All of Me, Django solo, II V I

philippe

Hi,

I'm having trouble understanding a lick from Django's solo in All of Me.

It's a II-V-I that occurs around 1:00.

Dm G7 C

I---------5-I-8---------7-8-10-I-12---------------

I-------6---I--------10---------I------------------

I-7---7----I----8-9------------I------------------

I-----------I--------------------I------------------

I-----------I--------------------I------------------

I-----------I--------------------I------------------

No problem for the Dm, it is the minor arpeggio.

But on the G7...I'm lost.

This is not the diminished scale of G#.

I was thinking about diminished C# which is sometimes played by Django.

I would like to understand because it sounds really good.

Thank you for your lights!

Philippe

Buco

This one?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IWE2NwPwZ8M

philippe

Yes @ 1:06.

Ph

tbleen

It's a voice leading concept. First arpeggios is outlining the Dmin, which you already figured out. The next arp is outlining is a diminished chord over G7, in this case D# diminished...and he resolves this to the E note on C (3rd of the C)

You can think of this as playing C dim over G7 too, a common old-style sound to resolve back to the home chord (C).

Denis Chang actually explains this phrase here and outlines the voice leading concept behind his at 7min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx5VTxv3uUA&t=68s

philippe

tbleen many thanks. It is crystal clear now thanks to MichMich aka Denis Chang :)

Ph

wim

This is also in Duved's grab bag, and discussed in his Soundslice course "The 1930s Django sound", specifically in chapter The Django diminished sound.

https://www.soundslice.com/store/1930s-django-sound/

philippe

Wim, exact !

I have the course of Duved and it is very good.

I think the basic idea behind playing the diminished before the major chord is to pass from the minor third to the major third which gives this Django flavor.

Ph