My Progress in Jazz Manouche

wim

Very good !! No extraneous movement whatsoever, and good strong wrist angle. You sound is also more gutsy and powerful than at the start of this thread.

AmundLauritzen

A small update on my progress.

I started practising "After you've gone" last july when the lesson was made available on Rosenberg Academy.

Last year I posted a slower version, but I wanted to check now if I could keep up at 100% speed after having practiced all the new songs and pushed myself to see if that technique and knowledge could make me play the song better.

I mostly practice the song of the month, but I make sure to spend some time re-visiting old tunes and trying to play on them.

I've been working hard this summer so I re-visited the tune. This time I tried to improvise on it 100% speed:



It's very sloppy and with a lot of retarded resolutions/bad ideas. But there are some good moments in there.

What I notice is the gaps between the pathways that I need to strengthen. The more ways I have from A to B(one lick/position to another), the faster the "melodic pictures" appear on the guitar neck and the quicker I can react.
That's what makes someone sound confident, like when Stochelo, Mozes, Bireli, Adrien etc play. They have so many possible pathways from one place of the neck to another in all harmonic situations that they can automatically just play something really good in any situation without thinking about it.

This is why I found technical exercises are useless past getting used to rest-stroke picking.

When you have the basic idea, practice solos and licks. Then tie up all your fretboard knowledge together and visualize chords/arps etc under the lines so they are instantly available.

Just rambling a bit explaining how I think about this stuff. I'd love to hear other perspectives, feedback etc...

I am finally happy with my tone now. I pick relatively close to the bridge because I like that growly sound.
After feedback on my octaves I also worked on those, attacking them with more velocity and with the muted upstroke for that "Stochelo attitude" which is what was suggested for me. My octave sound has gotten a lot better. More confident, less wussy. But still a bit imprecise and not 100% reliable all the time.

What I notice is that the transition from octaves or chords to single lines still throws me off a bit as I don't always get in position with the pick precisely all the time. This is the same with rhythm guitar, but it has gotten better.

Buco

Sorry but you're nuts to call that sloppy.
Sure you can work on having every note on every run come out clean.
But don't be your own worst critic.
And fix that YouTube video title.
And awesome job!

Jehu

Damn, Amund! You're an inspiration.

Bones

Nice work!!!

Jehu

Are you still enrolled in the Rosenberg Academy, and have you changed your practice routine at all from what you mentioned previously?

AmundLauritzen

Here's from the last released song on R.A, "Night and day":

Attempt at Stochelos solo:


Attempt at improv:


This is how I currently practice.

In slow and medium tempos, Stochelo fires off triplets, double-time or faster. When I encounter this, I isolate these bars and practice them slowly.
But I also make sure after I've got that disciplined kind of practice in for the day to try to wing it at full tempo. That is, in the tempo like "Night and day" I can play the bulk majority of the solo at speed, because 8ths are no problem in that tempo. Then the problem areas(often triplets and double time) stick out like a sore thumb and reminds me what to practice. But it also trains the brain to think fast. If all you do is practice at the comfortable tempo, then you will never stimulate your brain to react faster. For perspective 90% of practice should be in comfortable tempo while the remaining 10% should be above comfort zone IMO.

I try to get in some practice for songs I worked on in the past, to keep them fresh.

What keeps astonishing me is how vast the repertoire really is, not just counting the tunes that Django played, but the ones that have been added later as well and are now considered must-know tunes that you should have fresh in memory to sit in a jam for instance.

Right now I find it difficult to get in satisfactory practice time for the current tune I'm working on while at the same time keeping my entire repertoire fresh in memory.

In other words, my understanding of how much time is needed to master this style is updated all the time, because for every satisfactory element of my playing, I notice two more problem areas. And for every tune that I have "jam ready", ten tunes I neglected keeping fresh in memory are now stumbling blocks and I'd mess up if I were to sit in and try to play them.

I get in on average 2 hours of practice a day now, but these two hours are very focused compared to how I practiced in the past. I have gotten better at making every second count and diagnosing problem areas, so I get more out of these two hours now than I'd get out of a marathon session.

Buco

With this work ethic, in a couple of years I can see you nibbling at their feet, at least. I'm talking about the guys that you admire currently. You're young enough, reasonably talented (which in my opinion is the least of a factor), have a strong drive to push forward and are well structured and organized. Don't forget this bit of Zen wisdom, in words of someone I can't remember now, the higher you climb the mountain the clearer the view gets. In another words the return on the work you put in gets compounded the more skill and knowledge you accumulate.

Jazzaferri

Great work Amund. My ears tell me at times you sounded a bit like you were on the back side of the beat. You will know if this is deliberate or not, and what to do.

Inspirational

AmundLauritzen

Here is my take on "Double Jeu", Stochelos solo to the best of my abilities.


And a take on the 6/8 rhumba style:


I did not record an improvisation take, because no matter how much I tried I could not create a coherent chorus at this point.
6/8 was a real challenge, and I'll be going back to this tune regularly in the future to work on it.

Any criticism is appreciated.