Django and music theory

Teddy Dupont

I am becoming increasingly confused as to the point many people are making here but if you go back to the original question "..... was Django mostly a by ear player or was he schooled in music theory?", the answers are unquestionably that he played totally by ear and he was not schooled in music theory. That is not me saying it. It is people who knew and played with him, many of whom were exceptionally talented musicians.

Obviously Django practised prodigiously. No matter how talented you are, you need to practise continually to maintain your skills although Django would not have considered it practise, he just loved to play. Having said that, he would only play when he wanted to. He clearly must have learnt from other musicians when he was young and then assimilated the musical sounds around him throughout his life but in no way, was he schooled in a formal, structured manner. No doubt as Dennis suggested earlier, he would surely have known the names of some basic chords but no more. As Delaunay said, notes on paper and the mechanics of musical theory were of no interest to him. He did not need either. He was essentially an instinctive natural musician. If anything he played needed to be written down (band arrangements etc), other people did that for him.

Would Django be less brilliant if he could read music or for that matter, had the full use of all his fingers. NO!. His music stands on it's own as the work of a genius. All these other factors are just for us to pontificate about although they do, of course, add to the legend and the sense of wonder.

Hemert

The only gypsy I know that actually knows all the chord names and all the theory behind everything is Tcha. Some have told me though that it does seem very helpful and convenient to know it, especially because it would make working and communicating with traditionally educated (non guitar playing) musicians so much easier. I could imagine Django feeling the same way!

Jeff Moore

woodamand
Your question is a good question, and keeps coming up for people learning his music.
The problem isn't your question at all, but rather in trying to unscramble how Django did what he did, particularly trying to use language to unscramble it. The problem is likely in the symbolic content of words like school, which might imply (brick, mortar, bells, teachers, paper, dots on staffs, degrees, grades, lectures, libraries etc....).
We've all heard the idea that words are symbols, and not the things they represent.
I don't think Django's method is a mystery though. I think he listened intently, became obsessed, and worked everything out directly on a fretboard. Words or symbols for things like dominant or B-flat were for him; optional, incidental, even maybe a hindrance to the sound he made. One can do "dominant" or B-flat without knowing or thinking about words or symbols. I think he was "lazy", so that's exactly what he did; just sound with little of anything else we might associate with school or education, but amount to school and education by another means.
Words like school,education, and certainly "music education" don't usually imply the idea of someone's entirely personal connection to sound, while ignoring words and symbols, yet this approach has a lot to be said for it musically.
So knowing whether Django was educated is entirely a matter of first deciding what education is.
If education = sound, he "wrote the book". If education = words and symbols, he is of little use. Not that people with a passion for words and symbols won't find treasure in translating his sound, but he added almost nothing in that feild.

Hope that helps and thanks for an important question!

Jim Kaznosky

dennis wrote: »

I cannot speak for Django but I can definitely talk about Bireli. Ultimately, as I've said many times, I think it's all about awareness of quality.

If one is highly aware of:

-sound (articulation, tone, intonation)
-rhythm/timing
-ear training ...


...

If he learned an entire django solo by heart, it's because he wanted to, not because he would tell himself, i need to learn this django solo by heart because it will make me a better musician. He is very very natural in that respect. He's just lucky that he had the urge to actively listen to all kinds of music and absorb it.

These quotes resonate with me deeply.

When I first started learning this music, I went to a player who does not play this style very much, but was fascinated by Django nonetheless and in our first lesson, he simplified it all to this: Django had a system of playing and improvising, just as Wes does, and insert your favorite player. When I started taking lessons with Stephane, he taught me very specific fingerings for certain things and it sort of reinforced this idea.

What occurred to me at this point was that it is certainly interesting to ponder how much players know about theory. What I realized I was erroneously thinking was that if a player doesn't know theory, it must be more approachable, thus I can do it. I further realized that theory or not, it is still difficult for me to play. As a result, it became more important to me to see how that particular player organized their system. That, to me, became what I became more interested in (along with the overall idea that the system is a means to producing music that I am drawn to).

