"Aha!" moments studying gypsy jazz

lostjohn · January 2014

I'm still looking for mine. My head hurts!

steteak · January 2014

Recognizing the crunch of the strings on beats one and three.

Jazzaferri · January 2014

Dragon...I don't think harmony is theoretical at all ..... After all Django just heard it he had no training and apparently no interest in doing so.

In order to discuss it though, we need to have the theory piece....and that leads to another old AHA moment. When I first listened to Django as a teenager I loved the way he moved the bass and melodic lines through the chords when he was playing chordal stuff. That was the first time it all started making sense.

wim · February 2014

Bones wrote: »

See Hemert's comment on the previous page.

yeah I saw it already, I was hoping for more of a confirmation or refutation as to whether that is actually correct !
I was looking on youtube, and it's hard to tell, but it does seem to be true. And interestingly he seem to do a similar thing in other places, not just for the diminshed arpeggios. I thought I could see this in stochelo/romane double jeu. Or here http://www.soundslice.com/yt/UcjkBDqQ7IQ/ at about 6 minutes , there's the big diminshed run at the end of this song. I t looks like he use all sweep/downstroke except for the 3 notes on the last string , but it's hard to see even at 0.5x speed because the audio and video is not synced perfectly.

Charles Meadows · February 2014

Wim,

I could be wrong about my assertion. Some of the ascending runs are tabbed out that way in the downloadable music from the Rosenberg academy - with a quick down stroke (not rest) followed by sequential 2 note sweeps. I would say that Hemert or Dennis could probably say for sure. I think Angelo Debarre does this on the last A7 ascending run in the B section of "La manouche". It's at 1:20 or so.

Jon · February 2014

Realising the rest stroke was the only way to sound like my heroes, and that I had to stop looking for ways out of it.

Realising that using my left hand pinky was making/allowing me to play more linearly and fall back on my jazz playing, which was not the sound I was after, and how important technique and existing or imposed physical limitations are in determining the kinds of things I choose to play (almost as important as mind/ear).

Realising that Tchavolo plays with the knuckles of his right hand spread out, and that this helps disproportionately hugely with picking precision using a floating hand.

Matteo · February 2014

The "open", symmetrical, arpeggios in Stéphane Wrembel's book!

wim · February 2014

What are those Matteo?

Matteo · February 2014

Others call them "en escalier" or "ladder", I think Romane does. It's those arpeggios that runs horizontally on the fretboard. Not only diminished ones, but also major, minor, dominant, sixth, ninth, thirteenth, and with all sorts of alterations... Very useful and easy to remember because of their symmetric patterns.