Why gypsy picking technique is the most powerful technique 

Just seeing this,wow,!! and I love it, been wanting to learn this style but didn't know how to go about it.love your videos man.Thanks

The double-down... brilliant idea, thanks! Not knowing that might have stopped me properly getting this style. (alternate picker and slurrer here).

Gonna send you some cash on Patreon you’re really helping me a lot... thank you so much

When I first came across your video , I was watching it on a different youtube format and didn't see your name etc . But I said to myself ("I'm hearing a slight 'Dutch' accent") I was sure of it my parents immigrated to California in the the early 60's right after I was born . They didn't teach us the dutch language sadly . So I have this void that only Dutch accents can fill ....does that sound strange ? It's music to my ears wherever i can hear it so thank you Christiaan , even with your very slight accent theres more music than just the guitar haha doi hartstikka leuk ! [additional edit] I wanted to brag about my Dad's musical days in Zwartsluis , Genemuiden , and Zwolle . I've only seen one photograph of the harmonica trio he played in throughout the 50's but they were very good ! He played the smaller 6 or 8 centimeter harmonica , another guy played one that looked to be a foot long , and the third guy played a hinged double harmonica that seemed to be 20 inches long or something . Incredible . My dad was Klaas Schraa😃

Excellent videos as always, thank you Christiaan 👍👍👍☘️🇮🇪

awesome info and demonstration! thank you

Great lesson and material. Looking forward to getting these under my fingers.

Great lesson Cristiaan!

Love your instructions! They are so well prepared and motivating. Thank you!!

Very cool lesson!!! Thank You for sharing!!! All The Best!!!

Gypsy jazz uses the downward pick slant afaik and often 2 or 4 notes per string to keep the alternate picking going, plus economy picking/sweeps and some exceptions eg. double down …Troy’s discovery was very important for people trying to play faster whether it be gypsy jazz or other styles.

Great lesson and amazing playing!

great one, Christiaan !! important !!

Christiaan thanks a lot! You are a great teacher. Very clear! Now I have to practice. hope to master it in less than two years. Abe Cherem

Christiaan, all these licks can be picked without any double downs using different fingerings and if you accent every third note you don‘t loose the triplet feel.

great work and playing. thank you.

Very good stuff!

Great stuff again! Micah 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

thanks a lot Christian for the "perfect" lesson! Indeed I got so much from it. Bravo

Freaking awesome thanks for sharing mate.

Great explanations, great video, thank you, subscribed and shared !

I love how calm you are...i'd be sweatin'

Instantly subscribed! Thank you!

Trying to learn Gypsy jazz lately. I quite get this double downstroke technique but I find it difficult when improvising and not using learned licks. Anyway, these are cool licks to use thanks !

Great lesson for gypsy jazz style players, as for me it is kind of foreign because I don’t use that style of fingering. Many great Jazz and Bebop guitar players use three fingers mostly in their playing, occasionally or often using the fourth finger a lot like Wes Montgomery did, and you do too, but I think that the majority of the Jazz and Bebop guitar players use four fingers always, it is a whole different world in Gypsy guitar for what I can see, very difficult style to master technique wise, specially because of the use of three fingers mostly and the hard to master picking technique needed for this style.👍🏼🎼🎶🎵🎸

best gypsy jazz teacher ever! thanx!

My friend you look like 2nd Son of Bruce Lee 🤠👊 I like that Gypsy jazz rest stroke picking 👌 😎 looks perfect for me...

Most powerful for gypsy phrasing, I'm sure! For a multitude of other styles/movements it's definitely not the best way though 🙂

TKS christiaN this helps a lot Bless You MR😎🎸Love Gypsy Music your Good. VERy Helpful💗Licks👍 ✌

thank you sir!

The thing is all gypsy players use pickslanting and forearm rotation. It's strange that u deny that. In every close up on Stochelo playing u can see it.

How do you differtiate between 8th note triplets, 16th notes, and 16th note triplets?

dear christian thank you for your lessons they are great!! the one thin g that bothers me is "why is the playing soo fast?/..........lots of time the notes are cllipped which in turn .......you lose some of the beauty of the instrument, the music.......i just dont get it,,,,,,,,,django played with so much feeling which is lost with all this concentration on speed///can you help me????

That you for posting... actually use some of this already

Woooooooooooow super thank You

Love the sound of your guitar. What make is that? Excellent lines to practice the technique.

