zaterdag 19 november 2011

How to learn to play Gypsy Jazz Part II

It's getting better all the time!
Gypsy Jazz School





In earlier posts I talked about the number of online Gypsy Jazz schools invading the internet nowadays. Stochelo's: Rosenberg Academy , Lollo and Fapy's Gypsy Jazz Academy etc. I enrolled in all of them to take a look at what they had to offer and to make my quest to become a Gypsy Jazz guitar player a little easier, and they did, although the perfect learning formula was not yet achieved.
Stochelo, Fapy and Lollo are great guitar players (the best) but they have one little flaw; they are not really internet teachers. They can show you what they do in close up's and slow-motion, write out tabs, respond to your video's in a great and very helpful way, but still the question remains; Were do I start?

The answer to this question came into my mailbox the other day when Yakoov Hoter asked me to take a look at his Gypsy Jazz School training program.

Finnaly! A comprehensive, step by step, level by level, well arranged easy to understand and clear way to learn all the basics about Gypsy Jazz! No waiting for UPS trucks to deliver your DVD's. No enrollment costs. No monthly paying for your participation in a program. Just easy to purchase and download lessons with a simple and effective name: Gypsy Jazz School created by Yakoov Hoter from the Israeli Gypsy Jazz ensemble; Swing de Gitanes.



I downloaded some of the lessons (this might take some time due to the large filesizes of the lessons) but after one hour I was ready to go. The approximatly one hour lessons supported by a PDF file with notations and tabs break down the whole Gypsy Jazz genre in an understandable way. Lesson one will teach you everything about La Pompe and in following lessons you will learn about chords, progressions, intervals, arpeggios, tremolos, vibratos and teach you how to improvise.
Finnaly by the end of the eleventh lesson you will be able to play beautifull compositions like Kali Sara and J'attendrai.

Gypsy Jazz School Preview Lesson 1


Gypsy Jazz School Preview Lesson 11


You can download every lesson seperately so you can skip what you allready know (Although I think it is important to follow all the lessons to really understand the program, but it's no must.)


In short: At last a well designed Gypsy Jazz learning program thaught by a professional Gypsy Jazz guitarist in English. The lessons are very similar to Samy Daussat's training program's but those lessons are only available in French. And although Denis Chang's video's are now also available for download they are I think less easy to understand for the abosolute beginner than the lessons on Gypsy Jazz School.



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