Comments

• Mitch Paris, Jazz manouche's capital city!✭✭✭✭ Di Mauro, Lebreton, Castelluccia, Patenotte, Gallato

  September 2017 edited September 2017 Posts: 159

  Hi everybody,
  Never tried or teach Nylondave's method but agree 100% with what you say. Matthieu has a pretty dry sound when playing rhythm.
  About the pick... don't think too much about it Charles and if you're exclusively a rhythm player I suggest you use pretty thick and round pick. A thin and pointy pick doesn't produce a round roaring sound...
• spatzo Virtuoso

  September 2017 edited September 2017 Posts: 768

  I should say the following method can be interesting:
  
  - Play for a while steady 1 2 3 4 beats pressing/releasing each time the chords then:
  - On 1 and 3 play while pressing the chord then release
  - On 2 and 4 press the chord then play it while releasing
  
  The way/speed you release the chords will give you the sound you want
• dennis Montreal, QuebecModerator

  September 2017 Posts: 2,161

  I find it so fascinating that outside of the Gypsy community , many people are talking about all the technical details to be able to play Gypsy Jazz rhythm, when in their community, they simply just do it, and it sounds "authentic". They're not really taught how to do it, they 're just surrounded by it, and they naturally gravitate towards that sound.
  
  When I teach, I have tons of exercises to help achieve that sound, but at the same time I always tell my students that that's not how the Gypsies learned.
  
  I had some German Sinti in my home last week, none of them are professional musicians. One of the cousins, the rhythm guitar player, only picked up the guitar recently and fairly late in life, and when he plays rhythm, he has the sound that so many people are trying to get ! He was not taught how to do it, he just did it!
  
  I think immersion really helps, and while nothing replaces the real community, it's what I trieed to do , when I did the lessons with Hono and Nousche, there are clips of them just playing for a long time, and hopefully from listening and listening and listening, it just gets in your ear, and your hands figure out what they have to do to achieve the same sound.
  
  That said, there are many ways to play rhythm, there isn't just one sound

  

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• A Gent ✭✭

  September 2017 Posts: 20

  Here's a clip of Mathieu from above. Can't tell what pick he's using because there's hardly any of it showing.
  
  
  

  
• Bones Moderator

  September 2017 Posts: 3,319

  Yeah, what Denis said! That's why what really helped me was to find recordings that I liked the sound of the rhythm player and try to play along/emulate. Slowing it down if necessary to be able to keep up and keep a steady beat. Then try to breakdown what you are doing with each hand. Since most of us can't 'immerse' in the culture also getting some lessons from someone if possible will help a lot...especially so you don't develop 'bad' habits (which was the case for me trying to learn it on my own with no other GJ players around).
• dennis Montreal, QuebecModerator

  September 2017 Posts: 2,161

  A Gent wrote: »

  Here's a clip of Mathieu from above. Can't tell what pick he's using because there's hardly any of it showing.
  
  

  
  I don't think that's the best video to hear the sound because the audio quality isn't so good, and also he's showing chords, so every time he changes a chord he says the name and also holds down on the left hand to emphasize it. You obviously wouldn't do that all that the time in a real playing situation.
  
  If you want the same sound, you can check out this very high quality recording of Dorado and Amati taking turns playing rhythm for each other, the recording quality is perfect. This is the region where that rhythm came from:
  
  
  

  

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• Jazzaferri Victoria B.C.Moderator Dunn Ultrafox, DuPont MDC20 Gretsch Chet Atkins CG

  September 2017 Posts: 3,707

  dennis wrote: »

  
  When I teach, I have tons of exercises to help achieve that sound, but at the same time I always tell my students that that's not how the Gypsies learned.
  

  
  I got a taste of those when I went for a rhythm checkup to @dennis this August in Montreal
  
  

  The Magic really starts to happen when you can play it with your eyes closed
• Scoredog Santa Barbara, Ca✭✭✭✭

  September 2017 Posts: 872

  When I was just beginning and studied with Gonzalo he mirrored Denis's sentiments, just keep doing it and it will come, we spent very little time working on rhythm.

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