It sounds.stupid handy.m.greetings!!

I don't understand why triplets repeated over and over is considered music. I do like jazz in general though.

Thanks for all these videos. What is the logic of starting on the up stroke though?

Hi Christiaan, great video as always. I have seen some super gypsy jazz players use pick slanting, or even specifically mentioning it as required -- e.g. Joscho Stephan (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JFwP-ne_d8U.html) and Dani Rabin (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PzNxcxUp1Z0.html) -- and they have a great, liquid sound. Maybe they play in different areas, or different style of gypsy? Don't know, thought you'd want to check it out. Thanks for all your vids! jz

I agree that it is the only correct way to play that genre. Tonal reasons are why to me. However, I do not think it is superior to alternate picking. In addition, alternate picking is more versatile. It is used in every genre except Gypsy Jazz.

What kind of guitar is this electric one? What kind of acoustic guitars do you guys use for gypsy jazz? Hey thanks for teaching us this stuff, if I had any money i would send some but right now with this virus thing going around the world.. everything is totally screwed up for a long time to come.. All I can do is stay home, eat stale bread and cheap peanut butter, and practice..

Thanks Christian for these wonderful licks. Even for a "classic" jazz player they give some insight into the flow of gypsy music especially the diminished runs which are essentials into building consistent improvisation skills. Unfortunately many jazz modern theories underestimate the efficiency of these licks or put them on the back seat ( ie .. charlie christian 30's style) without recognizing their efficiency event in modern-day context.

What brand of guitar is that? What amp do you play through? Nice tone.

Thanks for the great lesson! I find playing with speed to be pretty challenging so It makes me laugh when you play through a lick and then comment on how easy it was :)

Great lesson! One question: what about (in particular right hand) muting? I see that floating right arm technique in gypsy jazz all the time which makes me wonder if it's a concern whether you're muting the strings you're not playing or not. In the last lick example I can hear the open lower strings resonate as you finish the lick, and if the key of the song was transposed by a half step I'd imagine it sounding quite dissonant. Perhaps it's not even an issue due to how the melody cuts trough the resonance.

Nice, just what I needed. I'd like to know the difference between an arch top and gypsy jazz guitar, as you mentioned, you may pick differently, scale length? Compared to a flat top? Great skills, enjoying your videos. Time to practice

Interesting video & exercises, but I still don't really understand. I love the genre of gypsy jazz (hence why I'm watching this video)-- so no offense intended-- but what is the advantage of this picking technique over getting really good with economy picking & pick slanting? I get the "you can play it on any guitar" part, & that's cool, but I don't have any problem playing the other techniques I'm learning on any of my guitars, so that's not really a big concern for me. Is the advantage just that you don't have to learn pick slanting? Because either way you're having to devote time to learning a technique, so that doesn't seem like a reason. I just recently learned economy picking & pick-slanting after years & years of mostly just alternate picking when I didn't take guitar as seriously, and I'm all for learning a variety of different techniques if you have the time to devote to it (I'm not suggesting there's no point in learning this by any means)... But with economy picking there is a very clear logic to why to do it: you can play faster if you take advantage of economy of motion, similar to how classically trained guitarists think. Economy picking prioritizes the shortest path to the next string, which alternate picking doesn't always. And pick-slanting also has an obvious raison d'etre. If your picking motion is at 90 degrees to the strings then it can be easy to get caught on the string you just played or others when switching between strings, & if you have to do an extra motion between picking one string & picking another to get around an obstruction, then that's an inefficient use of motion & time & typically leads to problems maintaining rhythm when you play faster tempo 8th & 16th notes & don't have time for extraneous movements. So what is the reason for this picking style? What is the advantage of the half-rest and rest strokes? What does it do better than economy picking? Because after learning economy picking, trying to play your exercises was very unintuitive to me. Not saying they were badly made, & I can tell a lot of effort went into them. I just didn't understand the reasoning of why you chose to use alternate picking in certain string changes, economy picking style double downstrokes in some, where you're ascending from the lower strings so it's efficient to do so (thinking it through, I'd be inclined to pick the upward string changes with double upstrokes too if I'm coming from an upstroke), & then doing double downstrokes even when it's not economical in others. I get that that's the technique, but it just feels so forced to me now when I could just take the more direct route & economy pick it. Coming from alternate picking I can understand why this would be advantageous in situations where the second downstroke is naturally the most economical path & alternate picking it would require going out of your way, but it feels like a strange half-measure compared with economy picking, where I can see a clear mechanical logic to why it's done that way. Is it all about the triplets? Does it help keep the rhythm in 3/4 or 6/8 better than economy picking would? And if so, I'm curious about why not every triplet consists of down-up-down. I feel like there's something I'm missing, but I'm not sure what it is. I'll check out some more videos & resources on the subject. I think the technique will make a lot more sense when I understand the motivation for using it.

