Joscho Stephan: Secrets of the Gypsy Tremolo 

I'd highly recommend "Gypsy Picking" by Michael Horowitz, for a full analysis of this picking style. What is fascinating is that it is consistent, across continents & cultures. Sarod, Balalaika, Mandolin, & Gypsy Jazz all rely on similar principles, designed to maximize volume & tone on an acoustic instrument. Django was a genius, but his right hand technique was built upon centuries of development. This enabled him to focus more on his art, and less on his craft.

Shredders need to start listening to some of those gypsy players that are around Europe. Joscho is a monster.

Fun fact. The word Gypsy is a truncation of Egyptian. I think because they were nomadic , people weren't sure what tribe they were and guessed they came from Egypt. Also the word Travel comes from Travaille ,meaning Trouble. People hated travelling because it was dangerous. In Feudal Europe the safest place was on The Manor.

When you "PLAY" for hundereds or thousands of hrs. your hands will eventuall DO what you are hearing in your head. He 'heard" the end effect of the technique and then MANY hrs of playing allowed him to express what he heard in his head and wanted to do. This became the "technique" that we are watching him now do so effortlessly without having to think about it. GJ is such a dynamic, connected style. I see and hear ALL the great styles and emotional expressions of metal,blues,thrash, classical, etc... all wrapped up in one here. About the only thing absent is bar dives.

gold every time. Joscho is the man

I love how the guitar vibrates the camera more and more as his playing intensifies, it looks so cool. Like the image in a rear view mirror distorting as the engine revs up!

Troy is one of da best video teachers of modern guitar on this planet = 'love these videos !!!

It's a swell. Great video of Stephan's spectacular technique. He "dig's in" and the dynamics are so perfect. A natural.

This is fantastic! Great footage!

Some of the most insightful and useful videos for guitar. Thank you.

Great tutorial. Off to practise now. Thanks

Äh, Troy, I need to say it once more, your videos are nothing short of spectacular! Also, your questions are really good. Minor suggestions: Could you do it with more frame per second?

Thanks Troy and team for the great video. Best wishes! jz Reviewing this video several times, I've noticed something that immediately vastly improved my tremolo (still needs work, but it's much cleaner). With the wrist location and bend, a) he is closer to the bridge, and b) his pick is really sweeping over the higher strings at a 45 degree angle (i.e, at 0:45 in the vid you can see the sweep going not straight up-and-down, perpendicular to the neck ... at the bottom of the sweep it's much closer to the bridge). The net effect: with a), the strings don't move as much as during a regular strum, so they're less of a moving target, and with b) b1. the vector of impact of the pick against the string is less "choppy" than it would be at 90 degrees - less chance for picks catching too much stringt depth b2. the attack itself is softer, because there's less velocity going right into the string (a component of the motion is along the string itself) b3. the strings themselves actually help guide the pick to ensure it's at the proper pick depth. Even with the short bursts (e.g. about 3:40), the wrist bends (aka ulnar deviation ... thanks TG and team for your "Guitar Anatomy: The Four Fundamental Movements Every Guitarist Should Know" video) ensure that the pick strums aren't straight up and down, but instead attack the strings at an angle, or partly along the string itself. I could definitely be "pseudo-scientific" with my analysis above ... i.e, going by what I feel rather than what's really true ... but I think it's still a useful observation. Cheers and thanks! z

Al di meola would be cool to see on this series... I would also say holdsworth but man is pretty much all legato lol... still be cool though

The triple picking strum is often used in ska too Loved seeing the detail!

Love the slow mo 😂Like a dinasour thrashing at the cavemans door! Fantastic! Perspective!

Great stuff Troy! Huge fan of MAB, now this?! Incredible.

I’m so used to playing open handed although I’ve practiced a lot closed too. Moving the pinky up like he does on the tremolo actually seems to make a little easier for me. Seems to act as a balance weight just like how a crankshaft on an engine is balanced with the connecting rods and pistons.

At 2:00, where he's showing how *not* to do the gypsy tremolo, you can see there's so much force behind it the camera is actually vibrating.

Arched wrist, forearm rotation, rather like Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses.

When Joscho does those crescendos, is he only deepening the pick attack, or his he changing the firmness of his pick grip, or changing some other variable (or some combination of more than of of these)? There seem to be some high performing pickers (e.g. Albert Lee) who use a fairly loose grip, and I think I've even seen Rob Chapman specifically suggest a loose grip in some picking scenarios, but there are also many who seem to use a pretty firm grip most of the time.

hey Troy! your channel changed my life and i thank you for that. how about Jeff Loomis Vs The Magnet? the dude has some very interesting and complicated picking patterns! i hope you see this :) thanks a lot.

Awesome! Just been working on exactly this. Will you ever do your own take on the van halen tremolo?

This is the only way I can do tremolo picking but seeing it from this view in slo-mo makes me think of a small dog being held above water and paddling.

Is EVH's tremolo picking like this essentially?

How it works: 1. move your hand up and down really fast

Cool... It's not the wrist, though. It's the forearm rotating quickly, and taking the hand with it. The wrist cannot make that motion. That's why the wrist turns the hand to that 60 degree angle. Then the forearm swings it rapidly back and forth. The wrist does not move the hand in that side-to-side motion.

I never knew gypsy players use such heavy picks. The strings on their guitars always seem pretty light, much more so than the what is used by bluegrass acoustic players or even electric jazz players in many cases.

00:20 that looks like the technique of the Sarod

nice.

does he use round side of a pick?

I would like to know what kind of pick he is using. Because I recently switched over to heavier picks, which are good for sweeps, but the tremolo felt easier with lighter picks. So I'm not sure what to stick to.

What's with the big C clamp on Joscho's guitar. Is the neck being glued on or what?

Are these steel strings?

Something appear to be wrong with my right hand but give me 2-10 years !

Origins in Mandolin playing..

Is that a skinny Jack Black?

You can almost see the notes disturbig the air aroud his fingers....

Neat idea. I hope it didn't scar the top or damage the fingerboard or frets. Them "gitars" ain't cheap.

is this really tremolo or just a fast strum?

Flamenco Guitar with a pick? What?