"Aha!" moments studying gypsy jazz

Jazzaferri

I have recently come to the place where the chord voicings that sound best to my ear are the ones where the voices move more like counterpoint rather than stacked chord progression theory. It's probably going to be another 10 years before I truly understand the implications.

Buco

Yeah this is one of the greatest threads of all time.
You study everything that's in here and you'll come out golden on the other end.

Charles Meadows

I suppose the aha moment was realizing how great this music is. I picked up the Rosenberg Trio Live in Samois only because Bryan Sutton and some of the other bluegrass guys mentioned that they liked "The Rosenbergs and their Django Reinhardt stuff". Little did I know I would soon become a complete convert.

The second basic aha was realizing that you can't play this stuff without the right technique.

Another came after I strummed my first 6/9 chord on a new ALD petit bouche and witnessed how its volume put my Martin and Collings to shame...

Pompe_ojisan

Realizing that the typical chords with the funky fingerings were actually doable - I initially thought you had to have hypermobile joints or sth.
Thiss required somebody to perform them in front of me. And realizing some of the barrés were actually the tip of the finger depressing 2 strings at once...
But then (after a few months of work...) this really helped getting a fuller sound, as you can play many chords with 6 strings. You can make your pompe 'growl' on 1 and 3s
Some examples from the top of my fingers:
D69: 554455 (IIMMRP)
G69: 355455 (TIIMRR)
Gm69: 355355 (TIIMRR)
Dm7: 553565 (IIMRPR)
Dm9: 553555 (IIMRRR)
G9: 355465 (TIIMPR)

A nice side effect is that you can get some very economical fingerings for 2-5-1s, for ex:
5x5555
554555
355455
Fingers barely move!

Pompe_ojisan

Jazzaferri wrote: »

I have recently come to the place where the chord voicings that sound best to my ear are the ones where the voices move more like counterpoint rather than stacked chord progression theory. It's probably going to be another 10 years before I truly understand the implications.

Do you mean in a chord progression you like the sound of a given voicing because it create interesting chord tone movements with the next and previous chords?
Or do you mean 'counterpoint' in a more literal sense?
Then I would agree it becomes a completely different game...

Would you have any favorite examples to share?

Jazzaferri

I mean counterpoint in its defined meaning. I use a number of non gypsy voicings now to get the Harmony moving in ways I like but I am just an infant in the use of counterpoint in my voicings...

When playing as a duo I find the more complex voicings work better. In the quartet I find the simpler voicings keep it cleaner sounding and don't step on the bass player.

Pompe_ojisan

Understood, thank you. Years of fun ahead

Jazzaferri

Just to make things more interesting on a personal level. I have hands more suited to a stonemason (a hobby) than a guitar player.

Good hands for sax though.

constantine

I have a lot more "oh shit "moments....

Jazzaferri

I think that's where all of us are....no matter what level we play it


Probably why we get better.