New lessons, sorry to spam!!!

dennis

Sorry to spam folks, but i think i do post regularly enough here without promoting my own stuff to warrant the occasional self-promotion haha

Anyway, it's been quite brutal, in terms of work, for me since August, but I managed to record and complete a lot of projects for my DC Music School website that I've been wanting to do for a while.

First thing I did was film a number of lessons featuring myself. They are pretty much a remake and updated version of the DVDs I did for hyperhipmedia. I wouldn't say they outright replace what I did for HyperHip, as it goes in a bit of a different direction, but they certainly reflect almost 10 yrs of evolution i've done as a player and teacher.

I did 4 lessons: two on rhythm player, one on gypsy jazz technique, and one on improvisation.

Next was In The Style of Adrien Moignard. A massive project that I did with Adrien, and I must thank him for his professionalism and humility in allowing me to "direct" him. We really went all out to describe his playing style in as much detail as possible. So much, we really had to divide it in two volumes.

Next is one of the projects I've been wanting to do for a long time featuring Tcha Limberger.

The first project is an "interactive" album/lesson project. Basically we recorded an album featuring tcha on bass, guitars, violin, viola, and vocals; a one-man band of Tcha playing rare Gypsy songs that are not well known outside the Gypsy community. To me, this is the GYPSY in gypsy jazz. The cool thing about this is, is that we have included backing tracks for every song. Basically it's the album MINUS either bass/rhythm gtr/ lead gtr/ violin. So you can jam along to the actual recordings. It includes lead sheets for every song (melody and harmony); few guitar charts for some of the songs that have interesting things going on in the guitar... and last but not least 6 etudes on 3 songs, 3 etudes for guitar, and 3 for violin.


Next project is similar, a collection of 11 gypsy songs from various regions played in the manouche style popularize by titi winterstein, the piottos, schnuckenak reinhardt. Like the previous gypsy album, lead sheets, backing tracks, mini lessons included

Last but not least, a lesson on swing bass playing; a lesson that anyone interested in accompaniment should watch especially bass players. Most contemporary bass players tend to play in one way all the time, mainly walking bass with long notes. And sometimes when they play in two feel, they don't really know how to properly articulate and accent the two feel, and it results in a dull groove. We cover all this and much more (as well as how to swing with the bow).

I am in the process of uploading youtube clips every day (still about a week left of uploading to do on youtube), but you can watch a bunch of them here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/DCMusicSchool/videos?view=0&shelf_id=4&sort=dd

here are a few highlights for me:

Bob Holo

My God when I think of what was available when I started... compared to this.

I can clearly remember... you could get Gypsy Picking reliably because Michael had printed up a large initial run. It was somewhat difficult to find copies of Robin's 'little black book' and pretty darned tough to find Collin Cossimini's books. You'd study what you could find like they were lost books of the Bible. People would pass around Xerox copies of pages out of books to people in their bands to try to get some concept across. There were a few magazine interviews of John Jorenson and people would pass around Xerox copies of those too. If you wanted interactive instruction you'd go off to a rather primitive Youtube (which had only been around for a year or two) And you'd pause those grainy-assed 240p-resolution videos and try to figure out which finger was on which string. Michael actually had a Djangobooks video repository and it had WAY more GJ videos than Youtube. Haha... My God. It was an epiphany when Paul Mehling launched a 2 DVD series because you could clearly see and hear what he was doing at the same time - and you could buy it from this store in San Francisco or get someone there to buy it for you if you knew people in the Bay area (thanks Doug)

I know people say this from time to time, but... if you're just getting into Gypsy Jazz, you have no idea how much this has all evolved. Dennis is banging out this world class stuff - it is so good and so easily available. Books -- Academies -- Festivals -- Soundslice... Every so often it just floors me when I think back.

We walked to school... barefoot... in the snow... uphill... both ways. ;-)

dennis

I remember those days as well! In fact i even remember the days before djangobooks before michael revolutionized the world .... Of django

I remember having to learn by watching the vhs of django legacy, and mary honcoop (rip) would send me vhs cassettes of the rosenberg trio , and i had to spend hours in front of the mirror trying o copy the rhythm and solo techniques!

And of course people who started before 1999 had even less!!!

PapsPier

Hi Denis
thanks for your work. I already had a look to the free videos you posted before, but today you convinced me to buy the lesson Romane Gilia. It is perfect. I just buy it, so I didnt begin to practice but I think the organization of the package you propose is very efficient for the student. And your site is really easy to use !

As a bonus, if you could tell us for these lessons, which versions (on which CD) of these songs you like, it would be nice. For most of these songs, I know only one or two versions (Schnuckenack and the Romani album).

Thanks again for sharing that.

Is there a lot of people interested in the gypsy songs? I ask the question because it is slightly different from the american standards usually played.

Jazzaferri

I remember my first Django record in 1968. No one else I played with had any interest in this style. I tried to learn a bit from it but I was too young and impatient and Did not have them technical understanding tompiece together the chord changes and most of the faster runs. Being a bush pilot based in nowheresville Canada, well........ eventually I gave up and learned finger style.

I have noticed a huge change in the last 10 years since getting back into this style of music.

Dennis has IMO earned the right to advertise his stuff on this site anytime he wants as he has freely given his time, much help and support to this forum and to our community.

@dennis from the bottom of my heart a great big thank you for All you have done for us.

rgrice

Like @Jazzaferri I bought my first Django album (on Everest lsbel) way back, probably 1970 and was blown away. Tried to learn "Minor Swing" but was also too young and impatient. Plus my guitar's action was awful!
I wish there had been these resources back when! I've played guitar for over 40 years but at my age it's really tough to take on something like GJ, which I did a couple of years ago. Thanks again to Denis, Michael, and so many others, who are experts, but grace us with their knowledge in such a personal way!
Denis's stuff was the first I encountered and it gave me the confidence and ability to seriously pursue this style!
Thanks, @Dennis, self promote all you want to!

Karlo

A thanks to Dennis for what he has been doing. I have bought lessons and will certainly buy more (and he was always very nice with any of my inquiries ). Props for the new ones, especially to seeing more of the gypsy in gypsy jazz! Tcha never ceases to surprise and amaze.

mandocat

First book I got was Stan Ayeroff, $5.95 in 1978, standard notation. I looked at it a little and gave up. I came back to it 20 + years later after getting a start from Robin Nolan, Ian Cruikshank, Michael H. and learned some of Django's solos.
Spam away Dennis. Amazing work!

Charles Meadows

Just bought some of the new lessons. Great stuff for pennies! $24.99 Canadian per lesson. That's like 20 buck US! You guys should load up!