Introduction and Questions

Angelojf

Hi,

First post here. I too, am a graduate of FSU! I saw Pearl Django in Hanover PA about a year ago, too!

I can play guitar OK, I guess, but just old style rock and roll, blues, etc. I know chords OK....I must say that I am not very good at lead guitar except for some Johnny B Goode and bluesy type stuff...I'm much better playing rhythm than leads...

I am getting together with a stand-up bass player and we'd really like to do Django, Gypsy Jazz material. The bass player and myself (with mostly others joining) have played out together, and we've played jazz standards, rock, etc.

So for me, I'm primarily looking for direction for learning how to play lead guitar in the Gypsy Jazz style.

Some questions:

1) Do you think its very important to learn to read music to learn this style? I can read ok, but only in the first position.

2) Wondering what you guys think of the book L'Espirit Manouche by Romane and Derek Sebastian for a relative newbie like myself as opposed to the other books you talk about in what I think is the 101 thread.

3) I also have the book Pearl Django Play Along Songbook, Vol 1., and I'm wondering what you guys think of in terms of a relative newbie like myself using that book

Anyway, its good to be here, thanks in advance for any replies, and thanks for what looks like a great site.

- Angelo

peterja

Welcome and good luck 8)

1. You really don´t need to read music to play this style (even though all kind of musical knowlegde will help you in the end).

2. I think L'Espirit Manouche by Romane and Derek Sebastian is a great book. If you don´t have a firm grasp on jazz theory, this book explain a lot of concepts in an easy way, and theres a lot of nice and easy songs. But you said youre looking for direction for learning how to play lead guitar in the Gypsy Jazz style, and the most direct path is to buy Dennis Changs dvd´s (the four volume set called Jazz Manouche: Tchnique & Improvisation). He will learn you a lot(!) of nice licks so you will expand youre vocabulary (wich is the first thing you need), then he goes on teaching some nice concepts and ideas behind the music. I really could have used these DVDs when i first started out.

3. What ever makes you learn the songs...

kevingcox

I can't read music (well, I can puzzle it out if necessary, but I'd sooner just listen to the song and figure it out), so here are my thoughts...

I got L'Esprit Manouche when I first got into this style years ago, and I have a few criticisms (mind you, I am bilingual so I have the French version, not all may apply)...

1) The songs covered are not really your basic standards. There are other books that spend more time on standards than this one that I found more useful (for starters I would say the obvious Gypsy Picking book by Michael, and then Angelo Debarre's Astuces de la Guitare Manouche-which I think is available in English though I don't know the title)

2) While there is a lot of theory covered I found it disorganized and a bit hard to follow. The fact that he was talking about songs I had never heard (and that weren't included on the CD, grr...) certainly didn't help. Most of the things I "learned" from this book I had already kind of picked up from various other books (like Wrembel's). That said, instead of searching through forums or other books for a tidbit of theory info I sometimes go to this this book for a reference. It is also the one I drop in my girlfriend's lap when she asks me theory questions. She usually shrugs at that point and just goes about playing instead, hahaha.

3) Like I mentioned in 2, the CD support is pretty poor in my opinion. Much better things were available when I got this book and more has come out since.

So that's my review of the book. I can't compare it to what Dennis has put out because I don't own those things, but I can promise you from personal experience that he is a good teacher and wouldn't put out garbage. I am sorry that I don't still live in the same city as him to benefit from his knowledge.

Best of luck,

Kevin

Michael Bauer

This has been much covered already, but...

I have L'Esprit Manouche, and is a perfectly fine book, but IMHO, the best approach is as follows:

Basics: Michael Horowitz's Gypsy Picking, Stephane Wrembel's Getting Into Gypsy Jazz. BTW, Stephane told me some time back that he's been working on a new gypsy jazz method, but he's had many other projects of late, so this may be years away.

Repertoire: The Robin Nolan gig book is a good place to start, but there are charts available for just about everything. See Gypsy Jazz 101 for links to those. Denis Chang, Gonzalo Bergara, and Stephane all have play-alongs, and you can use those to work on your rhythm. Also The Complete Django is a nice book to have. Also, Denis has a new CD for sale with playalongs and transcriptions to get started in lead playing that is brand new and very, very good. Denis is a great teacher, and his stuff is always a good place to start.

Next steps: I think the next things are Denis Chang's excellent videos and Gonzalo Bergara's two How I Learned books. The Romane book you have would probably fit into this category. Also Michael's Gypsy Fire has alot of good material in it. And Daniel Givone did a nice book a few years ago that's for sale at Djangobooks. Can't remember the title though.

If you can find a teacher in this style, that's still the best path. If not, come to Django in June every year, where in one week you can get enough material to last you a year from some of the best players out there. And don't worry about reading. The best players play by ear. I read pretty well, and I have always felt it has hindered my ear. I'm lazy enough to prefer reading something, and as a consequence, never developed my ear as well as I should have. If you can hear it without music, you'll probably play better.

My two cents...