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Swang on,
Wow, Denis, I really can't believe all the interesting and on-topic opinions being shared in such a relaxed manner as a result of your post. [All after first sentence]
"It's a great feeling to be dealing with material which is better than yourself, that you know you can never live up to."
-- Orson Welles
The video illustrates improvements in some areas, coincidentally some of the most important and most overlooked aspects. Obviously, the students timing is not perfect. If there is one thing I have learned about timing, it is that it requires confidence. Is he going to have maximum confidence just after learning a new technique AND while being videotaped? Of course not.
Tell you what: keep an eye on that player and be on the look out for future videos of his playing. He has nailed the most important nuances of rhythm guitar in that video, and the rest will come with time and practice. He has eliminated bad habits that most people are not even aware of, so he doesn't reinforce them. Timing is not a concept that can only be learned, although it helps to learn it - that's step one. Timing and swing comes from experience, confidence, being relaxed and "in the zone".
And if I can be as bold as to say one thing it is this: confident playing with correct technique swings more than confident playing with some compromise technique adapted out of laziness or whatever excuse one can dream up. There are no shortcuts, but it sure helps eliminating things that are detrimental to progress, which is what I saw in the video. Anyway, I played my part in the shitstorm for today, now I'm going to go play some music and not just talk about it
Dennis, your story about Fapy not liking, and then liking, your rhythm playing reminded me of this passage from one of my favourite books, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman.
It's a bit lengthy but if you'll read to the end you'll get my point...
Will
**************
(Richard Feynman was a distinguished American physicist who guest lectured at a Brazilian university for a year in the fifties or early sixties.)
There was a man at the U.S. Embassy who knew I liked samba music. I think I told him that when I had been in Brazil the first time, I had heard a samba band practicing in the street, and I wanted to learn more about Brazilian music.
He said a small group, called a regional, practiced at his apartment every week, and I could come over and listen to them play.
There were three or four people--one was the janitor from the apartment house-and they played rather quiet music up in his apartment; they had no other place to play. One guy had a tambourine that they called a pandeiro, and another guy had a small guitar. I kept hearing the beat of a drum somewhere, hut there was no drum!
Finally I figured out that it was the tambourine, which the guy was playing in a complicated way, twisting his wrist and hitting the skin with his thumb. I found that interesting, and learned how to play the pandeiro, more or less.
Then the season for Carnaval began to come around. That's the season when new music is presented. They don't put out new music and records all the time; they put them all out during Carnavaltime, and it's very exciting.
It turned out that the janitor was the composer for a small samba "school" --not a school in the sense of education, but in the sense of fish--from Copacabana Beach, called Farçantes de Copacabana , which means "Fakers from Copacabana," which was just right for me, and he invited me to be in it.
Now this samba school was a thing where guys from the favelas--the poor sections of the city--would come down, and meet behind a construction lot where some apartment houses were being built, and practice the new music for the Carnaval.
I chose to play a thing called a " frigideira ," which is a toy frying pan made of metal, about six inches in diameter, with a little metal stick to beat it with. It's an accompanying instrument which makes a tinkly, rapid noise that goes with the main samba music and rhythm and fills it out.
So I tried to play this thing and everything was going all right. We were practicing, the music was roaring along and we were going like sixty, when all of a sudden the head of the batteria section, a great big black man, yelled out, "STOP! Hold it, hold it --wait a minute!" And everybody stopped.
"Something's wrong with the frigideiras! " he boomed out. " 0 Americano, outra vez!" ("The American again!")
So I felt uncomfortable. I practiced all the time. I'd walk along the beach holding two sticks that I had picked up, getting the twisty motion of the wrists, practicing, practicing, practicing. I kept working on it, but I always felt inferior, that I was some kind of trouble, and wasn't really up to it.
Well, it was getting closer to Carnaval time, and one evening there was a conversation between the leader of the band and another guy, and then the leader started coming around, picking people out: "You!" he said to a trumpeter. "You!" he said to a singer. "You!"--and he pointed to me. I figured we were finished. He said, "Go out in front!"
We went out to the front of the construction site--the five or six of us--and there was an old Cadillac convertible, with its top down. "Get in!" the leader said.
