Thank you for posting these. I have been curious of some exercises I could have for a long term commitment in my morning routine of practice. I am not as smart as I'd like to be, so i have ignored my right hand with the pick for years. In my classical guitar studies, I obsessed over my right hand. I am looking forward to experimenting with these
Thank you for this class so complete and so well illustrated with the exercises, this helps a lot to all those interested in this genre that you master so well. Thank you!
Hi Christiaan, this is exactly what I was looking for today.I have been playing a different style for the past year and when I picked up the gypsy guitar it was a rude awakening. My right hand needs a lot of work. This will help. Hope you are doing well . Ciao
I have a question, recently i bought a book called"gypsy jazz guitar picking secrets" and it told that every downstroke ends with an reststroke meaning that the hand rests on the adjacent string. But by observing yt videos of gypsy jazz players they seem to not always rest the pick on the adjacent string. This part is making me very confused because it also seems very hard to play a reststroke on every downstroke.
One way to think about picking forearm rotation is locking and unlocking the door or turning on the car engine. Then angle the wrist towards the guitar and you got it.
@@justsaying7512 he starts talking about it at 11:50. Christian's explanation is fine, I just like to think about it as I wrote above. There is this same rotation at work when playing rhythm too, with lower arm movement like you noticed. Some move the whole arm more, some less, whichever style you end up developing.
@@BucoBucolini super interesting thanks. So at no point is the wrist exclusively used? Whether in single lines or la pompe? It's always the forearm rotations? It might look like the wrist is being used due to the angle of the hand. Correct?
@@justsaying7512 You noticed that correctly, because of the hand angle it only looks like the wrist is driving the picking hand. Hard to say without looking closely at the specific player is the wrist by itself is ever in play. For example, I thought just thinking about it that Tchavolo would be using a lot of lower arm/wrist movement while soloing. But I checked it out closely yesterday and not at all. All pure rest stroke with this same rotation. His rest stroke is somehow extremely well defined and that's I guess why it tricked me before. I also noticed a couple of times with Adrien Moignard that he just kinda pushed the pick through with his thumb and seeming only that. So nothing is exclusive I guess. Just recently I had this conversation with a friend who's focusing on rhythm, this arm rotation vs wrist up and down and I was looking for a rhythm player where that's obvious. If you look at Nousche Rosenberg, you'll see that he's using very little up and down arm movement, it's mostly this rotation that is driving the playing.
@@BucoBucolini This is very interesting. So it's fairly clear in terms of line picking but I am also interested in rhythm. Can I request you to look at a video by Hono Winterstein at his DC music school lesson. It's on youtube. And tell me do you think he is using forearm rotations or wrist going up and down? Seems like he doesn't use forearm rotation but I may be wrong.
Wonderfully detailed video! So as a rule, we always play half rest strokes on the penultimate down stroke before the next lower string rest/half rest stroke? For example, on a simple 4-string descending E minor arpeggio, the e, b, and g will all be half rest strokes (ditto on all descending arpeggios and scales)? Thanks in advance.
This guy is the closest you,lol get to Django,s sublime touch and expression most modern Gypsy jazz guitarists strive for Django,s blistering speed and forget about the all important timing and phrasing how to tell a story not just machine gun a hundred empty notes a second
This comment is very late to the game, considering this video was posted 3 years ago. But oh well... A couple of things: 1. I wonder whether Django and the originators of this music actually practiced in this way or anything similar to it. A metronome intensive, 4-6 hours a day regiment for many years just seems unlikely as the way for them to have developed their musical prowess in those times and given the circumstances of their day to day lives. I could be wrong about that, but it just seems unlikely to me. So I wonder what separates them from the rest of us in comparing how they practiced to what we accept as a necessary practice regiment needed to become adept at the style or music in general? Because let's face it, practicing exercises in this way is not very fun or musical, albeit rewarding over time. I have to think that more often, they were jamming together playing their traditional music and adapting the American standards by slowing down records, or playing casually while drinking coffee and smoking French cigarettes; just hanging around and making music, a lot of course, then working out ideas in their leisure time. Maybe I am wrong and this kind of metronome, work-out routine is really what it takes and is what they did, but given the similarities that Gypsy Jazz shares with American Bluegrass as the "people's music" and the virtuosity it displays, I just have to question how the greats that laid the foundation of the music actually practiced versus the later musicians that embrace a more scholastic practice regiment. Because the great founding bluegrass musicians were true country folk who often farmed and tended livestock and traveled countless hours in tight spaces to play their music. They weren't all tinkering with metronomes and playing the same handful of exercises 5 million times to get good, that's just not how musical creativity blossoms. So while I appreciate the insight in a video like this, I have to question the validity of it as a pathway to enjoyment and while I think it is one way to get good, I tend to think listening to recordings, slowing them down to learn by ear, then working them up to tempo by playing with others, along to recordings, or even backing tracks is a more fruitful and enjoyable way to practice than years of brutal metronoming workout sessions beating the same handful of exercises to death. In bluegrass, I don't think I've ever heard one of the greats say a word about the importance of practicing with a metronome. They all talk about playing along to records and jamming a lot when asked how they developed their technique. Metronoming is something you hear classically or conservatory trained musicians lean into, but not traditional musicians like hillbillies and gypsies. I just think there is a different way to go about it that lends itself to more enjoyment and room for creativity, which is how the music came to exist in the first place! I do think the exercises in this video nicely highlight the technical mechanics needed to execute the licks and phrases in the music, although much of that is self revealing to the player when they actually learn the music and endeavor to play it accurately note for note. 2. I cannot find any van hemert books or products on djangoguitars.com here in the US.
Great video. Thanks for making it. Unfortunately, the right forearm is cutout. It would be helpful. I think at speed, some elbow picking might combine with forearm rotation. No? Still, fantastic video.
Exersice 6 is such an easy exercise if you use alternative picking. Also ascending arpeggios with downstrokes? Doesn’t make any sense to me. Nor the string skipping with downstrokes.. it has to be very limited picking regarding speed. How do you go Gilbert or Petrucci (speed) mode with this picking? You spent two decades of exercises in alt picking and then you have to accept that it s normal to ascend arpeggios with upstrokes. I m recently trying to practice the whole rest stroke concept (gypsy jazz picking), but the “the stochelo” exercise makes no sense.. it s weird and slow with this picking. I m really trying hours per day to play it the way Christian shows, but I can’t unlearn alt picking or even get used to this way. I also struggle with exercise 4. With gypsy jazz picking I delay when I change strings, while I m very confident and comfortable with alt picking.
There is no rules about doin down strokes on down beats and up strokes on upbeats (like in Bluegrass). Down strokes can be on any beat just like upstrokes!
Haha love it at 33:47! Quote: "the limit for triplets is usually around 170". I came here because of the "basic" licks of the django in rome ep 3 (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DCxnf15m_4E.html) where @ lick 3, when you "can be free with the rythms" Christiaan playes it in triplets at a cool 185bpm over Honeysuckle rose, that is some inception stuff! And silly me getting annoyed about being stuck at 160. Good exercises nontheless, going to practice see if I can push it to 185!