Christiaan, thank your for your lesson. Some very detailed information here. Do you know any electric guitar player that uses a pure or a mixture of gipsy jazz picking? I am trying to come up with a combination of alternate and sweep technique.

Hi there Can the gypsy jazz picking technique be applied to traditional jazz repertoire?

I like the style a lot, but to play with volume or especially overdrive, it can be messy. Because your palm must mute the other strings to avoid sympathetic feedback, but for this style, you drape it over to hang in the air. My first teacher played this way but I noticed, was not good for other styles. It is a great sound, for this style, but I had to switch to a more modern approach for other styles.

Woot!

Do all descending and ascending licks always start on a downstroke? How do you deal with this when you do a 3 note per string run and in the middle of the run, one string may only have two notes and it skews up the pick pattern? This is always throwing me off.

Christiaan, is the rule of thumb with “gypsy picking,” anytime you change a string, down stroke? I’ve watched the videos on this and don’t think you do a poor job casing it or explaining it, I just wanted a little more clarification. Or do you find yourself with exceptions? Thanks!

Can you talk about the half rest stroke? I'm not familiar with this.

probably your best less ...hvala

Hi Chris, I have some questions regarding the Summit & have left you & Tommy emails about it. I'd like to attend, but would like to ask a few questions so I can decide which sessions to attend. Any chance one of you might respond? Bob

if Django Jimi Hendrix Wes Montgomery had followed rules on how to pick correctly. You would not have heard of them. All truly great guitarists are innovators who do not follow any rules they just play how they feel is right

"Gypsy Jazz doesn't use pick slanting." Oh yes you do! Gypsy Jazz guitarists are primarily downward pick slanters. This is why you aim to have the last note on each string be an upstroke, while having the first note on each string a downstroke. Also, this is why you always sweep down and not up.

Reminds of a Godzilla movie .....I didn't not know why

I would argue Greek Bazouki players would be up there also.

Troy Grady is actually more an economy picker very much like the Gypsie picking you are demonstrating here. The 80's guitar players in Troy videos such as Yngwie and Eric Johnson are also economy pickers and pick slanting is most definitely an important feature for both these players, which is why Troy talks about it so much. He did do a piece on Steve Morse one time who is an avid alternate picker. In any case, I hear you talking about the double down stroke when switching strings, what about double up stroke when switching strings (ascending runs)? I noticed most guys (can) only do the double downs and not the ups mostly because that would require two-way pick slanting.

Very nice,, feel like a beginner. .again,,lol

I’ve been playing for 30 years and I just don’t get how you can play like this with zero contact from your right hand or forearm on the guitar at all.

"We don't use those tricks" Sorry but I find that a bit disrespectful. Maybe you don't mean it that way. Maybe you should watch some more Troy's content, he analyzes gypsy picking as well.

🎼🎼👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

Powerful is debatable..Wes used his Thumb and Albert King used his thumb! More notes/faster ..impresses other musicians and usually attains speed of lines never sung by those who matter..the audiences who pay us. You are a smart and versatile academic type of musician. I m trained also on trombone and have toured on guitar with Jazz greats! Bear in mind Dizzy G.'s embrochure was anti-academic concieved but look what he did!

Double down strokes seem so unnecessary ..they are slow and uncomfortable to play..isn't it supposed to be about economy of motion?...this and having to start on a down stroke on every string is an awful thing to burden you your picking hand with ...it totally amazes me how the gypsy players are so fast ...but these days guy's like Troy Grady and many other modern players using slanted pick and edge picking ect ...can play way faster...at least on electric guitars...

I guess what you and the rest of the gypsy picking players don't get is that how you don't anchor your right hand. It floats in the air. How about teaching that?

Economy picking is far faster and easier than this :/

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Took much talking