There wasn't enough room for us all, so some of us had to sit up on the back. I said to the guy next to me, "What's he doing--is he putting us out?"
"Nao sé, não sé ." ("I don't know.")
We drove off way up high on a road which ended near the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. The car stopped and the leader said, "Get out!"--and they walked us right up to the edge of the cliff!
And sure enough, he said, "Now line up! You first, you next, you next! Start playing! Now march!" We would have marched off the edge of the cliff--except for a steep trail that went down.
So our little group goes down the trail--the trumpet, the singer, the guitar, the pandeiro , and the frigideira --to an outdoor party in the woods. We weren't picked out because the leader wanted to get rid of us; he was sending us to this private party that wanted some samba music! And afterwards he collected money to pay for some costumes for our band.
After that I felt a little better, because I realized that when he picked the frigideira player, he picked me!
Another thing happened to increase my confidence. Some time later, a guy came from another samba school, in Leblon, a beach further on. He wanted to join our school.
The boss said, "Where're you from?"
"Leblon."
"What do you play?"
"Frigideira."
"OK. Let me hear you play the frigideira ."
So this guy picked up his frigideira and his metal stick and . . . "brrra-dup-dup; chick-a-chick." Gee whiz! It was wonderful! The boss said to him, "You go over there and stand next to O Americano, and you'll learn how to play the frigideira!"
My theory is that it's like a person who speaks French who comes to America. At first they're making all kinds of mistakes, and you can hardly understand them. Then they keep on practicing until they speak rather well, and you find there's a delightful twist to their way of speaking--their accent is rather nice, and you love to listen to it.
So I must have had some sort of accent playing the frigideira, because I couldn't compete with those guys who had been playing it all their lives; it must have been some kind of dumb accent. But whatever it was, I became a rather successful frigideira player.
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
is just as important as the sound. The after video clearly has "the sound"
but as I've seen at Django in June, Djangofest Northwest and this forum it seems that 90% of
people who play this style don't get that or understand it's just as important.
Angelo
Like I said, I fully admit that I did not view things from that perspective, but i still stand by what I said: the second video , the guy is on the right path. What I think I need to add is a text describing the change so that there is no confusion, so i thank the critics for that. I know the guy is on the right path, because it's really not easy doing what he's doing in such short time, and like i said, through private lessons and workshops, I've probably taught well over 100 students in this style. Those whose progress i've been able to monitor over a longer period of time have all overcome the initial barrier... Simple as that
Stringswinger, I fully respect your opinion, and that of Teddy's but we just have to agree to disagree on our views about music learning/education. I knew that you would side with Teddy, because as I told Teddy, I've known you for as long as Ted through your posts in the forums , and both of you have very similar views about learning music . Over the years , you've posted about your disdain of dogmatism and striving for authenticity; I can understand that up to a certain point. I personally don't adhere to any kind of extreme views, I see myself as very open minded, but I think there needs to be a bit of column A and column B.. on the one hand, certain people can get carried with their need to be "authentic" , I totally get that, but then the other extreme is no better, it seems to imply that music just comes naturally without having to practice carefully..
You statement that no one can tell a difference anyway is true to a certain point, but that's a very terrible attitude to adopt (with all due respect), it's the "good enough" mentaility that is destroying the arts and other fields... I personally strive for excellence (whether I achieve it or not); I push myself to the max, and that's possibly attributable to my OCD (when I was a kid, if for example something was misaligned, i'd fraek out and have to align it haha , i'm better with it now). By your logic, classical musicians should forget about trying to master a piece right down to the tiniest of details... by your logic, a painter shouldn't care about the various shades of colors, he should just rely on a few base colors and bam, no one's gonna notice the 55 shades of blue in the painting ... I firmly believe that the little details make up the picture...
Personally, I've never met any musican that I liked (and again this is my opinion) that had that attittude about learning music... As many of you know, I know a lot of top musicians personally; they have all admitted to practicing like madmen.. repeating the same shit over and over again... Stochelo locked himself up in his room all day learning django solos... I mentioned bireli's interview from last week; he mentioned the importance of serious practice and knowing how to practice properly . Joscho Stephan worked his ass off; antoine boyer is still working his ass off, and very serious about his music education... They all spent hours and hours repeating the same stuff until they got it right...
