WWDjD: Nuits De St-Germain-Des-Prés

wim

(What Would Django Do?)

Has anyone here tried to tackle Nuits De St-Germain-Des-Prés with 2 fingers? What do you put, 2 notes on E string, or B string? Or both, perhaps? Playing over the top 3 strings, like several current players do, doesn't seem to give the right feel. I'm starting to wonder whether Django may have used "the claw" for the highest note, and put 2 notes on each of E and B strings.

In the past I've kinda faked it just by playing wrong notes, put minor 9th arpeggios instead of minor 7th, it does change the colour somewhat but still sounds alright. Now I'm starting to think it's rude to change a guy's melody just to make things a bit more ergonomic.

Anyway, interested to hear your thoughts if you've studied this tune

wim

Wow, check this out - put the speed down to 50%, and listen to the last A section of the head in (i.e. at around 0:22 seconds). When the horns are playing the descending G-7 arp Django "missed" and hit an F#-7 arp instead, clashing horribly ... oh boy, we all know that feeling He totally fat fingered it!

Human after all ..

MichaelHorowitz

I always played this in G until recently as that’s the key the Dutch Gypsies play it in which requires a different fingering. I recently learned it in Eb and I’m pretty sure Django played most of the melody on the top two strings. It totally works with two fingers and the picking is super efficient so you can play it very fast and clean. So, for example, the first Fm arpeggio starts on Eb on the 1st string followed by C on the first string, then Ab on the 2nd string followed by F on the second string, and then back up to Eb on the 1st string. All done with the two fingers and the pattern repeats for the other arpeggios. I do use my pinky to make it a bit easier but two fingers is totally doable.

In general, I find that when struggling with a Django fingering, think horizontally. Most modern guitar playing is more vertically based so you have to get out of that mindset and accept that long horizontal shifts can be very effective.

wim

Ted do you play 3 downstrokes in a row then? Or do you alternate pick that?

@MichaelHorowitz yes I'm thinking that's what it has to be too, 2 notes on E and 2 notes on B, and rotate the wrist a significant amount so the left hand's palm is facing towards the bridge. Any other picking pattern doesn't sound right. The only thing is, to get it up to tempo I can't avoid the sound of a slur to get back up into the highest note in time. And I don't really hear that slide in the Django recording, he plays it clean. Makes me wonder whether he used the pinky too, I can get it fast and clean if I use the pinky for the high note (then index, middle, index for the rest).

MichaelHorowitz

@Wim Glenn yes, it’s a little tough to play clean with two fingers but it can be achieved via some slow metronome work. With that said, I just use my pinky.

Also, I think most of the second part of the head is also on two strings, save for the last three notes.

Buco

I'm going to offer something from a slightly different angle.
What I believe Django did a lot is to use the same finger to skip strings and sort of bar notes on two adjacent strings ( Wim, i think I mentioned something similar when you asked about that Minor Blues run played Django style). That would have allowed him to use the same fingering that would be used conventionally.
I don't that he favored horizontal playing at all, actually I think this is a little bit of a myth.
I recorded a quick video. There's a couple of hours of practice into this this evening, I never played this tune before, and that includes a little bit of time to transcribe it with ASD. Of course this is very rough and dirty but I think it does show that it wouldn't take a ton of practice to nail it playing it this way. And there are no uncomfortable stretches involved, everything is grouped together closely as it would be when played with 4 fingers.
To me personally the bigger challenge here is the right hand:

Bones

Hey Buco, what setup do you use for recording?

thanks

Buco

Bones, this was just a cellphone recording.

spatzo

hard to decide...

roch@rochlockyer.com

Hey Wim..Long time no jam I always appreciate your respect and commitment to the process and difficulty of this guitar journey. I figured I make a quick vid on this one since I think this tune is good for these fingerings. Michael & I played this tune regularly a couple of years ago and geeked out on these fingerings. (For any who are serious get the improv book and learn some of those transcriptions..It will immerse you in Django and save you the transcription time on almost all of Django's other stuff since everything he did is in those Improvs) Look forward to our next Jam. Roch

Bones

K thx Buco