We are lucky in a way as guitar players in that we can rely upon shapes and patterns to help facilitate learning. I think that these players who have a somewhat limited grasp on theory have organized their system through these shapes and patterns and automatically know, from years of practice, how to use them to transfer the melodies they hear in their heads immediately to their fingers.

Maybe I am oversimplifying this or I am muddying it all up, but I use this general idea of creating a personal system as a way of making my way through this music.

Lango-Django

I'm sure that this analogy has been made before many times, but let's compare music to a language.

As a native speaker of English, you simply never needed to learn complicated rules about choosing the correct verb tense or understand the difference between a direct object and an indirect object, etc. etc.

The rules that govern English grammar have been assimilated into your subconscious so thoroughly that you don't need to think about them.

And probably you never do think about them, except for the rare occasions when your ears are jarred by hearing somebody them violating.

Obviously, this case is analogous with Django and many other great improvisers.

*******

On the other hand, when you set about to study a foreign language, unless you are able to move to a location where one can assimilate the language unconsciously the same way you learned English, then you are de facto forced to learn all sorts of crazy rules about verbs and direct objects etc. etc.

For example, if you took high school French you may remember making the acquaintance of "MRS VANDERTRAMPP" a memory device designed to help the learner know which verbs needed to be conjugated with "etre" instead of "avoir".

This Is analogous to the way a lot of us study gypsy jazz.

Of course, if you asked a native French speaker if they ever met MRS VANDERTRAMPP, they wouldn't know what you were talking about...

Jazzaferri

The important thing is to hear it in your head. Unlike piano, there is often more than one of the same note on the fret board, thus a number of different ways of getting there even with the same notes. The more ways you have (a la Birelli) the more fluent you are.

As for the rest, well....what @dennis said really resonates with me as well.

Whether one studies theory or not, it's the hearing awareness that makes all the difference. How well can you identify the harmony of what is being played by both yourself and someone else? Do you hear the separate lines moving within the chords? How well can you blend your own musical thoughts with that? Those are the things that I am focussed on (and struggling with at times LOL). My bet is that Django and Birelli heard that stuff so very clearly in melodic/harmonic/rhythmic context.

NylonDave

I agree about languages it is a good analogy. The thing that helped my French was going out for a drink on my own and having to just try and get along. I came up with all sorts of ways to get my point across.

But my vocabulary never really increased it turns out that I was just learning to get on better with the little that I had learned at school whilst freestyling bizarre grammar. I realised that to get much better I would need to continue forcing myself to speak and be around conversations in French whilst at the same time doing a little clever homework of my own devising. Maybe buy a book in both French and English read a chapter in one and then go back a chapter and read two chapters in the other. Like learning to sing a solo before trying it on your instrument....

Basically using my experience and my intellect to try and spoonfeed my subconscious, all the time knowing that the subconscious was really where all the heavy lifting would be done.

Kinda like walking on two legs instead of choosing a favourite leg and hopping everywhere till you have one giant leg and one withered one, or just falling over a lot and never getting anywhere.

D.

bopster

On a related note, I remember reading that David Reinhardt went the full music school route, although this came later, after he had been playing awhile. I wonder what his thoughts are on the subject, and if Babik had any insights into his father's processes.

Jeff Moore

Jim Kaznosky
I agree with what your saying mostly. When you say "it is certainly interesting to ponder how much players know about theory". Can we say what part of Django's music shows his grasp, or not, of theory? I guess I don't know what music theory is or does. I've always suspected is was a term that legitimizes an abstraction. Like if you understand theory, maybe you will "understand" music, yet music is perhaps not something you can understand, any more than you can understand a lake or a mint julip. You can move it along, create new ideas, but does one really understand music any better even if their involved in making it? Mostly musicians look to an audience or a paycheck for validation. You certainly wouldn't be able to test your theories except by what you or a crowd likes.

NylonDave

@Jeff Moore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown


http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Mint-Julep

It is as easy to see if someone understands theory when they are typing as it is to hear when they are playing. Weirdly the ones who do often think that they don't and the ones who think they can cant.

I was worried there when I read your post that there would be no more mint julips as all the true connoisseurs realise that they are imponderable.
However much to my relief people are still working at it despite the apparent futility, even going so far as to write recipes out.......

D.