This lifestyle is not for everyone, i think it really fits people who have exhibit symptons of OCD, for others, it can be freakin boring and frustrating .. And that's totally fine too, different strokes for different folks.. I personally lose track of time when I'm repeating 5 seconds of music.. I can easily practice 5-6 hours non-stop playing the same exact phrase over and over again...
Fapy whom people praise as being a very organic , natural player told me personally that he d do similar things as well.. I had asked him how he worked on difficult chord progressions, he told me back in the day, he used to prepare tons of different solutions/licks over them, and he'd practice them over and over until it became easy...
To me true improvisation comes from the ear, if the ear cannot truly hear it in advance , then it's not real improvisation... whether you play licks or not, it comes down to the ear... which is why I constantly mention the importance of ear training... Again, I'm NOT intending to attack Teddy, but that django lick that he asked me to help him with, was extremely easy, it was a standard gypsy jazz lick; i listened to it once without the guitar in my hand, grabbred my guitar, looked first note (don't have perfect pitch), and bam playred it note for note .. I was just able to hear it. It really was a simple line, if you cannot hear something simple like that , then what kind of lines are you playing, and are you truly improvising?
Try this test, take any note on the guitar, and play Happy Birthday (assuming you don't already know it by heart , if so choose any nursery rhyme that you don't know) in time without messing up and without hesitating, this is a great test of ear training and the ability to improvise.
Learning to playing music, as enjoyable, as it is, is NOT easy at all; it requires ridiculous perseverance , discipline , and sacrifice... I don't mean to discourage anyone at all, but the musicians I admire know that, but they're not discouraged, they enjoy the actual process of learning... And again, I mentioned earlier, that not everyone has to take this path, there are shortcuts that you can take, and still enjoy making music , it just will be at a "lower level" which doesn't mean it's not enjoyable or entertaining... Jimmy Bruno has said this MANY times, I paraphrase: "if you're a hobbyist and just wanna have fun, you can practice a little bit, if you wanna get really good and serious about music, you need to practice 10 hours a day"... Again he didn't say it exactly that way, but there you have it. Learning music requires ridiculous patience, and change doens't happen overnight
all this to say, that it is ridiculous to expect a miracle after 30 minutes of absorbing new concepts ... Klaatu could be right, that it was my mistake to post an "after" video 30 minutes after, but I really feel that it's so much better in terms of sound... And furthermore, the second video is much slower than the first one; like I said, I purposely made him do it slow.. at a faster tempo he was having trouble maintaining the various points i made...
Finally, the concept of "swing" is extremely subjective, it's as subjective as "feel"... how does one measure such things, i've always thought it was the most ridiculous notion... for many guitar players, playing with feel often means making faces and playing blues licks, and doing bends... wtf!!!??? I ve told this story before, but 14 yrs ago, angelo debarre played in montreal, people were leaving during the concert, and angelo wasn't shredding (there s a bootleg recording of this concert) at all, he was playing beautifully on ballads... why did people leave? because he just sat there and played the guitar...
Let's talk about modern jazz, which I totally respect but have a bit of trouble listening to ... Lots of people say "X" modern player swings like hell... well, it's definitely intellectually stimulating, but it doesn't make my feet tap like django's music does... There are also modern jazz fans who think django's playing is boring... so there we go... different strokes for different folks.
Swing cannot be measured, many factors contribute to it but these things are not quantifiable...it's not JUST about keeping perfect tempo; listen to django's 1937 minor swing, the rhythm section speeds up as the guitar/violin solos get more intense; they were all probably getting excited in the studio.. So is that what swing is?? who knows.. There's a famous GJ group that records everything separately with a metronome, a totally different approach.. and i think it swings just as hard..
