So I made a video about it, and I think it will resonate with a lot of players here. I go through three specific habits that I believe are the foundation of solid rhythm playing, chord clarity and whether your voicings are actually ringing the way they should, using the metronome correctly and getting to the point where it actually starts to swing, and the habit of playing rhythm along with full records from start to finish, something I have been recommending for years and something that most guitarists still do not do enough of.

I go into detail on all three with practical demonstrations. I hope you enjoy and that it's useful for someone, thank you for tuning in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vfyz4FaXiU

Good morning. I'm trying to transcribe some songs to Manouche, but I don't know enough chords to transcribe classical chords to Manouche (e.g., Am7b5 and similar).

Does anyone know of a reference book or manual where I can look up the voicings and adapt them to Django Form?

Thank you very much for your help.

Look forward to your answers.

I'm looking for a good backing track for Valerian Valse. Such a beautiful tune, and I'd love to practice improvising over it. I’ve searched around but haven’t been able to find any backing tracks for it. Does anyone know where I can find one?

Thought this could be interesting for some of you too. Filmed the rhythm playing for some additional "online jam" feeling.

Djangos Tiger without F7 and with plain chords:

Troublant Boléro:

And the last one, "Distraction". Love that tune but never heard anyone play it. Let's change that together!

Tried to figure out the chords from the piano accompaniment. Not 100% sure for the Bb if it should be a 7 or plain major as i played it, otherwise i think i got it down:

Hope you enjoy!

I see this has been asked before but the links arent available. Anyone have chords to bach's concerto for 2 violins?

Thank you

It never ceases to astound me the magic this man created with only a limited supply of voicings at his disposal...

I've enjoyed trying to decipher a few, and made a little collection called "Swing Along With Django", on sale until Saturday😜

https://bit.ly/413lUbZ

I hope this might be of help to anyone who watches.

September 20-22 I'll be hosting a workshop with Benji Winterstein in Milan, if you're around and want to really master "La Pompe" you won't want to miss this!

Best,

Dario

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Has anybody figured out how to get a really nice sound on GJ backing tracks? This is non-professional, for my own use but I would like it not to suck. I would be playing all the instruments so any advice on doubling, compression, reverb, all that stuff would be very helpful.

Thanks, Paul

It seems like the rhythm player might only pulse on 1 and 3 here at 1:25?

Listening to the first track, Milou, it is basically rhythm changes but it doesn't sound exactly like typical gypsy jazz rhythm changes, right? I think it's the chord voicings, also some subs on the middle 8, and it may also be the whole rhythmic feel. The whole album has more jazzy and at times latin take on GJ. Does anybody have any insight on how to achieve this sound? I'm a violinist so it's more about understanding what I should be playing over.

Kind regards, Paul

https://youtu.be/73E-NVzU1-U

Here’s the link to my fakebooks. They are still works in progress and were done rather quickly so they might not be perfect. There are two of them, one shows how certain standards used to be played when they were first recorded. Another is my collection of suggestions for changes on various standards. I tried to include all the commonly used changes when possible.

• Link to fakebooks: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sylgte3vw1qdwkg/AAAJ1eaTprifaX6RttMT16vBa?dl=0

Please can anyone help me figure what Martin's right hand rhythm is doing form 0.36, it's proving too elusive for me to work out. I would appreciate any ideas you may have. Cheers

Best,

-brian

Not sure where to put this.

Sorry to take up the bandwidth, but I'm a bit sick and could use a positive thought or two. About a month ago I started showing some odd symptoms I couldn't attribute to longstanding medical issues. Things worsened and routine bloodwork a couple of weeks ago showed unusual thyroid activity. Couple more and it was confirmed it's Graves Disease. Easily controlled, it can be deadly if it's not as one of the things it directly affects is your heart. I'm showing signs of cardiac stress. I also just feel like total crap.

Also concerning is that there is some evidence of pancreas disease. My body is fu$(ing just weird, come up with all kinds of nonsensical stuff over the years that has had serious consequences, and this would be one as I've had acute pancreatitis two times. both landing me in the hospital. Both times acutely ill, couldn't even stand up. First time, BP dropped to 50/30.

Anyway, in addition to everything else and somehow related, is it's like I have developed radical arthritis in literally every joint. Not the total body burning of my central pain and not the ache everywhere of the flu, but literally sharp arthritic pain in every joint. I have to be careful picking something up as ridiculous as a spoon, for the shot of pain and my dropping it.

So, I've tried to sit down to play, and I just can't. Bummed, because I feel like I was just truly coming back in and things already feel "cold." I really love jamming with our local crew (hey, Gian) and miss it.

Not a religious person, at least not in the sense of prayers, but do believe in community and of them all, this one is very close to my heart. Thanks for any thoughts in your hearts, guys. ❤️

ps: friend Buco. I'll catch up.

