"Aha!" moments studying gypsy jazz

Bones

Hey Lango, no that's not AHA it's Am6. Er ah, D7/A. Er, Adim...Ebdim...Cdim...Gbdim....

BANG!!! (head explodes)

:-)

chrisd

Hi everyone I'm new here so thanks for all the great contributions! I'm really curious about Stochelo playing those diminished runs with all down-strokes. Does anyone else do that? Did Django do it?

riversax

1st "Aha!" moment was the realisation that blowing down the hole was not cutting it.

There's Selmers and Selmers... :-O

Lango-Django

It has been said that "The fool who persists in his folly will eventually become wise."

Well, this old fool finally learned something at Samois that he should have realized long, long ago... and therein hangs a story.

********

I remember a workshop at my first DiJ in 2008 that should've clued me in right away, but I was too dumb to pick up on it.

The North Americans all insisted that only squares clap on the one-and-three beats.

The Europeans adamantly insisted that only squares clap on the two-and-four beats.

"Well, isn't that a weird and pointless argument?" thought the old fool... and promptly forgot all about the subject In favour of more urgent things like RH technique and trying to learn every possible arpeggio position.

***********

Flash forward to Samois 2015, where I find myself part of a circle of about a dozen guitarists from all over the world, and begin to notice something...

...regardless of speed, volume or technique, the European soloists ALL seem to have a mysterious "something" in their improvisations that us North Americans lack...

"Something" that makes their playing sound more like Django's... Now what could that mysterious "something" be?

Maybe its the food or water over here in Europe?

*******

So I go away thinking about this, humming to myself as I walk along tapping my hand against my thigh... and gradually the realization hits me like a ton of bricks...

When the Europeans solo, why are they always tapping their feet like that?

And exactly which beats are they subtly accenting in their solos?

*****

Now, if you've read this far, it's either because

A) you are amused by the fool who would actually talk about such an obvious subject in a public forum.

OR

you are a fellow North American ignoramus who totally didn't "get it".

*******

But let me put it another way...

Pat your hand against your thigh and hum to yourself the melody of "Douce Ambience".

Then pat your hand against your thigh and hum to yourself the melody of "Mack the Knife" the way it might be performed by any cheesy lounge singer in Las Vegas.

See the difference?

Now ask yourself, "What would Django do: accent the one-and-three, or the two-and-four?"

Will

In beautiful San Sebastián, Spain

cjl

Went to the Adrian Moignard class, he actually started by telling off those who were tapping their right foot (because that's the leg you're resting your guitar on), and then according to my notes he instructed us all to tap on 2 & 4 (with the left foot....)

I can see the sense in tapping with your left foot, but whether on 1 & 3, or 2 & 4, or even 1,2,3,4 ...... probably depends on how you feel it. I've seen Tchavalo tap his left heel (not his toes) on 1,2,3,4, as does Bireli .... I think I've seen Angelo tap his heel on 1 & 3, toes on 2 & 4 ..... I don't think anyone's going to tell them they've got it wrong!

kevingcox

I have seen it done many ways, the only way that matters is the one that works for you. I prefer 2 and 4 generally, but right now i am enjoying this thing Remi Oswald taught where you put the metronome on the 1 of 3/4 time then add a beat to make it 4/4. That way it rotates through ticking on 1, 4, 3, 2, 1. It is really fun to work with.

Lango-Django

Well, I'm not really talking about tapping so much as phrasing so that the one and three are accented...

Whatever kind of tapping gets you there...

Jim Kaznosky

Wait what?

Lango-Django

So imagine you're playing four triplets...

DEE-da-lee dee-da-lee DEE-da-lee dee-da-lee

Matteo

I don't know. Mack the Knife was composed by Kurt Weil, a European. Well, I haven't had the chance to hear American jazz/swing manouche players much, except some of Gonzalo Bergara's records. So I can't make that comparison. But I find that players that have some sort of "something" that ressembles Django – or the great american jazz soloists from the early jazz and swing era, for that matter – distinguish themselves by having a way of improvising solos that's extremely personal and expressive. Perhaps at times more chaotic than controlled, sometimes slightly over the top rather than cool, not seldom almost embarassingly melodic and pretty rather than clever, and rhythmically quite loose rather than smooth, even and groovy all the time. Something like that. As for clapping, there's a funny scene in a novel by the Danish author Leif Panduro, Rend mig i traditionerna. There's a record playing and a school teacher, if I remember right, is clapping on one and three but is taught by a younger person that it's not cool and is instructed how to clap on two and four instead. Then there's some tumultuous happenings in the room but the man keeps clapping and eventually happily exclaims "Yeah, I think I got it now" unaware of having unconsciously returned to clapping on one and three during the general chaos of the scene. Funny!