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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Short documentary about Gypsy Jazz I made!

Haven't been practicing my guitar playing lately. This was mostly due to the fact that I was working really hard on this little project:

ORDER THE NEW CD "LE WEEKEND" BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK! This mini-documentary shows the passion that my friend and guitar teacher Thomas Baggerman has for his guitar playing as well as the love and determination he shows to get his Trio's debut album "Le Weekend" recorded. It also shows their last trip to the yearly Festival Django Reinhardt in Samois sur Seine and contains a selection of their newly recorded work. The full 12 minute documentary will be out somewhere in october 2011 so keep your eyes on this blog if you're interested. You can also follow me on Twitter: Alex_Koning for realtime news updates about the project. (Or this VIMEO Channel dedicated to it) Be sure to share a link to this post to all your Gypsy Jazz friends!!! Thank you!

Donations: The short-documentary "Le Weekend" is an independent production financed by myself in order to promote the trio as well as the fabulous Sinti / Manouche Gypsy Jazz music. If you wich to support the promotion of this underexposed musical genre and help me break even on the production costs a donation will be greatly appreciated! (to do so click the PayPal Donate button underneath the video please)
Thank you!
Alex



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New Album: Thomas Baggerman Trio "Le Weekend"

ORDER THE NEW CD "LE WEEKEND" BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK! Proudly presenting a short preview on the debut album by Dutch upcoming Gypsy Jazz talent Thomas Baggerman and his trio (my guitar teacher)! The album "Le Weekend" will be released September 2011 and is a subtle mix of Swing, Bossa, Traditional and Ballads. The catchy title track, written by Thomas himself, already created a little buzz on the Samoreau camping site this year at the Festival Django Reinhardt in Samois.
Thomas is a dedicated player with an articulate and meticulous melodic phrasing. Heavily inspired by Stochelo Rosenberg, Adrien Moignard and more recently Les Doigts de L'Homme and of course Bireli Lagrene, his goal to make the guitar weep is one he achieves more and more often.

Hope you will enjoy! I know I did!!

Cheers!
The Gypsy jazz Diaries

more information on the Thomas Baggerman Trio:
www.thomasbaggermantrio.com

And be sure to like their Facebook page to keep you posted on the upcoming release!
Thomas Baggerman Trio on Facebook


PS: Very proud to say also; I made the video ;-)


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Second time Samois was great!!!

Check out pictures of our trip to Samois this year, were we visited the annual Festival Django Reinhardt!

Follow this link to see the entire photo album!!



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Nuages

Gypsy Jazz needs more musicians and less soldiers. (Adrien Moignard)



A little update on my going along my Gypsy Jazz quest; I enrolled in two wonderfull online Gypsy Jazz courses: http://www.gypsyjazzacademy.com/ and http://www.rosenbergacademy.com/ Both of them help me make loads of progress due to the clear interfaces and wonderfull interaction with teachers like: Fapy Lafertin, Lollo Meier and of course Stochelo Rosenberg. Theire lessons (and those of my personal real life teacher Thomas Baggerman and jam buddy Frédéric Zolnet) combined with feedback from fellow students finaly made me realize a great but yet simple point: Start with an relatively easy song and play it untill it's absolutely right.
So I got rid of all the finger breaking solos and started on a low-tempo version of Nuages I found in Samy Daussat's book: Astuces de la guitare Manouche vol. 2 and I started practicing on vibrato, timing, pronounciation of the notes, slides, bends and hammer on's (but not after I got the rythm section right). Then I watched and listened to recordings by Stochelo and Fapy and combined some of theire ideas into my own little intro.....This video is what I came up with so far, it still needs work but I have to get going on my rythm practice so I can try to play along a little at Samois this year. Hope you like it!

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My grandmother wishes you a Swinging 2011!!!

A marvelous story my grandmother often tells me about Django Reinhardt:

As a young girl during world war II she used to live in Toulouse in the South of France. One night she and her sister in law broke the curfew the occupying Germans had ordered. Pretending to be officer's wives they snook in to an auditorium where Django was performing for the German military forces.
Here eyes still sparkle every time she talks about the wonderful music Django played that night!

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Documentary

Het Thomas Baggerman Trio - "Minor Swing" by D.Reinhardt from Alexander Koning on Vimeo.

So I thought I'd post a little sneak preview from my new project in wich I combine my passion about Gypsy Jazz with my love for documentary filmmaking. In this clip my guitar teacher Thomas Baggerman and his Trio (who are some of the main characters in the film) play theire version of Django's "Minor Swing".

www.thomasbaggermantrio.com


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Jimmy's back!

Jimmy Rosenberg performing again at BIMHUIS Amsterdam!

A collection of the videos on Youtube made from the Jimmy's guest appearance at the "Three of kind" concerts in Amsterdam wich I was lucky enough to attend to.






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A night in town!

50 people and; Bireli, Stochelo, Paulus



I couldn't believe what I saw last night when I accidentaly came by an add for this "Three of kind concert" in my hometown Utrecht. Only 50 people in the audience and the line-up: Stochelo Rosenberg, Bireli Lagrene, Paulus Schafer!!! Don't people understand great music?


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My new "La Fée" D-Hole Gypsy jazz guitar!

A real beauty!



Proudly presenting my new "La Fée" guitar handcrafted by the excellent young french luthiers from "Guitares La Fée". Carefully chosen after the great help
from the guys at "Guitare village" in Domont near Paris. Playing a little intro to "Minor Blues" by legendary Django Reinhardt. Now the only thing left to do is learn how to play it ;-)

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