Using LH ornaments in GJ

Lango-Django

I'm an intermediate GJ player who attended Django in June a couple of years ago and since then have been working really hard on my RH technique, using exercises from the excellent instruction books "Gypsy Picking" and "Gypsy Fire".

For Christmas I asked my kids to buy me Michael Horowitz's "Unaccompanied Django" book, and I'm currently working my way through the book's solo version of Nuages, which is causing me to rethink my LH technique.

One thing I notice about Django's playing is how, when playing the melody, he would frequently ornament it with slides, hammer-ons and pickoffs, as if the idea of just playing a straight melody was anathema to him... I'd guess that this conception would be pretty much standard with all gypsy guitarists, whether they play jazz or traditional gypsy folkloric music?

In the standard North American guitar tradition (folk, rock, bluegrass, country, jazz etc) each left-hand note is matched by a right-hand stroke about 99% of the time, so I'm trying to get into the habit of using more left-hand ornaments in my playing.

It would seem to me that this LH ornamentation is one of the technically easier-to-master aspects of GJ for beginnner and intermediate players, but to my knowledge this subject hasn't been addressed in detail in any of the instructional books that I've personally seen... it's almost as if experienced GJ players regard it as so obvious and elementary that it doesn't bear discussion... which is kind of strange, because I think to most of us North American players, those LH ornaments are one of the most unique and in-your-face elements you first notice about GJ style.

So I'm hoping to create a little discussion here at Gypsy Jazz University about this topic. Let me kick the ball out there onto the field with a few stimulating questions to get things rolling---

1- Does anyone out there have any tips for integrating LH ornaments into their melody playing and/or improvising?

2- Let's take a jazz standard as an example, say we were playing the melody of "All of Me" in GJ style... I'm going to use the phrase "doodly" as a substitute for the real lyrics to indicate an ornament....would it be more in keeping with GJ style to play the opening bars of the melody as:

"Doodly of me" or "All doodly me" or "All of doodly"...?

(Or might any one of these melodic paraphrases be appropriate in different situations?)

3- When practising arps, which are such an important part of the GJ style, would it be a good idea to look for chances to add ornaments to them? Or is there the danger that habitually adding these embellishments into your playing will cause them to fossilize and become over-used cliches?

Let's hope other players out there may offer their own slants on this topic, too, because I think this is an "elephant-in-the-livingroom" type subject that is well worthy of discussion.

Ornamentally yours,

Will Wilson
Niagara-On-The-Lake, ON

JazzDawg

I agree that the exercise books rarely talk about ornamentation, but I don't know that I agree with your statement...

...the standard North American guitar tradition (folk, rock, bluegrass, country, jazz etc) each left-hand note is matched by a right-hand stroke about 99% of the time

I don't think I could see very many folks playing jazz and rock not using ornamentation. I guess, it depends on who's playing, but I've seen folks do a lot of hammering, and pulling off in folk and bluegrass too. But for the sake of discussion, here's what I've observed since approaching this style...

I look at some of the Gypsy Jazz vids on YouTube, featuring players, and you see a lot of ornamentation. I think, if you are new to the style or just new to playing, there is a lot of merit in learning the arpeggios straight to get a good foothold on them. Wremble's book gave me a lot of insight in 'visualizing' the various chord shapes in different positions, and that helps me. Gonzalo's simple book (simple in format - not content) gives some good examples of solos, and he explains what he's doing. Others, like the Denis Chang, and Stochelo videos show more examples using ornamentation which is great, but unless you know the major, maj6th & 9ths, min, min6th & 9ths, dom7, dim, arps, I don't think you can make a lot of progress, unless you just want to mimic others.

I've heard folks talk about Django approaching the arp notes in a variety of ways, from 1 note below or above, 2 notes above or below, chromatically, and in combination. Plenty of examples of that in his playing.

Generally, I practice the arps straight, then play around with the ornamentation later - thinking about what I hear and where I want to be when I hit the next chord. I know it should be automatic, and I try to rely on my ears more than just patterns. However, my fingers get used to certain patterns, and it takes lots of work to execute things to the point where the fingers respond to the ear's intent. I've been trying to hum things in my head and then play them (not much of a whistler). Anyway, that's my take so far anyway.

Jazzaferri

JazzDawg got it bang on IMO

I would reinforce that watching any really good guitar player in any genre that I have seen yet all use various "tricks" such as hammers hammer-pulls, pulls, slides, open pedals in repetitious patterns etc.

These "techniques whether used as ornamentation or as a tonal effect are all excelelnt extensions to the palette. For example Stochelo (which can be seen on his DVD) bouncing the same note on 2 different strings and then adding a slide the odd time to the note for tonal effect.

I play dobro as a second instrument which uses all those same techniques. I know that sax and clarinet also have their "bag of tricks" ...I suspect every instrument does.

In his DVD Stochelo states several times the importance of developing one's own style. By practicing the arps and the scales until you don't have to think about either hand playing them anywhere on the neck then adding one's own emphasis, timing, ornamentation you will be well under way to creating the foundation for your own style.

Sal Salvador's single string studies is an excellent resource as well