A few Questions

DjangoDjango

Hee, it's DjangoDjango

Does anybody have a powertab or tab file for the tune "China Boy" by Django Reinhardt ?

Im new to Gypsy Swing, does somebody know a logical order to learn this style , like

*First Learn position
*Rythm
*....
*..

Thanks.

Shawn

I guess it depends on how you learn (by watching, by listening, by doing, etc.). I personally spent around 10+ years getting a good grip on Jazz, Blues, and in particular Swing and Bebop. I spent another 5 or so years just learning and improvising anything I could...whether it be in Bluegrass, Jazz, African or Country. If you are starting out learning Jazz in this style I think it might seem like a constant struggle, as the technique is quite different than other styles of Jazz. I play this style of music almost exclusively now, but always like to integrate ideas I learned listening to Ornette Coleman, Roland Kirk, L. Armstrong, etc. I personally think that limiting one's scope of Jazz into the narrow niche' of "Gypsy Jazz" can be quite limiting, so if you haven't yet studied other forms of the music I would take some time and try to learn what you can. I also found that learning the Blues and some African styles like those coming from Ali Farka Toure and others helped me develop a strong sense of rhythm and time, which I have incorporated into Gypsy Jazz.

I'm sure opinions will differ as we all come from different backgrounds in music, but I would absolutely say that getting a good grip on rhythm (whether it be any time signature like 3/4, 4/4, or even 9/8 ) will help you tremendously in any style of music. After that, I would submerse yourself in the music...listen to it as often as possible, and try to pick out the various intricate patterns you hear to the point that you are easily able to transcribe or improvise over anything you hear.

Again, I'm sure many people on here will tell you to buy such and such book and/or video, which is a fine way to learn, but never a substitute for just listening.

Good luck, and...Improvise, Improvise, Improvise.

DjangoDjango

thanks

TimmyHawken

My advise would to be to start out with rhythm, but of course it's different for everybody. when I started 3 years ago, I had no jazz background, mostly bluegrass, blues and rock, so the rhythm is what really caught my ear.

I was lucky enough to be living in chicago when I started, and took lessons with Alphonso Ponticelli but if you don't have anyone in you town or city to learn from, there are some great books and dvd's. There are plenty of reviews on this forum for those.

I don't actually own it, but there are clips on youtube of Dennis Chang's instructional dvd, based on the clips I saw, it's the best I've seen.