Newby to guitar

Jazzaferri

How a person relates to scales is a choice they get to make. You can play em stright up boring rot to root up down all around....or.......

You can play around with scales.learning all the notes fingerings and positions while having some fun and learning something about phrases one likes.

Michael, my heart goes out to you. I had to do that for a few years when young but I always wanted to try doing things differently which is why I was such a flop as a classical musician. I learned scales on piano, on sax and on bass and guitar and I still play around with them today, 50 odd years later. I am just terribly u disciplined about doing them in the way I was taught.

anthon_74

Now talk about a can of worms !

first I have a question for you Michael - Didn't all that scale practice make you a better guitar player in terms of picking speed, accuracy etc ? Did you only play them up and down, or did you practice patterns, hammer ons etc ?

As for my feelings about scales (and keep in mind I teach rock), I teach the 5 pentatonic scales to all of my students, and start every lesson having them play whatever scale(s) they're working on because a) it teaches specific skills and b) they can use their knowledge of the raw scales to improvise their own ideas, as opposed to teaching other players licks, which influences what they come up with and c) it creates a familiar structural element to their lessons that is vital in my experience.

In terms of details - The skills my students practice using scales are - picking speed and accuracy, as well as tone control; Hammer ons and pull offs; 3 sequence patterns; tremolo picking; note skipping patterns, 4 sequences and on and on.

If I were teaching gypsy Jazz, however, you are right, I would not teach scales, however, I would have them practice arpeggios in the same way, as well as the lower and above approach from Wrembles book yes.

As far as all the modes go, I did indeed learn to play all 7 modes, using a system where you play the same major scale in every position on the fret board, with each new scale starting on the next degree, taking you from mode to mode.
Truthfully, this does not help much with gypsy Jazz, BUT if I'm playing some sort of spanish style music, it sounds very cool. It also works well with ballad rock.

Cheers
Anthony

Jazzaferri

Amund IMO practicing the modes of the Harmonic Minor Scale is very helpful in GJ but more for advanced players. The modes themselves sound pretty far out of the box and using parts of them to link link with arpy type stuff sounds pretty cool to my ear.

AmundLauritzen

When you study at the Rosenberg Academy, be sure to pay close attention to how Stochelo uses his right hand. Getting the right pick direction is one thing. You could do that but still run into problems if your technique is tense and you stiffen up in the wrist.

Here are some key points on picking that I wish I was aware of when I started out:

- Your elbow/bicep should rest on "top" of the guitar. From there your right arm should hang down. You want to be able to completely relax your arm and it should just drop into position. This will make your wrist curve in a natural way. Do NOT actively curve your wrist or it will tense up. In the videos, there is an alternate view of Stochelos right hand. Study that extensively. Try to mimick his right hand as accurately as you can. Stochelo has THE most relaxed right hand technique of all the GJ players and this is what allows him to play with perfect technique.
I made the mistake of consciously curving my wrist. This made me tense up and pick from the arm/elbow and not the wrist. I spent many months playing with this technique and didn't progress. Then I got it and changed my technique. Instantly my timing improved.
Lots of people think you have to pick really hard to get the right sound. You can do that and get by for slow tempos, but once you increase the tempo, it'll fall apart.

-Practice SLOW. Only increase the tempo when you can play a phrase or song completely relaxed and it sounds right with all the proper articulations. When you do increase the tempo, increase it only a little. By 5bpm or so.

-Pick one area you want to specialize in. Lead or rhythm. Devote most of your time to that, but include at least an hour of the other aspect as well. I want to primarily be a lead player, but I want to be able to accompany someone effectively as well. So I try to get 2-4 hours of lead guitar practice every day and AT LEAST one hour of rhythm. I try to get two hours of rhythm if I can.

-Dissect licks from songs. Learn a complete song with melody and solo. When you can play it in a reasonable tempo, take apart each lick and put them in other songs you know. Take complete phrases. Like a phrase that goes from E7 to Am in a song, take that lick and put it in another song where you find that chord change. The next step is to transpose it so it will work on other chords with the same intervallic change. A7 to Dm is also common, so transpose all your E7 to Am licks to that and vice versa. When you've got some experience with this, you can start transposing each lick to all 12 keys.

-Pay close attention to articulations. Not only for solos, but also for rhythm guitar. Many players don't spend enough time getting the rhythm to sound right. 1 and 3 should be muted, not 2 and 4. IMO Nous'ches rhythm course is great for this because it's well mixed so you can hear how he articulates. Makes it easier to copy. The course with Hono Winterstein on Denis' site is also excellent. Denis' rhythm DVD also sheds light on important issues like timing when it comes to the subtle, muted upstrokes between the beats. AFAIK, his course is the only one that devotes attention to this, which is key IMO. I'd say get all three courses as they all address different key issues.

