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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Arpeggios and chord progressions....

Working with Denis Chang DVD's;



"Practicing connecting arpeggios from the Denis Chang DVD."

Christmas came early for me last year as I recieved the Denis Chang DVD's I had ordered on Hyperhipmedia.com much faster than I had expected.
Bumping into Denis Chang and his video lessons while looking for Gypsy Jazz resources on the internet is not that hard. And since he plays togheter with people like Stochelo Rosenberg, Wawau Adler and Tim Kliphuis it must be good , right? So I ordered the whole deal, 5 DVD's on improvisation and accompaniment. Enough to keep me occupied for at least the next two to three years (and probably even longer).


Excerp from the Denis Chang DVD's

The DVD's turned out to be even better than I eventualy thought. Denis has a clear way to explain all the aspects of Gypsy Jazz. The well arranged menu's make it easy to navigate and learn everything you need to know about Gypsy Jazz one step at a time.

After watching the intro and practicing "La pompe" for a while I started with the arpeggios last week. I allready knew some from my Romane book : "L'esprit Manouche" but I had no clue how to combine them. So I was glad Denis showed me. After a few hours of practice I found myself improvising a little tune combining Denis' licks with Romane's and a few of my own I stumbled on whyle playing. And then it occured to me; "I was making music!" Thank you Denis!


An arpeggio I came up with by myself, altough I don't know if it's right, I think it sounds ok.


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Talking all that Gypsy Jazz....

Freakin' Phrygian;

Since Gypsy Jazz has alot to do with, eh.....Jazz I thought it might be clever to learn something about this style of music. I had already heard about arpeggios and chord progressions and I slowly start to be able to put both of them together now. Still I was curious so I ran a Google search on "Jazz Guitar".

This was one of the first sentences that came out under beginner lessons:

"This G Mixolydian scale is the V of the C major scale. The G Bebop Scale can be played on most chords that are diatonic to the key of C major, but not on the C major chord itself because the F is an avoid note for the C major chord".
source: www.jazzguitar.be


WTF?!!?


Bireli Lagréne, Gypsy Jazz God

So now what? It all seemed very confusing to me... Talking about this with a musical friend of mine (Frédéric Zolnet) he told me he recognized the problem. Pentatonic, Diatonic, Dominant, Sub Dominant and freakin' Phrygian. But then he told me not to worry. He had read an interview with Bireli Lagréne whose answer to the question: "Wich arpeggio do you play over a Deminished Chord?" Simply was "Wich what?! do I play over what?"


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Swing...

A movie for everyone to see;



Tonight I watched this amazing movie Swing by Tony Gatlif. Starring Tchavolo Schmitt.
You just have to see this for yourself!



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128 Gypsy Jazz powertabs !!!!

Everything you need for a great start on Gypsy Jazz Guitar;

While strawling on the internet for some good lessons and resources I found this amazing collection of 128 Gypsy Jazz powertabs!
Just amazing!

And this way I also got to learn about software like: Powertab Editor and Guitar Pro, wich help me out alot now while practicing!

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