Newby to guitar

marktodd

Hi everyone.

I just bought my first guitar. I can't wait to start studying and playing gypsy jazz. I've been listening to it for years and now I can finally express my love for the music.

I've enrolled in the Rosenberg academy. Many of you suggest studying Denis Chang, especially his DVDs. What other books are good for a new guitarist?

I plan on devoting a lot of time, 5 hours a day of hands on practice to start. How would you suggest I break down my playing?

How many hours do you put into studying? (Listening to your recordings, making notes on what to improve on, listening to other musicians, watching DVDs, reading)

What goals should I achieve within 1 year of playing?

Mark M

Lango-Django

Five hours a day, wow! Serious guy!

Alas, the materials you mentioned are not really suited to a total beginner, which it seems that you are? Most guys come to gypsy jazz having played some other form of music on the guitar, so they're not starting from zero.

Personally, I'd recommend you start with Michael Horowitz's "Gypsy Rhythm" to learn some chords, and then later on you can switch to his "Gypsy Picking" to begin working on lead playing. I suppose you know that he is the owner of this site and these books can be purchase right here in the djangobooks.com store.

I'd estimate that if you really do practice five hours a day, you'd then be ready to start the Dennis Chang and Rosenberg Academy stuff in a year or two.

My two cents... although, it should be noted: according to my wife, I am frequently mistaken!

Will

PS Oh, yeah... if you can possibly attend "Django in June", you will find it inspirational, even though sometimes in the "Burn your guitar and piss on the ashes" sense of the word...

Passacaglia

Lango-Django wrote:

Burn your guitar and piss on the ashes

Lol, I don't know why, but that sounds like a perfect title for an album. At least an album I would like to have played when I was infatuated with all things Rush.

Mark, great advice Will's given. I'm not a total newbie (I played some as a kid), but effectively, I was when I came back to playing last February after so many decades away, for the most part. Most important thing for me was learning the chords played in this style, and that was largely from Michael's Rhythm book, a phenomenal resource. Denis Chang's DVD (accompaniment) was also a big influence on me, as was going to my first DIJ, like Will said...I essentially "crammed" for the experience by learning 40-50 tunes, chords/rhythm only, so that I could at least sit in with people and play.

Here, too, the Hono Winterstein courses on DC Gypsy Jazz School (Denis's site) were a huge help - the 2nd course alone, with something like 35 tunes, was gold.

Gonzalo Bergara's youtube channel, with a ton of play-alongs in a very clear chord grille structure, are also great help; nice of him to offer these.

Finally, though I'm not sure I can recommend it for total beginners, but the recent Indiegogo campaign Christiaan (Hemert, on this site) pulled together with Nous'che Rosenberg, is extremely well done. Once again, I've returned to the simplest things. The simplest things, done well, that is - by a master of rhythm guitar. The course is really well done; my only hesitation is that it probably presumes at least some working knowledge of how GJ chords and harmony work, some of the true basics under fingers. But if you want a very good, intensive introduction to the "leger et sec" style of rhythm playing, by one of (if not the) world's finest accompanists in this style, can't recommend Christiaan's course highly enough.

Back to DIJ, the week was transformational, for me, one of the best experiences of my life, sincerely. If you can at all afford to go - GO. It's just fantastic, literally 100+ musicians all in one place focused on this music, all hours of the day and night. Andrew Lawrence has done our community a massive service by founding and nurturing this every year.

Everyone's path is their own. It's a deep point with me, something Denis (Chang) mentioned somewhere, which is that one's lead playing will never be better than his or her rhythm playing. So I've really worked on nothing this entire last year but rhythm, and of that, almost entirely trying to capture the tone that sends me into ecstatic reverie. I'd encourage you to work on rhythm, and build your playing on this solid foundation.

But again, I'm no preacher. Do what you will. Whatever you do, from a humble noob himself, welcome to this little corner of the musical world. All else aside, some of the nicest and most generous people on this planet.

Michael Bauer

Mark, if you can practice five hours a day with virgin fingers, you are a better man than I. I'm guessing that after an hour, the tips of your un-calloused fingers will be pretty sore! Beginners tend to use too much pressure, which makes it even worse. Work you way up to longer practice times as you fingers adapt. It won't take long for them to toughen up, but it will probably take a few weeks to really be able to go for long stretches.

And Will, you line might be the funniest thing I have ever read on this forum. I'm still laughing at it. "Burn your guitar and piss on the ashes", indeed!

marktodd

Someone once said it takes 10,000 hours to become a master at a given craft. I figure 5 hours a day should get me there sooner or later


Michael, thanks for the advice on working my way up for those long practice sessions.

Lango-Django, thanks for the names of the books.

Passacaglia, thanks for the detailed response. Where is DIJ held at?

Burn your guitar and piss on the ashes? Sounds like something an 80's hair metal band would do!

Passacaglia

Hey Mark - DIJ is held every year at Smith College, in Northampton, MA. Info here. The two fellas on this thread - Will and Michael - are going. The only reason yours truly isn't, is because I blew my yearly indulgence budget on a wonderful new guitar by Rodrigo Shopis, expected to finish in about a month. If there were anyway I could make it, I would. It's fantastic. You might find some info on this site about the very special room Michael, as lord and overseer, gifts folks with. Pretty special.

