Check out my new beard!

dennis

I've started filming some of my guitar lessons; here's a little before and after video..

The fellow in this video had been playing GJ for a few years already and learned mostly on his own with the resources out there, so there wasn't really much to improve as far as sound/technique was concerned..

I have another student coming in on sunday who's a professional musician but completely new to GJ so it'll definitely be fun to show you the before/after takes...

frater

That's a miracle: now the guy really swings!

pickitjohn

Oh Miracle working and Bearded one.

Very impressive!!

Will you be doing some remote teaching soon?

Django hocus pocus in your sleep. :roll:

dennis

Well as soon as my DC Music School site is relaunched, I'm gonna focus on my personal site, where i'll post tons of regular lessons and whatnot ...

I was hired to do this a week ago:



so i'll be doing a lot of stuff like that!

Newton

Guys, help me out here. I am a completely uninitiated hillbilly. But I watched that before/after video five times.
Am I missing something? I will just say that to my very unsophisticated ear, that second guy sounds a whole lot like nothing.
The first guy was stomping like crazy.
So am I voted off the island?

dennis

the first one has a lot of inconsistencies in the sound and weak chord voicings, the second one is closer to the traditional django sound; but of course, there is still work to be done, that was really 30 minutes into the lesson; but it's already an enormous difference

Newton

I listened again. I still don't get it.
In the second one it seems like he is hitting a lot of notes he doesn't mean to hit. There are bass notes that come from nowhere and then just quit.
His rhythm is mushy in the second one. His voicings in the first might be weak or whatever, but his rhythm is perfect. Then, it is just sort of indistinct and wayward in the after video.
I guess from the perspective of a newbie such as I am, that video is a hard sell. After watching it many times, it would not cause me to want to pay for lessons from you.
I am sorry but that is how it strikes me. Again, I am completely uninitiated and ignorant, but you know...
I apologize. It is not my place to criticize you or your students, but if the intention of the video is to attract novices to your services, I don't think it will accomplish what you need.

dennis

haha that's totally fine, really no need to apologize; and i can understand your point of view... but believe it or not, the second one is closer to the actual rhythm as played by the top GJ players than the first one... Again keeping in mind that it's only after 30 mn of practice, there are still things that can be improved, but the different is really night and day..

I can understand your point of view though; but put it this way, it's like someone decides to eat taco bell his whole life, and then decides he loves mexican food, so he goes to mexico one day, and the food tastes nothing like taco bell, and he's wondering , what the F, this isn't mexican food hahaha

dennis

BTW this is one of the most famous rhythm players in the world:



if you listen to his rhythm (which is perfect), you'll notice that the second version of my student's video is closer to this than the first one...

Here's the other most famous rhythm player :



If you skip to 1:15 you hear his guitar much clearer, it's not easy to find a recording where you hear Nous'che's rhythm clearly; the youtube sample clips of his lesson videos were mixed too low to make out the true tone of the guitar

Newton

Hmmm.
I guess what I am finding as I hear more and more Hot Club stuff is that not only do I not care for the Taco Bell sound, but I really am not a fan of the authentic Mexican food.
It is kind of sad, though, that the more I listen to something the more I realize I really did not like it at all; at least not for the right reasons.
Maybe I should quit listening altogether before I don't even like Django electric. That would be a shame.

klaatu

IMHO, what is deceptive about the before and after videos is that in the before, he is playing up to speed, whereas in the after he is playing slowly and deliberately in an effort to get the proper technique down. It would be interesting to hear him again once he has the new techniques mastered and can play them properly at the same speed as in the before video, so you have before, during, and after to compare.