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Il Trovatore
San Jose, CANew
Howdy,
While I would not say I am a rookie per say, I have sort of platued in gypsy jazz, I have learned rhythm and solos OK, I need more practise (I have the Know The Man Play The Music Book), but I want to get more intuative in my playing, I am currently trying to set up lessons, and looking at Unnaccompanied Django and part 1 of gonzalos books. Does this seem like a good place to start? I would love to make it to djangofest next year, what are some other good books/methods?
I'm glad to be here,
NPC
While I would not say I am a rookie per say, I have sort of platued in gypsy jazz, I have learned rhythm and solos OK, I need more practise (I have the Know The Man Play The Music Book), but I want to get more intuative in my playing, I am currently trying to set up lessons, and looking at Unnaccompanied Django and part 1 of gonzalos books. Does this seem like a good place to start? I would love to make it to djangofest next year, what are some other good books/methods?
I'm glad to be here,
NPC
Comments
I'm a beginner with this music so take my comments from this point of view.
You want to learn songs - learn the melody and chords. This will give you the ability to sit in on jams and know where you are in the song. Once the chords are memorized and you can openly hum the melody, you can begin to learn soloing passages over the chord shapes beginning with simple arpeggios.
Depending how beginner you are - know your arpeggios around the guitar neck? I would suggest Dennis Chang's work. He has beginner and intermediate etudes as well as many many backing tracks. I'm working my way through these currently.
http://www.dc-musicschool.com/catalogue ... ngs-vol-1/
Gonzalo's book is excellent however more in the intermediate range in my opinion. If you already know your way around the neck and can solo over the standard arpeggio shapes, more will "click" and make sense in the Gonzalo book. His descriptions are wonderful.
Can't help you with the Unaccompanied Django as I don't own it, however you can read the reviews on the order page - there is "reviews" tab. I haven't heard any complaints except for how comprehensive the book is! Which isn't a bad thing.
There is so much to learn it's easy to get caught up in purchasing everything under the sun however I'd recommend to just buy and concentrate on one or two books, learn them all the way through - this will most likely take quite some time - after which you will be set!
Looking forward to what the others add.
The tunes:
Know the songs, the melody and the harmonic structure. Knowing the latter (in terms of the old roman numeral chord symbols) will help you recognize similar chord progressions in other songs and will make it eventually easier to solo on other tunes. I try to learn the melody in a few places. It helps me when improvising. I try to learn the chord tones of where melody phrases start...this is helping me move away from root bias.
Books:
The ones you have listed are pretty good. HTR is exactly right about Gonz's book. It is certainly good enough for a beginner, but once you get the basic arp shapes down, this can help move your playing along pretty quick. I use it every day now...work on a song week, try to find phrases that either appeal to me or that are giving em trouble, isolate them, and try to play them in every key. Play them along with the free or paid DC Music playalongs (or your playalong of choice-Gonz, Wrembel).
I haven't worked with Unaccompanied Django, but it looks great.
Transcribe. Look at what other folks have done to transcribe here, but try to work it out yourself. Don't get frustrated when you can't work out a solo or a pass through a chorus in one day. I did and I defeated myself. Now, I try to work it out over the course of a week. Once I have it, I use it as an etude. I need to start moving these to different keys.
Try one of the online academies. I haven't checked in with GJ Academy in awhile, but Rosenberg Academy is pretty good. Theoretically, you work on one transcribed solo a month (or however long it takes you). There's more to it than that, but its worth subscribing for three months.
I'm no expert, but its keeping me busy and there is never a shortage of material to work on.
To that end, though the study of music theory, lessons, books and videos are essential in their own way, in the end, there is no substitute for playing with others. Frequently. Sort of like spending the summer in a foreign country to perfect a language. It is likely that only by doing so will you learn to play without thinking a lot about it, that is, "intuitively". If you aren't already, try to perform whenever you can. It may be nerve wracking at first, but it will make a better player of you faster than anything else I can think of. Sink or swim.
