Your practice regimen?

Kelly Dow

I am always interersted in great musicians' practice routines. Could you talk about yours, in particular how you split your time between the gypsy jazz, and the modern style (ie electric)? I know you would focus on one or the other depending on certain projects and gigs you have coming up, but in general, do you divide your time equally?
I like to play finger-style too, so that would be 3 different techniques that all require consistant working out. The gypsy jazz thing is so challenging, I am just practicing that at the moment.

The constant 8th note thing is cool, there is an old Howard Roberts book called "Super Chops" where he has you do that, and constant triplets too.
You mentioned you do this using both techniques, do you do that with the Bach as well, both ways of playing?

As someone who has mastered this style coming from a modern jazz background, could you say what helped you the most in conquering this technique?

I can't wait to get the "Gypsy Fire" book, and I wish I could go to the retreat in January, unfortunately I can't make that one.
I really appreciate this forum.

Thanks,
Kelly

AndreasOberg

Hello Kelly!
I'll try to answer some of your questions:)

Actually, I also play some fingerstyle (ala Joe Pass/Martin Taylor/Sylvain Luc) so sometimes it's hard to practice three different ways of playing guitar. I would say in general that I try to practice all three styles constantly but I would say that gypsy jazz is the most demanding one because it's so physical and requires both strenght and stamina. If you don't touch your selmer-style guitar for a week you will definately feel the difference...

As you may have noticed, I play with a bit straighter wrist than most people playing GJ but it's because I've found a way that works for me on electric as well. I play with a free-hand/wrist technique on both instruments but with not that much restrokes on electric. Bireli is the only one I've seen that can switch techniques totally, most gypsy make to big right hand movements on electric(sounding unclean and clumsy) and most gadjos use to small movements on acoustic and you can't really hear them if they are not amplified...

I don't practice classical etudes that much but I listen to it sometimes and I mentioned Bach just point out some of the similareties with boplines etc.

Coming from a more modern jazz background, I would say that I improvise more than some GJ-players that seem to stick to Django-solos. In modern jazz it's really unusal to copy someones entire solo although you might steal one or two lines;)
First time I played with Jimmy, I had never played with a gypsy so I din't know about reststrokes etc. I learned a lot from our sessions and especially how he uses the downstrokes to get his trademark phrases sound so clear and accentuated.

Best Regards
Andreas