It's hard to give other examples without bringing other people into the conversation, so i'll just change the facts a bit.. On a few occasions I have seen amateur musicians play for a groups of advanced swing dancers... To my ears, it was horrendous, the tempo was slowing down on the medium tunes.. BIG time... the melodies were never played properly, solos weren't always in the pocket (not playing the changes), endings were nebulous... guess what, the swing dancers were totally happy and loved the music, the bands would get comments like "you guys are so good, are you professional musicians?" I'm sure many of you have witnessed such things in your lives before. So then what, if it's good enough for pro swing dancers, should us musicians just strive for absolute mediocrity??? Likewise, I love watching swing dancers, but i personally can't tell who's good or who's not.. they all look the same to me to a certain extent; by that logic, they shouldn't have to strive to become better dancers right? you see? that argument is just ridiculous (and again no disrespect intended)
Another example (with facts changed but message still the same) I had a teacher a long long time ago (before GJ) who , at the time, I thought was the most incredible guitar player ever, I listened to him play a few years ago and noticed all the flaws in his playing, out of tune bends, weak tone, sloppiness when executing somewhat fast lines etc.. Things I never noticed when I was a kid... It all goes back to what I said earlier about familiarity; as one gets more and more familiar with something through serious practice, one becomes more aware of certain things that were invisible in the past. I wonder how geniuses like Bireli and Django think/thought, their ears are/were so beyond most of ours..
I do have another story (facts changed just enough, i don't want to reveal any names), about a very famous and highly idolized player at an event. Someone tried to get him to check out this young hot shot player that everyone was talking about. Famous guitar player sees him, watches for 5 seconds, and walks out, meh...
Finally, people may think that my opinions come out as harsh, but if you were to really get to know some of the players that i know, you'd quickly find out how much harsher their's are .. With me , they were not afraid to tell me who/what they didn't like.. Famous rhythm guitar players contradicted eachother, and said the other was doing wrong..
I am shaped by these experiences, I've hung out with 90% all the most famous rhythm players, so I'd like to think I have a VERY educated opinion on this..
and to answer someone's question: no i did not say that that second sound was the only way to play rhythm .. far from it, i showed him tons of variations based on various situations... but i have a simple approach to teaching rhythm that has proven to be effective time after time.. it starts with the basics and not trying to do all at once.. as one gets better, i gradually break down the rules until there are none left, and the student is left to form his /her opinion...
here's a video of me accompanying Yorgui.. i must have used 3-4 variations on la pompe on this one , depending on the section of the song, the solo, the intensity, etc...
www.denischang.com
www.dc-musicschool.com
I'm in an odd position of being a middle aged guy, recently (finally) diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy, pretty much everywhere. That's not the odd position...the odd position is that god help me, I want to do this professionally, despite my age and the pretty dire challenges I find my body going through. Perhaps a better way of saying it, is that I hope to become an accomplished enough rhythm player that anyone, anywhere, soloists of high caliber would trust me to play beside them. I care deeply for rhythm in this genre, and work hard at it. I devote as much time as my body allows me, and of that time, probably 95% is rhythm work. I feel my progress is slow, and the worst is my ear. I pursue Nous'che's style with a fever, and do rely on written materials to help round out what I learn. I seek rhythm mastery...the ability to solo is a small pique, perhaps that will change. Rhythm mastery is a universe, a vast universe, to me. And I'm on the first rung of a likely infinite ladder.
I'm writing all this because I have tremendous admiration for Denis, and I'm very grateful to him personally, for what he's given me, and more generally, for what he's given the community. So it was hard for me to tell him my thoughts, re: this clip. And I see now, I think I missed the boat and will have to really some time with this thread and the thoughts that have come from it.
Thanks, Denis, for hanging in there.
pas encore, j'erre toujours.
P.S.
And yet, being a naïve soul, I like the definition of swing as "dancing with one's soul " given by a guy called Gonzalo on a fantastic site called DC Music School... highly recommended!
so who's definition of swing do we adhere to?!?
At any rate, again, the point of the second video was not that...
And another thing... I went on a big rant on the importance of ear training and the amount of work it takes to become good at something.
While it is true, i must say that GJ rhythm isn't THAT hard if you know what to watch for (the main problem as Armund mentioned is that lots of people don't know what to look for and think it is way easier than it is) ... One of my favorite rhythm players hasn't been playing guitar for that long.. If you practice hard and know what to practice , you can become really good at it in a year or two.
Check out Romain Vuillemin, in this video, he had been playing GJ for not so long:
It is very achievable in a relatively short period of time with the proper guidance
www.denischang.com
www.dc-musicschool.com