Funny you mention the 10,000 hours thing - one of the tenets of the book The Talent Code, which I mentioned just a bit ago in another thread (see esp. pp. 51-53; this "10 year, 10,000 hours" benchmark apparently comes from an 1899 finding, and is further supported by Ericsson - see his Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance). Turned on to the book by Adrian Holovaty (lots on youtube, here, and this year, teaching at DIJ. Developer of Soundslice and a bunch of other things only a genius mind could contrive, I imagine. A great player, and teacher - took a webcam with him, teaches regularly out of Old Towne School in Chicago).

Passacaglia

Nice post, Stuart. You're right, I think. I take for granted the fact that I did at least play as a kid - while I didn't have calluses left (now, they've become built up, like stone...proud to bear them!), familiarity with a certain feel, cowboy chords and playing rhythm, almost certainly helped my coming back after so long away.

I will say, the thing I think I'm most grateful for, is learning authentic gypsy chords, when I did come back....the thumb thing, the double-stops, were a bit of torture, but a joyous one. I suspect if I had a stronger history over many decades, using other approaches to chord forms, this process might have been a helluva lot more difficult. Conjecture, of course.

Thanks for the post.

Paul

Edit: whoops, sorry, I was so caught up in your first 2 paragraphs afraid I spaced your last paragraph, Stuart, until just now. +1

swingnation

Above all- be patient. You will get frustrated with your playing, but everyone has- including all the greats. It's better to spend one hour practicing one thing well then five hours just noodling.

Enjoy the journey...

J

Jim Kaznosky

If I had to start all over, I'd follow the same path as Paul (Passacaglia) and Rob Cuellari by learning how to play rhythm correctly.

1. Get the chords the way they are played under your fingers. You can buy the books/lessons suggested here or do a search for Gypsy Jazz Chords
2. Learn the correct way to play the rhythm. There are a few variations and there have been suggestions for how to do it correctly in the forum.
3. Apply 1&2 to a few songs. My suggestions to start would be Minor Swing, Dark Eyes, Coquette, Minor Blues (and thus Swing 48), and All of Me.
4. Play these songs to death with playalongs (and a metronome) until you sound exactly like the playalongs. Google DC Music School, Stephane Wrembel, and Gonzalo Bergara (youtube only) for playalongs.
Start slow and move your way up to tempo a little bit at a time. When you feel that you are ready for a bit of a challenge, I'd suggest working on either the Hono Winterstein or Nou'sche rhythm courses. Or you can forgo the courses and just concentrate on playing with records, picking up a song or two a month. Move on from a song when you can play it up to tempo without stopping, you sound like the record, and you do not need a chart to look at when you play a song.

This is just my opinion. Like others, I wanted to move right into the lead stuff, but now I feel like I would have been better served by spending at least my first year at trying to get the rhythm right. If you do this. Be patient and go slow. It is much better to sound good slow than to sound sloppy fast. I'm saying this mainly to myself, but hope that you'll get something out of my mistakes. And understand that there may be different ways that people will play the same song. Try to be somewhat conscious of this. I mean, don't worry about a the micro-variations on things. Just be conscious of this.

Also, keep asking questions here or use the forum search feature. It will answer a lot of questions.

marktodd

Is it better to get a gypsy jazz tutor? I would rather learn the basic techniques of gypsy jazz from the get go. I don't want to spend time learning techniques from an intro guitar course and then having to relearn once I get into gypsy jazz.

Stuart - I'm humbled by the fact that you envy me. However, I think that a great musician has a diverse background in all genres, such as yourself. I'm sure your influences from blues and rock come out in your playing, which makes it fun, interesting and sets you aside from other musicians (Not to suggest that this is a competition to see who is better)

Michael Bauer

The main differences between gypsy jazz and other styles are 1) the picking style is different than almost any other current style of music, and is very important to the sound; 2) the chord voicings and fingerings are different than other styles, and 3) the left hand fingerings tend to be more horizontal than vertical, and tend to use the pinky less than, say straight ahead jazz, or classical.

Learning the chord voicings later is no obstacle, but barre chords tend to be avoided in GJ, with the thumb coming over instead. Again, you will have some mild relearning to do, but it shouldn't be a major obstacle.

Left hand fingerings tend to be personal, and you can relearn a more gypsy style of playing later without too much of a setback.

It's the picking that will be the issue. Find a sympathetic teacher, take a copy of Gypsy Picking to him/her, and say, "This is how I want to play." Older jazz guys will be more apt to think you sane than young rockers. It won't kill you to learn alternate picking, but you will have some major relearning to do later if that's what you start with.

Another thing is that GJ uses a more curved "floating" right hand, almost like a classical guitarist would hold his/her hand, but you do touch the guitar lightly, and you'll want to learn that up front. Ignore anyone who tells you to get a skinny pick and go buy yourself a nice fat one to learn on. It will make playing rhythm easier (and will sound better). I'd stay between 4-5 mm at first. You may find yourself gravitating to skinnier picks later, once your technique is more established, but by then it won't matter. The great players can use any size pick and sound more or less the same, but early on, pick size matters, and fat ones are better, IMHO.

Finally, do not get hung up learning scales. They are nearly useless for gypsy jazz. Learn arpeggios and upper/lower approaches. Stephane Wrembel's book lays that stuff out better than anyone I know.

If you can find a good GJ teacher, go for it, but know they are few and far between. Maybe you should tell us where you live, and someone here may know a teacher you could take you from the beginning, but with am eye towards gypsy jazz.