Basic Rhythm, and waltzes - c'est tout

Passacaglia · July 2012

Probably fishing for approbation on a way forward. Guess I'm the kind of obsessive that needs focus, as I easily dance across pedagogies as fast as I can play. Which isn't saying much, I suppose.

Anyway, I plan on doing two things only for the foreseeable future: working basic rhythm tone until I'm happy with it; and for lead playing, abandoning daily training in licks/arps/tune transcriptions (mostly tunes in G), and making an etude of waltzes; what Stephane Wrembel referred to at DIJ as "Kata 1 of training." Working on Stephane's Bistro Fada, and otherwise ordered the Stochelo Waltz DVD from Wayne/Dennis.

C'est tout.

Jazzaferri · July 2012

Its a great DVD. Every little while i get it out nd watch again

Passacaglia · July 2012

I'm looking forward to the DVD, Jay. I know it's crazy, but I don't know enough of Stochelo, though I've been watching and listening to him more and more.

Sometimes I feel I've got too itchy an attention span - my daily practice usually consists of about 3 hours - mostly rhythm, about an hour of lead practice (lately, it's been following Jack Soref's pedagogy; Jack provided a wonderful manual as part of his lead instruction at DIJ - makes such great sense, excellent teaching), and the remnants of my energy on transcription - which amounts, usually, to a few measures only of a given tune.

This notion, now, of simplifying my routine to rhythm work, and otherwise spending the lion's share of my practice on transcribing, and of that, exclusively waltzes. My thought is that the waltzes form a perfect ground for building technique, and once I have some of them, can't imagine a better daily etude, even as warmup material, eventually. For now, guess I hope it can be likened to practicing one stroke of the brush...

Jazzaferri · July 2012

For me Stochelo is a great combination of taste and technique.

One of the real artists who can combine lighting speed with expressing meaningful melodic ideas

Passacaglia · July 2012

I found it interesting that on the DC Gypsy School series, Gonzalo mentions his thing when he began, to stick to 6-7 solos, transcribe them, and apply the phrases learned to a ton of tunes; and that he found Django difficult to tease out, so it was Stochelo he used a good deal.

Hope this isn't boring, this topic, but I posted this both to solicit what more experienced others think, and with the thought it might pique others at a similar stage going through a similar thing, wondering what to work on. I've been reading over some old posts, on waltzes as practicing regimen.

I think I've come to realize that with a finite time daily - 3 hours, usually, sometimes a bit more - I seem to do better doing one or two things, over splitting the day into several parts. Emmett Ray, a guy I've read here but never saw before this year's DIJ, is in my opinion a really wonderful player (wild to see his early posts in 2008, and see him as an accomplished player now, as evidenced at DIJ 2012). Found it interesting what he mentions about his daily practice - each day more intensely focused on one thing, e.g., one day, it's rhythm, next, lead, next, transcription, etc.; which for him, was better than the 30 min. rhythm, 15 min. transcription, 30 min. lead, 30 min....and every now and then, he runs his repertoire to keep it all in mind.

I risk losing the repertoire I know, just because my memory is framed that way anymore, but guess I feel technique, technique, technique isn't a bad way to go for now. I've got heads and more or less of Coquette, Minor Swing, J'Attendrai, some others....and nothing finished. Waltzes, AABBAC, as daily etude, seem a good crawl before running approach (running, being attention and work on improv). I should add that Stephane Wrembel made a deep impression on me at DIJ. His calling waltzes "Kata 1" of GJ training really hit home.

wim · July 2012

hehe, you must be meaning emmett mahoney. emmett ray (fictional) is the second best guitarist in the world ..

waltzes are great for technique! good luck