"Aha!" moments studying gypsy jazz

wim

What "aha!" moments have you had in your studies which really pushed your improvisation to a new level? Here are a few of mine ..

1. realising that m6, m7b5, dominant 9 were really the same chord
2. noticing that augmented chords could shift 4 frets the same as diminished chords could shift 3 frets
3. finding that the 3rd and the m7th swap places in a tritone sub, and later ...
4. ... finding that the 9th and the b13th do the exact same trick
5. joining the fretboard up with the CAGED shapes

Not exactly recent discoveries, but they're some things that really opened doors in my playing and maybe they can help other people too (plus maybe other people have some good ones that can help me!). No.1 in particular just made so many things click together, and even though I was aware of the fact on a theory level it was quite some time before I grokked it enough to instinctively use in practice - once it was fluent it was suddenly like everything I already had under my fingers became 3 times as useful.

Charles Meadows

I found it really cool to see that Stochelo plays his ascending diminished runs as sequential 2 note sweeps using all downstrokes. Made it much easier.

Scoredog

Charles Meadows wrote: »

I found it really cool to see that Stochelo plays his ascending diminished runs as sequential 2 note sweeps using all downstrokes. Made it much easier.

could you explain this.

I know all the other ones above but find them useless once I start playing...:)

I can add another useless tip Charles.

kevingcox

1. Putting my metronome on the two and the four.
2. Enclosures.
3. Not using playalongs, just my metronome and forcing myself to know where I am in the song (work in progress)
4. Stop looking at grilles and tabs and learning songs by ear
5. Yummy tritones.

Lango-Django

I think Charles meant that Stochelo would play a Gdim arp starting from the sixth string like


-------------------2-----5. Etc
--------1----4-----------------------------------------------
----3---------------------------------------------------------

instead of

----------------------5-----8. Etc
-----------4-----7---------
--3----6---------------

I tend to play my dim arps the same way because I originally learned it from Eddie Lang's 1927 record with Bix "Singin' the Blues". I deliberately tried not to make the run sound like Django because I was playing in a 1920s band and didn't want to be inauthentic.

Naturally, I suspect that Stochelo, like me, can also play the arp the "Django" way if he really wants to, but somehow the first way just fell under my fingers a bit easier.

Charles Meadows

I'm sure Stochelo can do it about any way he wants! I'd love to hear what Denis would say about this. The sweep way feels much smoother to me and seems to lend itself to "swinging" the notes. I'm not sure he does this all the time but I'm pretty sure I've seen him do it this way at least some of the time.

Lango-Django

My 'aha' moments are when I'm not consciously thinking about theory and just being 'in the moment'.

This is something that jazzaferri aka jay is fond of talking about--- that magical feeling you get when you are somehow simultaneously inside and outside yourself and just relaxed and listening to the music almost as if someone else was playing it.

I can hit this level fairly often now when I play with backing tracks, but it's still a real challenge for me to do it when playing unaccompanied or with a metronome...

Stringswinger

getting the upstroke incorporated into my pompe

adrian

For me, a big aha moment was realizing that you can play horizontally on the guitar neck instead of vertically. I came from the blues/rock world, where basically everything was in the pentatonic "box."

AApollo02

For me learning the Circle of 4th's has helped me a great deal with memorizing notes on the fingerboard and the roots of my arpeggios. I struggled for a good while learning note positions and realizing that the guitar is tuned in 4th's (with the exception of the gap between G and B which is then one fret up) has helped me tremendously.

Jazzaferri

when I realized notes were less important than the spaces between them