Keep in mind this all takes time. Just as it takes five years more or less to get good at a foreign language, it can easily take that long, or more, to get where you can play music intuitively. There is really no substitute for hours and hours of playing. And again, especially with other players.
Use backing tracks whenever you practice, but backing tracks are not a substitute for playing live with other players. Live players will use unexpected chords, different turnarounds, faster/slower tempos, different keys, different rhythms and songs you have never played before. Yet the goal of a player who wants to play intuitively is to be able to handle all that with ease. Again, playing with others whenever possible is the only way I know.
Even if you can't find a whole group, playing with just another guitar will do wonders. It is actually quite challenging, even more so than a whole group with a dedicated rhythm section and will definitely get you thinking on your feet.
Keep in mind also, that just like a language, just because you can speak it does not mean you necessarily have something to say. Strive to play from the heart, not the chart.
I say all this as much as to remind myself of these things as to offer advice.
All the best,
Craig
This guy said it all.
I'm finding that after getting started with Michael's excellent "Gypsy Picking" right after I attended Django in June in 2008, I'm only now finally feeling like I've totally internalized the rest-stroke picking...
I suspect that our newcomer friend may find, like I did, that developing a stronger right hand will have a huge influence over what his left hand does when playing...
Will
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
You don't really need the Unaccompanied book, it is all free meter and fairly difficult, all-in-all not very representative of Gypsy Jazz, so save that for later. The Gonzalo pamphlet is intermediate for those who already know where they are going, and won't be much help if you don't, imo.
My recommendation, and I have many of these books, is (after M Horowitz's Gypsy Picking) start with something you can relate to, like a waltz. For this you can get Django Undiscovered, which will get you playing with a Gypsy Jazz feeling. After that, get Givone's Manouche Guitar Method. It is the only place which has fully laid out arpeggio lines across the neck in all 5 positions as major, minor, M7, m7, add in Dim. Memorize these like he says and look at what the pros do, you will see these patterns over and over again. Then when you are ready you can get his 25 Pieces which has typical progressions with solos he made up with these plugged in in typical fashion. At this point after a while you will hopefully start to recognize popular licks - cliches - that are standard in this form as fragments of larger arp lines, saving you money and time in the long run, since now you actually know what you are doing.
When I get restless and want to just memorize a great solo along with the chords I still go to the Astuces books with Angelo Debarre. They have some easy ones plus "no mercy" transcriptions of what Angelo plays from the man himself. Here I find what it means to play beautifully, and the cds are worth the price alone.
If you need somebody to hold your hand while you do this there are various helpful academies and dvds, but I don't consider these extremely necessary since there are plenty of good transcriptions running about. As far as playing with others is concerned, it is always a good thing, but then there are plenty of backup tracks you can get to practice with if it isn't quite feasible for you at this point. Personally I find it nerve wracking at this stage, even though in the past I've played with bands doing blues-rock in a semi-comatose state with no problems and have jammed out with people for years.
I hope this helps as a possible path to get you on firm footing in a real direction. The reason most people give up I believe is that they split themselves between various practices but don't advance in their understanding (that and I wouldn't consider GJ a place to start learning guitar, kind of like taking calculus in the fifth grade.)
Of course everything here is just an opinion from someone who has both taken lessons and given instruction in guitar from his particular point of view. In any case, I wish you good luck.
Elliot
Elliot, I'm not new to the guitar, I've been playing since I was 13 (now I am 26), and Ive been studying gypsy jazz, online and a few books and such since 2006 but I feel again, like I am hitting a wall that I can't get over, because ultimately all I can do right now, is read something and learn it, I don't much feel like I am getting it enough to do it intuitively, I need to be playing with other people. I have yet to play gypsy jazz in a live setting and hope too. The Unaccompanied Django appealed to me because I wanted to learned some solo django stuff, I also really would like a resource for more rhythm playing, is Michael's book good for that, or is there a better place for that?
It might just be what you need!