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This is the audio from a workshop I gave for the American Accordion Musicological Society on March 17, 2013.

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The two cultures clashed and for a while, and the Italians were not accepted. As the story goes:

One day a brave Italian accordionist asked to jam with a group of Auvergne musicians. They hit it off and Bal-musette was born.

1. and a few other Parisian neighborhoods  ↩
2. Historically the bagpipe and things that sound like a bagpipe get called musette, remember this.  ↩
3. Why Italians and accordions? Demian patented the accordion 1829, in Vienna, Austria. Italy is a country which lies in between Austria and France. So Vienna, Italy, Paris. Demian.  ↩
4. Note the lineage of fine Italian heritage accordionists: Murena, Azzolla, Galliano, Vietty.  ↩
5. Vacher is to Musette as Louis Armstrong is to Jazz. No understanding of musette can be had without commited listening to his music. Vacher basically invented the style of ornaments, tripolets, etc.  ↩

FALLS CHURCH, VA

Sleepy Hollow Methodist ChurchMarch 10, 2013 – 4:00 pm
Performance and Workshop at Washington Accordion Society

Sleepy Hollow Methodist Church
3435 Sleepy Hollow Rd.
Falls Church, VA 22044
United States
http://www.washingtonaccordions.org/
Tickets: $8

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EAST WHIPPANY, NJ

Hanover MarriottMarch 17, 2013 – 9:00 am
Gypsy Jazz Accordion Workshop at AAMS

Hanover Marriott
1401 Route 10
East Whippany, NJ
United States
http://www.aamsaccordionfestival.com
Tickets: Check Website

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NORTHAMPTON, MA

Smith College June 18-23, 2013 – 4:00 pm
Teaching at Django in June

Smith College

Northampton, MA
United States
http://www.djangoinjune.com
Tickets: Check Website

Video

This video player is set to begin at 00:37 right before Jo’s comping under the violin solo starts. I have marked sections in the video every 4 bars of music so you can easily skip backward or forward using the ‘PREV’ and ‘NEXT’ buttons. This is probably still too fast, so check out this post on How to Slow Down a Youtube Video for Practicing Music. 

Use YouTube

Use the YouTube web player to slow the video down. You have 1/2 time and 1/4 time.

Use Transcribe

I’ve heard, back in the day guys would slow the Charlie Parker records down with their fingers to hear what bird was playing. This software does all of that, but with near perfect quality and without any pitch change, so it is exactly the same notes but slower. It loops, you can mark measures, all sorts of stuff. Its really indipensible for speed of transcription, when you learn how to use it.

Transcribe is what I use. I will put up a video tutorial of how to use it soon. It is the easiest and the best slow downer out there, and I’ve tried a most of them. Many of my friends who are really wonderful, and some famous, musicians use Transcribe. They shall remain nameless because there is some sort of stigma around this kind of software, but really many people use it. 

Overview: Understanding the purpose of each role in a group at each time is vital to doing it well. When we are not playing the melody in a group and not soloing, chances are we are comping.  I would say that the purpose of comping is four-fold: help the song groove, set up sections of the song, reinforce harmonies, and support the melodic or rhythmic choices the soloist makes.

In this lesson we are going to look at the specific rhythms that Jo Privat comps, abstract them first as just rhythms and single notes, and then create ways to practice with Jo’s playing to begin to learn the transcription and also take some rhythms and comp them in another tune. [private_Free]

You will need:

1. The rhythmic and top line transcriptions included at the top of this post.

2. The recording, which I found on youtube and have here.

There is a great book by David Berkman called The Jazz Musician’s Guide to Creative Practicing. In the chapter on rhythm, David describes working with a student who is having difficulty internalizing the solos she transcribed. He describes an exercise to take a transcription and first strip the notes away from it to abstract it to the rhythms. This allows the student to focus purely on the groove or phrasing rhythms to get a better picture of what exactly makes up the player’s style. To quote from David on his own use of this technique:

These new rhythms gave me interesting new directions to work on in my own playing. The Jazz Musician’s Guide to Creative Practicing

Beginning to Understand Jo’s Rhythms

Rhythmic Transcription

With the Rhythmic Transcription we will begin by reading along with the sheet music and tapping, clapping or speaking the rhythms. This should take 5-10 or more times through to really begin to feel his rhythm.

