rhythm playing-pick size

Bones

Get to work! :-)

dennis

The unfortunate truth is that to be able to play any kind of music well, it requires work. Whether you are a prodigy or not, you have to spend countless hours on your craft. If you want to reach a new plateau in your playing, then you need to be able to invest one year of your life, practicing at the very least 2 hours a day for each level of progress you want to make. Within 5 years , you can achieve a level that most people would consider professional.

The first few years should be spent on the fundamentals, and that is what many people have trouble with . More specifically , the fundamentals of Gypsy Jazz are:

-Repertoire: learning as many song as possible by heart: both melodies and chords
-Timing: both in the accompaniment and lead playing
-Intelligent Listening / Vocabulary: Spending a lot of time with your favorite recordings figuring out the language on your own, and not from a book of transcriptions

These three elements are critical if you ever want to achieve some sort of minimum level of adequacy. Like I said, I sincerely believe that with one year's worth of practice (at least 2 hours a day, and assuming you already have a basic level of guitar)), anyone can reach the most basic level where they can share the stage with musicians far beyond their caliber, and contribute to the music.

This is really hard work to be honest, but at the same time, it has to be very enjoyable, or else you'll get depressed. The key is to also practice all of these things correctly, and that is what some people have trouble with.

From working with a lot of the best musicians and even child prodigies, I often notice certain common patterns.

The prodigies or "talented" musicians instinctively practice the right way, whether they're aware of it or not, and thus when they progress, it's just natural and "easy". When I asked Bireli if he ever had difficulty with anything where he had to really shed with deep concentration, he simply replied "no". However, that should not be misinterpreted as him never practicing; in fact, from the age of 4 , he was practicing 6-12 hours a day, but it was never considered practice, it was all just him having fun figuring out Django solos at the beginning, and doing it all correctly , paying attention to all the right details.

For some , it just comes easily like that; they might not even be aware of this. For others, they have to be taught how to practice. And there are different levels of awareness. It's not just black and white, it's a pretty wide spectrum, and I'd put Bireli at the very top level of awareness.

For instance, there are certain things that came very easily to me, and there are things that took me a lot of time to discover, or someone had to show me.

Another example is Gypsy Jazz rhythm. I've developed an entire scientific method where I can explain Gypsy Jazz rhythm in extremely technical terms. I can see a player and identify anything that may be wrong, and can almost often immediately come up with exercises to remedy those problems. I 've had to develop this skill over the years because I've been teaching a lot. However, I explain to all my students that although I have this scientific method, they need to be aware that in the Gypsy community, this is just learned naturally through osmosis.

Nowadays, with youtube, and hint hint DC Music School, you can immerse yourself in recordings of the best players and absorb the sound. It doesn't beat being in the community, but it's better than nothing.

I've said this story before, but in the Gypsy communities, I would sometimes make conversation with random people and ask them if they played any music, many would reply "no" and then suddenly they 'd grab a guitar, and play rhythm to Minor Swing with the sound that so many people are trying to emulate. I've met Gypsy kids who have only just started playing guitar (6 months - 2 years), and they were playing "authentic" Gypsy Jazz rhythm ,without anyone ever telling them how to hold the pick, how to keep the right hand at X angle, how to release the strings with the left hand. That is because they are surrounded by the music . This is what I mean by intelligent listening. You have to spend a lot of time listening to the good players and doing whatever you can to emulate what they are doing. With videos , it's a lot easier!

So anyway, some people require the scientific guidance of how to do Gypsy Jazz rhythm. In other words, it's not a natural process for them. From that point, they and only they can decide if they're going to put the serious effort to do it correctly. Doing it correctly means following the instructions very carefully and slowly at the beginning. As NylonDave said: unfortunately, many people, for whatever reason, ignore the instructions, and therefore remain stuck... I find this quite unfortunate, because if you think about it, all these people can already play guitar. They can play F barre chords. Do you remember how painful and difficult it was to even be able to play this chord??? But everyone managed to do it, because they worked on it! Well, this is no different. You just have to put in both the time and the correct the practice habits.

richter4208

Well written Dennis

Buco

Because of the posts like above by Dennis, this is why this forum is one of the best courses for learning GJ. And free.

Re Bireli, a few years ago he was at DFNW, (IIRC) and he said he was adapting some Paganini pieces for guitar and said it took him 3-4 months. So even with his genius and level of virtuosity he still needs to work on things. That was also a lesson for me hearing that.