I know this has likely been asked ad nauseum, likely by me, but perhaps one reason I'm asking (if again), is illustrative:

"Because of a neuro condition, I spend a lot of times in a zombie state, hard to shake off. Deciding to get some air, and get the mutt his walk in, I grabbed Murphy and with high spirits and the best of intentions, briskly headed out.

It wasn't till about 3 blocks in that I realized I was only wearing my long underwear for pants. I'd forgotten that tidy closer.

Lesson learned: Always go to sleep wearing jeans."

-so, that bit of ridiculousness out of the way, I'd love to get some thoughts.

I have a lot of time. Since I've been essentially given clearance to play as much as I can handle in terms of pain, I want to do what I've always wanted to do, essentially pursue this deeply, and absent a teacher or formal course of study, how to plan out my day - with the understanding that most of my abilities, I think, and certainly my affection, seems to lie with rhythm playing.

I need to say, I feel like I'm starting over again. In many ways I feel like I'm not only playing better "than before," but understanding many things better "than before." Nevertheless, I feel like I spend a ton of time literally breaking down rhythmic elements - say, dividing out beats 1 and 3, with an upstroke, from beats 2 & 4 in a basic gj swing rhythm. I feel like I'm not there yet so sort of meander between Denis's DC stuff - his videos on rhythm, with moving over to Nous'che's stuff on the same site, occasional visits to Hono for his purity of playing. Occasionally, I'll just play with Benji Winterstein, his Am6-E7 two chord swing examples.

I'm working on latin stuff - bossa and rhumba, again, moving without any real plan between Denis and Nous'che, and Michael's book, re-acquiring the chord vocabulary shown in the book.

This, while slowly building a repertoire. I am so far staying with one tune, as a vehicle to working on swing rhythm (though here I really wander as well). I also work on bossa (Bossa Dorado) and rhumba (Caravan).

I also work on some lead playing, but that's maybe 10% of the time. Michael's fingered exercises, and some transcribed melodies.

NOW, finally, the question. What would you do if you had, say, 8-10 hours free, love rhythm but willing to start humble forays into lead - literally how would you plan your daily practice, so you weren't doing what I'm doing, sort of bouncing around without any real plan in place?

This is probably going to be tough to answer. Rhythm is just something I've always enjoyed. Though I feel like I've lost and forgotten so much, and this is going to sound like a mess, I've been prettily heavily influenced in terms of training rhythm by Denis Chang and Ted Gottsegen, with heavy "consultation" with Michael's book and a smattering of Adrian Holovaty here and there.

Let me clear that up. All of it coming down to what Ted taught as "the four T's," or technique, time, taste and touch. Pretty straight voicings, accepting and eve embracing standard major and minors (not 6ths, 6/9ths) etc., though totally at home with fuller "gypsy voicings." In terms of style, Nous'che is my model, so his sound and if there are any subs, embellishments (not many - even more now, just working on solid swing with good tone in the pocket), they'd be Nous'che's as learned on DC Gypsy School or, in its day, Christiaan Van Hemert's RA.

Some time ago I came across Christiaan's youtube vids and I have to be honest - everything but rhythm was way past me and his emphasis on a very limited house of chords (I think 8 or so) to play just about any song, his teaching "half-muted" LH and his description of the RH fingernail/pick hybrid playing seemed like it clashed with everything I'd been working on - mostly, fully voiced chording, if extremely short and dry. I used to play with the round of my picks but because I'm now not so religious about "mastering" rhythm before training in lead playing, I use the pointed end (of Nous'che's signature pick from Jokko's/Manouche Picks site) for all playing. I figure I should be able to play on the fly either, and don't want to have to rotate the pick constantly. Anway, it's borne fruit.

My question then is this. I'm totally smitten by Christiaan's playing and exhaustive teaching. I signed up on his Patreon site. With no judgments as to soundness or "right and wrong," in a word, how do you guys feel about Christiaan's notion of these bass-centric, 3 note chords, this "half-muting" of chords, basically, an extremely dry, background sound that drives but "offends no one. A pleasure to play with?"

I ask in part because the folks I've gone with, at least Denis and Adrian, probably Ted somewhere in my notes and I suspect Michael, and Nous'che himself all explicitly urge "clean" chording - fully pressed down, no buzzing, clean. With just as clean LH muting. So that's what I do.

That said, Christiaan's playing in these vid is awesome, imo. Just extremely background, almost totally percussive without much "guitar" sound, again, as I experience. Swinging and in the pocket, but dry as hell.

If this isn't just mud in the query, what do you guys think of these things

Is there a way of showing chord diagrams with gypsy jazz chords ?