Theory and Learning Rhythm; ear training; approach to learning chord transcriptions.

Passacaglia

Wow, this is crazy, Russell. Literally just got notified from Stefan's website, "Country Blues Sale." My son took up the guitar not long ago and finds himself drawn to Delta Blues, and I've a luthier friend who recommended some players. Got some DVDs from Stefan's site.

Thank you for this information, and the thread. I'll enjoy working through this.

Lango-Django

Why, coit’n’ly, Billy Shakes!

He uses these two gorgeous chords during his tasteful little intro to “My One and Only Love”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOfLnCENziU

First a Bb/C

—6—

—-6

—-7

—-8

–x——

—-8—

then C13b9

—5—-

—-5—-

—-6—

—-8—

—-X—

—-8—

Very economical... you just move fingers one and two back one fret on the G, B and E strings while the fingers three and four stay planted at the eighth fret...

I’m guessing that Herb proably discovered this by accident...? but it sure sounds like it has a lot of deep music theory behind it, n’est-ce pas?

billyshakes

@Lango-Django You had me befuddled at first with the link, not being familiar with this song much since it showed Barney Kessel as the guitarist. Funny, too, as I was just watching a vid of Barney, Herb, and Charlie Byrd at the North Sea Jazz Fest the other day. The playing is very tasteful on this track and that is a neat move. I can see how it is done from your description...have to go down to put it under my fingers and see how it sounds.

These little tricks are neat. Like you surmise, I'm thinking these come first from someone messing around and liking the sound and then (maybe) digging the theory out later. I'm sure you've seen this thing below before, but I remember when I first saw Samy Daussat show an approach to playing rhythm changes that is really compact with minimal finger movement. Not as deep as yours but fun to hear.

https://youtu.be/d_KuBHuY3As?t=311

Passacaglia

Wow. That is so cool. The 1 6 2 5 at 5:15 is something I've never seen. I was especially interested to hear this idea of the possibilities in one position - and that it provides a good way to come to truly know Django's approach.

I'm so used to moving between frets 5-7-5 for something like Daphne. Can anyone tell me if this stuff is covered in any of Samy's books?

KlausUS

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/101813#Comment_101813

Sorry for hijacking the thread but just to make sure: Stefan Grossman passed away ? I started learning fingerstyle with his books and DVD´s many years ago and was sad to read about his passing and googled: but neither WIKIPEDIA nor the Guitarworkshop-site say anything about his passing.

KlausUS

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/101822#Comment_101822

I just looked quickly through all five books of Samy: there are frequently used chord shapes and shapes discussed for certain songs but nothing particular about the „magic chords“. The chord shapes of Daphne are covered, but they are not the efficient ones covered in the video above ;-). Still great books.

Russell Letson

The "late" in my post refers to Ted Conner, not Stefan, who might be ancient (if younger than me) but is still kicking. Ted died in 2015, still, as far as I know, gigging into his 90s.

KlausUS

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/101841#Comment_101841

Awesome - Thanks for clarifying ( I am not a native speaker, that might have been the reason for misunderstanding)

Petrov

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/101822#Comment_101822

Do you know exactly what these voicings are? I'm having a hard time seeing what is actually being played.

wim

It's more like 1 1 4 5 ..

D   D    G   A7
D   D    G   A7
D   D7   G   G#dim
D   A7   D   D

My guess at chord voicings. Maybe he doesn't play notes on the B string, not sure.

D      [55445x]
G      [35545x]
A7     [x4545x]   <-- second time through he put [5456xx] instead
D7     [5545xx]
G#dim  [4x34xx]   <-- this one is what Samy calls "magic chord"