-Vibrato. Many players have a bad vibrato technique. The vibrato lessons on RA were extremely helpful for me because they address the correct technique to execute a strong, confident vibrato without tensing up. The vibrato should be strong, but not the out of tune mosquito vibrato or choked sheep vibrato that you hear many mediocre blues players do. You'd be surprised how many well respected players have bad vibrato. It's a neglected area of study. Pay attention to it.

That's all I can think of at the moment. In the beginning, it can be very tough mentally to discipline yourself to practice slow, which is smart practice. We all want to play up to tempo as soon as possible. But the more you discipline yourself, the faster you'll get there! The fastest way to get there is by being thorough and constantly listening to your playing objectively. Record yourself so you can listen to yourself in third person. You'll be surprised at how many things you notice that you overlook when practicing. This is also a great way to watch your right hand to see if you play with correct technique. Practicing in front of a mirror is also useful to see your right hand from a different perspective so you can see if it is a relaxed position.

Good luck! You have an advantage by going directly to gypsy jazz in the sense that you don't have to unlearn other picking styles. Use this to your advantage and pay close attention to make your right hand technique as identical to Stochelos as possible.

Practice, practice, practice. And when you're done, start practicing again

anthon_74

AmundLauritzen wrote:

Many players don't spend enough time getting the rhythm to sound right. 1 and 3 should be muted, not 2 and 4.

Um... I think you have that backwards. The 1 and 3 are generally voiced a tad more than the 2 and 4. In fact Dennis posted a whole thing recently dispelling the notion that the 2 and 4 are entirely muted either. Unless you're Gonzalo's rhythm guy, in which case you completely mute the 2 and 4.

Anthony

Jazzaferri

And depending on the individual it may be better for the long term health of the arm to get the right amount of curve in and then learn to relax in that position rather than going with the so called natuaral curve. Some people dont have a natuaral relaxed arm position that will work well in the long run.

Passacaglia

Regarding the "right" wrist curve, I've always liked Denis's notion - right arm straight out front, simply allow the wrist to relax; it droops, and the curve that naturally obtains is likely a good starting point. Absolutely agree, drain of tension as much as possible - which means, whatever you do, do it slowly. The speed will come.

If it helps, from this one relative noob, almost a statement of principles; I've flitted here and there, many times....but always seem to come back to it; playing rhythm only until I feel like I honor this, the literal heartbeat of our genre, with some notion of mastery ("mastery" being a moving target...but that's also another story). It might mean, I am simply a rhythm player, not a rhythm player on his way to learning lead; so your journey may be different, if you desire lead playing. But if it helps, some goals:

Perfect Timekeeping Perfect Tone – leger et sec, "light and dry" accompaniment; harmonious and driving, without a kind of plodding heaviness Fluency in playing progressions in many positions, "à la minute," on the fly - in harmony, literally, with my soloist's work Relatedly, a vocabulary of "voice," a fluency in substituting as appropriate Repertoire not numbering in 40-50 tunes, but hundreds - if not thousands, as one member here who I respect tremendously talked of, when talking about an old school, venerated player

Anyway, I know I'm very clearly biased to learning rhythm first (well, biased to rhythm itself, actually, but that's my thing). There's so much in rhythm - and this isn't mentioning flamenco and Balkan gypsy sound - that gives so much to the player, I believe, that spending some serious time with it, developing a responsive, clean right hand and "perfect" effort - by which I mean, a sensitive, "just enough" touch - by the left hand, and coordination between the two hands (and mind, and body...not to get too esoteric)...well, just another humble $0.02 for working hard on gypsy swing rhythm, first. I just think it will give you so much, whatever your intentions are in this music.

I guess I am preaching. Good luck, whatever you do.

-Paul

Jazzaferri

Excellent thoughts from Paul aka Passacaglia. I beleive he knows more about athletic physiology than he lets on and certainly one of the most knowledgeable on this site. I sugget the OP read his post at least twice :shock: 8) .

Passacaglia

Thank you, Jay, that's really kind of you to say. This isn't false modesty - what I know of exercise physiology comes from several lives ago, as with a lot of my "stuff." And I'm truly such a baby in the world of music, particularly this music. A deep hunger that just happened to hit in my 5th decade, that's all. I admire what you and guys like you know....the ability to forget and play 100x over what I'll ever learn.

Paul

Hemert

anthon_74 wrote:

AmundLauritzen wrote:

Many players don't spend enough time getting the rhythm to sound right. 1 and 3 should be muted, not 2 and 4.

Um... I think you have that backwards. The 1 and 3 are generally voiced a tad more than the 2 and

Well, it depends on your style. Nous'che (and all other Dutch gypsies) fully voice the 2 and 4 and only play a few of the low strings on 1 and 3, so not muted but definitely less voiced than 2 and 4. This goes for medium tempo and fast swing only of course (not ballads).

To my ears voicing 2 and 4 sounds much better but I'm biased since I was taught rhythm by Nous'che.