The Idiomatiques and My Gypsy Jazz Journey Blog Part Deux

BillDaCostaWilliams

Lango-Django wrote: »

Alas, your "Day in Paris" video wouldn't work for me here in Canada.

Doesn't work for me either but this gig video does:

Scoredog

Is this better?




or just the audio

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31773631/A Day in Paris Master.mp3

I just watched that old video and that was just before I started the transformation....interesting to see it again, a little painful but perfect perspective of where I was just before beginning my Gypsy Jazz journey. My wrist is firmly on the bridge and I have no GJ technique yet or even am aware there is GJ technique. I am unaware of this forum but would join the next month. I think I have only played that song live twice as it needs violin and as my solo artist gigs did not warrant having a violinist.

Bones

Yeah Craig I've noticed that before looking at those old vids how much your right hand technique has changed.

MattHenry

Great introduction to your GJ journey, thanks for sharing!

Clicked through your stuff and it's obvious that you're an excellent musician and guitarist. I also really enjoy your vocabulary, which does sound like it benefits from a ton of influences from your diverse background.

I'd dig your stuff even more if you worked out the remaining kinks and, for lack of a better way to say it, dedicated yourself to proper gypsy picking. You have a jazz guitar wrist that makes some of your playing sound like jazz played on a gypsy guitar. There are also lots of gypsy jazz phrases in your playing that would sound better if your gypsy picking was more fundamentally sound.

A few ideas for practice that might help (and keep in mind you have more access and ability than I do as a player so I'm not trying to criticize you as a musician, just preach the gospel of gypsy picking as I'm wont to do):

1) Create your picking motion from the swivel of the bones in your forearm more than you do in the Stompin At Decca or Sado Manouche clips. The analogy I make with my students and jam buddies is that the jazz wrist is like holding and tapping a little hammer up and down while the GJ wrist is a slack wrist and a swivel of the two forearm bones like putting out a match (match analogy courtesy of Pope Denis Chang). Christiaan van Hemert has the best gypsy picking tutorial clip I know of:



2) The swivel wrist will encourage a pick motion more toward the top of the guitar and you should make a conscious effort to land on the string below and rest there. Let the landing be exaggerated so you can see less up and down flow in your wrist in favor of more time resting on the string below. Jeff Radaich says, "Pick down toward the top not down toward the ground."

3) Really stick to the rules regarding downstrokes and practice gypsy picking solutions that train the little "interrupted sweeps" that are so important. So for a descending phrase that's two notes per string you alternate D-U-D-U, but for an ascending phrase of two notes per string you'd start with a D and then do a series of two note downstroke sweeps. Resist the gadjo thing where you point to other styles of music as a reason not to get all the way there with gypsy picking. That's the dark side of the force talkin.

4) Get your wrist joint lower over the bridge than you currently have it. You shouldn't have your wrist joint above the bridge and be reaching down to the strings like that. You should have your wrist behind the rosette and be reaching forward to the strings. I took a bunch of screenshots because I don't value my free time. In each pic the player is playing the D string and you can see how their impeccable wrist angles are similar yet farther down (towards the ground) over the bridge and strings.

Alternately, you can buy that Rino guitar and your gypsy picking will become instantly perfect because all the Rino's guitars do magic stuff like that hat from Fantasia.

Scoredog

Matt I absolutely agree especially with the pics and I really appreciate you taking so much time out to mention it, you certainly did not need to that but I appreciate the effort and your thoughtfulness. I think you will see as we get closer to the present my hand position has changed but even in the older vids I am using predominantly rest strokes, though I still sometimes use and open hand and sometimes a more close hand.

Buco

Bill Da Costa Williams wrote: »

Lango-Django wrote: »

Alas, your "Day in Paris" video wouldn't work for me here in Canada.

Doesn't work for me either but this gig video does:

That's a cool jam thou.

Bones

Hey ScoreD, as I mentioned, your right hand technique has changed a LOT since we first started jamming. That said (and I am a fan of the bent wrist technique as shown in some of the vids esp. Gonzalo) there is a lot of variation on that wrist bend among the top players (including our Idol I think) so I think it is just a matter of what works for the individual. If one is getting the phrasing and tone that one likes kind of end of story I guess.

Scoredog

I will eventually get back to the blog but as I welcomed comments I thought I would address this. I think as Bones says hand position is important but tone production is most important. I like all the players Matt showed me (us) in his pics and it gave me a chance to re-examine my own hand position which i changed a few months back. The one thing I had decided was to keep an open hand as I have been called a tight ass and thought it might loosen me up but no, I'm still a tight ass. So I had a four hour gig this weekend and decided to close my hand some and found I not only liked it but could mute strings with the back of my fingers...duh, never thought of that before.


Matt i want to say I checked out your hand position and it looks beautiful to me. It's interesting as no one had really mentioned it to me, numerous lessons with Gonzalo, 3 days of jamming with Robin Nolan one on one and lots of time playing with Neil Andersen (Pearl Django who loves my right hand... in a GJ way) and **** who each time i play with him reminds of what perfect technique sounds like but your comment also becomes part of my GJ journey and it helped. I thought I would also share a snippet of a solo I played on our upcoming album with my open but correct (if there is such a thing) hand position.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31773631/Git comp WH ruff mix (Snippet).m4a

Here is my current hand position (not open)

Buco

Love that snippet man, I'm looking forward to the whole thing.

The wrist angle certainly helps to drive the attack and get that snap. But there's always an outlier right? Look at Andreas Oberg. Even though he's moved on and never was a dedicated GJ player, he's recorded several albums in the genre and I don't think anyone can fault him for his tone and playing. Even Jimmy Rosenberg to an extent. He still has the wrist angle but his hand splayed like that goes against everything you normally hear how it should be done.

MattHenry

Heck yeah, Craig! Those photos are exactly the change in hand position I had in mind: it looks very much corrected yet not overdone. Glad my ultra-long post was of some use to you! The tone in the clip sounds good as well.

I'm also an advocate of the closed hand and I think yours looks just right in the photos: compact yet relaxed. I think the fanned fingers can create an issue of too much momentum and lead to a bigger pick motion than anyone needs. Not that nobody can get good results with it, just that it isn't as strong a value proposition as the hand position you're showing in your new pix above.

While grooming that (excellent) hand position to be automatic I'd recommend being very deliberate about rest strokes too. Land on the string below so the pick just looks like it's stuck there much of the time. Start above the target string and fall right through to the string below like the target string has no chance (as opposed to placing it on the target string and timing the release). That's the best starting point to eliminate any gadjo pluck sound and get a singing and deliberate tone.

Great work!