Beginning Gypsy Jazz - Again

Jeremy

After a few months of trying out Gypsy Jazz, I decided to stop using the gypsy picking style. Eventually, Gypsy Jazz faded out of my practicing all together. I simply didn't have enough time to practice it. I practice at least 5 hours a day, but 3.5 hours of that is classical guitar, and the rest is for plectrum style guitar. I've come to realise that Gypsy Jazz is my favourite style of music to listen to after classical, and I've been itching to get back into it. I've decided to work on my gypsy picking again (I'm surprisingly still fairly good at it after this time) and I'm working through 'Getting Into Gypsy Jazz'. I need some help making a practice routine. I have about an hour and a half to practice each day, more on weekends.

I was thinking something like:
30 mins Gypsy Picking
15 mins Rhythm (right now just working out of the rhythm section of Getting into GJ, but will get Gypsy Rhythm in the near future)
15 mins Unnaccompanied Django
30 mins working through 'Getting Into GJ' and improvising using what is taught in the book over different progressions

Thanks for any help, I'm excited to start learning this style again.

a

figure out django stuff

Jack

Hi Jeremy,

I think the most important parts of your routine depend largely on your goals. If you're dedicated to absolutely nailing the traditional technique, then 'gypsy picking' will of course be a big part of it; but if you're pursuing it more as a fun hobby, there may be other areas you'll get more enjoyment from (learning phrases idiomatic to the style, for example).

I've seen many people over the years talk themselves out of playing the music because they haven't mastered the 'correct' technique, which is a shame. (I've also seen other players berate people for using 'incorrect' technique, which is as much a shame.) I'm mostly a rhythm player and haven't come near mastering the traditional picking style, but audiences enjoy what I play, and more importantly, I enjoy it myself immensely.

I'd guess that the routine you've laid out is more ambitious than most, but I assume your classical training helps with the unaccompanied material. If anything, I'd suggest spending more time with rhythm; really learning that opened up a lot for me in all other areas, but especially with improvising, as being able to see chord shapes all over the neck makes all the difference.

If it were my routine, I'd probably drop the unaccompanied stuff for now and use the time for other things, but like I said, your training might make that material almost more natural than the rest. At any rate, good luck with it, and don't despair!

best,
Jack.

BluesBop Harry

Jeremy,
Great to have you back!
Here's my two cents,
I second Jack's suggestion of spending as much time as you can playing rhythm, it will loosen up your wrist, sense of time and help your lead technique a lot, in fact if I was in your situation I'd spend a couple of months working hard exclusively on learning a good relaxed swinging pompe (applying it to tunes) and the first five (especially 1-3) Gypsy picking patterns plus #8 & #12, those are the fundamentals and the rest will come easily if you got the first ones down cold.
Go slow, clean and relaxed.
If you play good rhythm and know a lot of songs you'll be able to jam and have a lot of fun as well.
Save Unaccompanied Django and Gypsy fire until after you feel confident with the basics.
And remember to have fun!

steven_eire

Jeremy wrote:

15 mins Unaccompanied Django

that wouldn't work for me

15 mins of working through Unaccompanied Django wouldn't even be enough to get 4 bars in to a piece certainly not with the correct phrasing

I too have about an hour a day to practice, I like to start with a general warm up but then change what i practice each day. so one day i might warm up and just work on a solo or just rhythm

for me that yields the best results but i suppose everyone has their own way to practice that works best for them

Michael Bauer

Jeremy--

Since you already know classical guitar, may I suggest that you use some of it to improve your gypsy picking?

A couple of the Villa-Lobos Preludes and some of the Etudes work really well on gypsy guitar and since you probably already know the left hand, you can focus just on the gypsy picking with the right hand. Try Prelude 4 and Etude 1 for starters. There are some other more modern classical studies that can work as well (Brouwer's "Etudes Simples", for example.) There are some others that I can't think of at the moment. Anything with a sort of modern Spanish bent will sound remarkably like some of Django's Improvizations, and if you already know the left hand, you can get maximum progress with your right hand gypsy picking technique. Besides, there are some pretty tremendous "licks" in Villa-Lobos music that could translate very well to gypsy jazz.

By all means keep working at actual Django tunes, but don't be afraid to use what you know to work on what you don't know. It seems to me that the great gypsy players are pretty familiar with alot of "classical" guitar music.

Michael

Jeremy

Thank you everyone for your help so far. I'll dedicate some more time to rhythm, I'll leave Unaccompanied Django for later, and maybe go through some of the pieces when I have some extra time.

Michael Bauer - I'll try to practice some of my classical repertoire with the gypsy picking technique. I practice all of the Villa Lobos studies regularly, they are the best studies for classical guitar, in my opinion and experience. I'll try them. Thinking about them now, some of them probably could made decent studies for gypsy picking.

EmmettRay

Hey Jeremy,
Allow me to add my 2 cents here, I'm pretty new at this style (6 months) and I think I'm getting it kinda quick. I practice an awful lot also, and the way I go about it isn't as structured as yours but might I make a few suggestions...

The 1st thing you should worry about is building up a repertoire, once you have a decent list then you can jam or maybe do some gigs with other players. (playing with as many people as possible is a HUGE help in learning this stuff).

I tend to focus my practices on one subject at a time. One day might be all rhythm, the next all improv, the next might be transcribing a django tune, etc.
It's important to rotate so as not to forget or loose what you picked up. (This is a prob for me cuz I figure a lot of tunes out only to relearn them later after forgetting I learned them in the 1st place). This may not work for you but I feel that 15-30 mins on one subject isn't enough for me. Just running through my list of tunes takes me 2 hours...4 if I do rhythm AND lead.

I don't get too crazy with the Gypsy picking, though I am working on it steadily. There are number of Gypsy players that don't use the technique exclusively; Bireli, Jorgenson, Joscho to name a few, and they are widely accepted as masters in this genre. Just keep having fun with it, good luck!

EmmettRay

Oh, I forgot to mention this... Learn a lot of Gypsy Waltzes, these help to practice the Gypsy picking technique and you can also grab some cool licks and ideas from them to use in you solos...