Bireli Lagrene - Interview (Violin, Electric Guitar, Jaco, Bass, New York) 

Thanks for all of your work, love the channel. The perspective is always spot on for those of us who want to truly be good. No short cuts, peace!

His german is very good too. Man s got a brain on him...

He's an actual musical prodigy genius, so his abilities are far far above average.

@@christopherhanna5754 Absolutely! I saw videos of him in his preteen years - he was certainly a child prodigy and indeed already a guitar master as a teenager. And he never stopped getting better from that time. His musical sensibility is totally off the charts.

Yep, you’re right on that! Birelli is still the man. Nobody else played like he played for good reason

Check out his Blue Eyes recording...I think you're in for an even bigger surprise. 😉

I imagine it's the same brain wiring of his which gives him the ability to assimilate different languages and musical instruments more easily than most of us ordinary people can. 😉

and i m still impressed because i didnt thougt he could talk lol !

He probably does know what it is he just most likely knows it by another name or he knows it by sound, even if he never practiced a scale directly he probably has through lifting solos

"How can he play through changes only by ear?" The same way anyone with enough familiarity, even as a listener, might anticipate or hear them in their own head...that's not so impossible to imagine I think? But for both performer and listener the enjoyment of music comes from either knowing, or being surprised by, what's coming next, particularly in jazz.

It was prepared especially for a genius like you

he doesn’t. Believe what you will. However, if you do play a G13 chord he will be able to reproduce it immediately. A 3 octave scale he might struggle a little bit with it because he doesn’t think in terms of scales. But he would be able learn the pattern very quickly. I’ve done these tests with many self-taught Gypsy musicians, some who could not play pentatonic scales but could play the blues.

@@DenisChangMusic I know he can play whatever he hears and recognizes patterns. I am not questioning his talent. I myself am self taught and learned by ear and know that's how you learn. But eventually you realize that all these patterns have names for them. Not learning the names of these patterns is an impediment to communicating with other musicians. It would literally take just a few minutes to learn these basics. So I don't understand why he did not. It's analogous to a painter knowing hundreds of colors but not being able to name any. Also, he's not just an unknown Gypsy musician who jams at home with friends who have no need to know theory; he is a world-wide one in a million talent who plays with top notch professional musicians. I would think a person with his drive and ambition to learn would be curious enough to learn at least some basic theory!

@@mattfoley6082 i think to answer that you have to understand Bireli as a person and the career he’s had since he was pre-pubescent. At this point in his life, he really mainly plays for himself and for fun. He doesn’t seek any career advancement or prestige (he is already quite prestigious). He just wants to live his life the way he wants to. He gets enough work offer to do just that and he doesn’t care for anything more. What that means is that all these things about how he should do this and that , learn this and that, he just doesn’t really care. It is definitely true that sometimes, it was a bit more difficult for us to work together because if I ever had to tell him what the chords to a song was , I ‘d have to borrow his guitar to show him the harmonies and then he ‘d get it. I cannot tell him I VI II V, I have to play it for him. He knows very very basic names. Like key of G, key of Gm, G chord, G minor chord. I think he knows G7 too. If I had to teach him the bridge to Cherokee, i can’ t tell him II V to B II V to A, etc… i’d have to play it for him. Luckily, he knows the song already. But there were definitely moments in the studio where I’d have to borrow the guitar or make him listen to the tracks just so he could get things correctly.

If I recall correctly, when he had to work with the WDR big band or something like that, he just listened to the rehearsal tapes and memorized everything, so he knew where his cues were

@@DenisChangMusic I think you hit the nail on the head: he just doesn't care enough to learn theory. I see his refusal to learn theory as a self-imposed *avoidable* handicap which he expects others to accommodate. He has found a way to deal with his handicap: he forces others to SHOW him what to play instead of TELLING him. How many hundreds of times have people had to do that for him? It's not that he CAN'T learn theory; he WON'T. For pete's sake, he learned how to speak English, didn't he? That was MUCH harder than learning the names of chords! I haven't thought about this until now but it strikes me as selfish and/or lazy. It makes no sense to me. Music is supposed to be a TEAM effort.

I had not previously heard of Sebastien Felix so I checked him out, thanks. He's an excellent (and fast!) player for sure but seems to stick to have a predilection for straight gipsy jazz, right? (and he reminds me of Stochelo in that respect). But Bireli has been and is much more adventurous in his exploration of different styles. Maybe not your thing, and to each his own, but for example his Standards or Live in Marciac recordings are for me absolute classics in the more mainstream jazz idiom.

You can auto translate

He knows it’s sound he is beyond theory

George Benson is a great guitarist who makes surprise whenever he takes any guitar and he plays.even he knows how to play accoustic gypsy jazz and jazz staff! I like Bireli lagrene he is also a great guitarist,but George Benson is an other person!!He is a a big jazz dictionary that walks !!

He does by sound he is beyond theory