of Bebop" when he did cherokee!!

i've been trying to post videos here, but they never work.... it just freezes

AndreasOberg

Hi Dennis!
Glad to hear you had a nice time in London. Quite an honor that Ritary quoted my solo..normally it's the opposite when we are trying to nail what the gypsies are playing

I got a video-tape from Mr. Katz today so I'll have my friends make it into DVD-format and then I'll post a few clips here.

Regards
Andreas

dennis

i made the whole thing into dvd, if u want it, i think i was the only one who noticed the quote no one else seemed to smile or laugh when he did it, and then he looked at me with a wink haha