which of these two books to buy

mcgroup53

My biggest beef with modern musical instruction materials is too much focuses on teaching lead before people learn good rhythm. Learn to play strong, steady rhythm, whether its bluegrass, blues, rock, Django swing, Western swing or whatever, and you're a benefit to every jam and band. Rush into being a guitar hero without studying core rhythm techniques, and you'll be plateaued almost immediately and will never be accepted as a true player. There's a GREAT tutorial on Freddy Greene style rhythm in the October 2015 issue of Acoustic Guitar that I wish everyone would memorize.

Jim Kaznosky

There are some pretty great gj rhythm instructional materials out there and (at least to me) it's fairly well vocalized that rhythm is the place to really start in this style.

anthon_74

Yeah in gypsy jazz you'll completely fall flat in any jam if you don't have at least serviceable pompe' rhythm. Every teacher I worked with early on hammered it in to focus on rhythm first. In my second year at Django in June, I had the audacity to tell Andrew (the organizer for those who don't know) that I didn't intend to take the rhythm class because I felt I didn't need to work on my pompe, to which he said "We ALL need to work in our pompe' ".
I believe that most of the books are focused on lead for 2 reasons.
One, pompe' is really hard to teach in a book. It's like the Matrix, you have to see it done to understand how to do it. Even just hearing it isn't enough, as you may end up trying to do it with a tight straight wrist, or even with your wrist pulled in like electric guitarist do. I'm a firm believer in needing a teacher to get you started with Pompe rhythm.

Secondly - yes of course lead is "sexier". It sells copies better than rhythm.

Cheers,
Anthony

woodamand

I have been working with video lessons on the pompe, and there must be a lot more to it than what I am hearing; what I am doing sounds to my ears to be the same as what the instructor is doing. I taught guitar for years and years and my big thing was teaching rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. At some point I will post something and expose myself to whatever ridicule I deserve, since I obviously have just started down this path and certainly cannot claim to know much of anything about GJ.
I am waiting for the smirks I will get from Michael at Djangobook as I try out guitars at his shop with my crappy pompe technique tomorrow!

anthon_74

Definitely post a video of your playing. It's very tricky getting that right pompe sound. I worked at only rhythm for 6 years, and I thought I totally had it, and then I went to Django in June, and learned otherwise. People on this forum love to help with rhythm advice. The best thing you can do, though, is play with other players and hear/see it first hand.
FYI -Not having seen your playing I will say that the most common pompe mistakes are - over emphasizing the "chop" on the 2 and 4 beats. Over emphasizing the upstrum getting that swish sound (if you're using the upstrum, which is falling a bit out of favor with the modern players). and raking the 1 and the 3 too slowly.

Cheers

Anthony

Kevin Furniss

Anthony[/quote]

anthon_74 wrote: »

Definitely post a video of your playing. It's very tricky getting that right pompe sound. I worked at only rhythm for 6 years, and I thought I totally had it, and then I went to Django in June, and learned otherwise. People on this forum love to help with rhythm advice. The best thing you can do, though, is play with other players and hear/see it first hand.
FYI -Not having seen your playing I will say that the most common pompe mistakes are - over emphasizing the "chop" on the 2 and 4 beats. Over emphasizing the upstrum getting that swish sound (if you're using the upstrum, which is falling a bit out of favor with the modern players). and raking the 1 and the 3 too slowly.

Cheers

Anthony

That about covers all of the things you can do wrong .......................believe me I know.

Hemert

Playing the rhythm itself is not that hard, you should be able to learn that within a year. It's keeping time, knowing the repertoire and endurance which are hard. That will take some years!

anthon_74

Hemert wrote: »

Playing the rhythm itself is not that hard, you should be able to learn that within a year. It's keeping time, knowing the repertoire and endurance which are hard. That will take some years!

That's the truth right there.

Jazzaferri

Imo the up strum should be able to be controlled, just like every other aspect of rhythm playing. Sometimes a noticeable and definite quick upstroke works in a song sometimes not. Sometimes a strong 2/4 emphasis works sometimes not.

If you listen carefully, the song will lead the way. Dynamics is a somewhat underutilized musical device in this and many other genres.

I also beleive it takes about a year to master the rhythm basics. However I think It takes as long or longer to learn to comp well as play lead. there are more variables in comping as one is usually using more notes at any one time. Voicing rules(to be learned and then broken) voice leading rules (same) etc etc. but perhaps I am putting more emphasis on the jazz half of the Gypsy Jazz label. LOL

Jazz pianist Hal Galper has been working on his chord voicing in a dedicated way for a decade now. Afaik he's still working on em. I switched to focussing on rhythm guitar a few years ago and still feel like I am climbing an ice wall with bare hands.

andmer

All the books mentioned above are great. Also video wise you can't go wrong with Yaakov's http://gypsyjazzschool.com in my opinion.

A great reference is also Christiaan's series on youtube.