“Wow, Jo really plays on the front side of the beat!” was my first thought.  Immediately all sorts of realizations and analyses will occur to us. ”Wow, this didn’t seem so fast before I started tapping along.” I had a dozen more thoughts, ideas and analyses. These are all important to note and look at what we thought he was playing versus our experience with what he is actually playing. What Jo actually plays is what we eventually want to actually play like as well, so noting our unique perspectives is vital. Jot down your notes and review them later to understand your preconceptions about playing. 

drank in the life of the streets with his mother’s milk… Jo Privat on where he accrued his style from Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing

 

Concepts

Upbeats

In general playing upbeats is like rushing forward a little bit. In a solo line it is the equivalent of pushing off from the side of the pool when swimming a lap. So playing upbeats feels like you are giving energy to speed the beat along without rushing it. 

1. Measures 3 and 4

2. Measure 6

 

Downbeats

Downbeats give you a feeling of grounded-ness, a groovy for funky type feel. Whenever you hear anyone talking about digging in, they mean playing perfectly placed notes on the downbeats.

1. Measures 10, 11 and 12

2. Measure 13 and 14

 

Going Further

I hope you enjoyed this brief introduction to Rhythmic and Top Note Transcriptions for comping. This is of course just the beginning. If you are looking to go further with this comping from Jo Privat a few more ideas would be to find your favorite comping phrases in this transcription and try them out in other gypsy jazz songs, using top notes that work with the chord changes, you could take this transcription and its top notes and fill out the chord harmonies underneath, and you could transpose this into other keys, Gm and Dm would be very useful. You should also continually go back to the full top note transcription and play along with it to isolate the exact rhythms and articulations Jo is playing.

The next post in this series will be on playing the entire chord that Jo plays.

If you appreciated my work, donations are always appreciated, thank you! 

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This year Djangology proceeds from Djangology Festival are going to benefit Victims of Hurricane Sandy. There are 4 ways you can get involved:

1. Thursday 12/6/12 Brooklyn Concert

2. Friday 12/7/12 Brooklyn Concert

3. Sunday 12/8/12 New Jersey Concert

4. Indie Gogo Fundraiser Page

Coney Island Hospital and Bellevue Hospital, two of New York City’s major public hospitals, were evacuated as a result of Hurricane Sandy. Bellevue is New York City’s oldest full-service hospital, and the oldest continuously operating hospital in America. Coney Island Hospital services South Brooklyn, much of which was damaged by flooding from the storm. Extensive work needs to be done to repair the damage done by the hurricane, and make both hospitals safe for patients.

HHC’s mission is to provide high quality care to all patients regardless of ability to pay, and as such, services patients from all over the city and from all backgrounds, ranging from artists and musicians to victims of torture. Brooklyn Djangology will be combining music’s powers of healing and celebration in service of Hurricane Sandy’s victims all over New York City.

From Official Site

I recently gave a masterclass on Gypsy Jazz and Musette for the piano accordionist at the American Accordionist Association in Baltimore, July 13, 2012. I talked about some very basic concepts about gypsy jazz, starting with an introduction to le pompe. [private_Free]I moved on to talk about the swing feel and introduce a very basic vocabulary of scales to use over the gypsy jazz classic “Minor Swing”. Here is the first set of five-note scales elaborated on two more times, and then a more elaborate etude to practice linking the scales. A total of 4 exercises building upon each other to develop the vocabulary over Minor Swing.

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]]> http://dallasvietty.com/minor-swing-scales/feed/ 1 http://dallasvietty.com/play-alongs/ http://dallasvietty.com/play-alongs/#comments Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:07:39 +0000 admin http://dallasvietty.com/?p=3504

One of the best ways to practice this style alone is with a play along. There are many different styles of Pompe, here are collections of free gypsy jazz play alongs  from different amazing guitarists. [private_Free]Each has their own way they prefer the Pompe. For accordionists, I cannot recommend highly enough a deep understanding of le pompe. Le pompe the foundation of this style and something that guitar players practice FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS. Each lead player is very particular about what way they want the pompe the be played. Some of the best rhythm players, Hono Winterstein, are unique geniuses of rhythm and chord voicing. I recommend playing each tune you are practicing with as many different play alongs as possible.

• Stephane Wremble – Many play alongs by this master. If you find yourself in NY, check out his weekly Sunday shows at Barbes in Park Slope Brooklyn. Stephane is known for his Woody Allen scores, and his melding many different styles to gypsy jazz.
• DC Music School - Dennis Chang has one of the most recognized online music schools. He is a rhythm master, but an overall monster gypsy jazz musician. He just renovated his teaching website and has several free products. One he is offering is 21 different tunes, each tune has 2 speeds.
• Gonzalo Bergara – A favorite of the younger generation, Gonzalo is revered by American students of this style. He just headlined at the Django Samois festival this year, 2012. Now living in California, Bergara has his own style which draws from his Argentine homeland. He is known for his nearly unmatched guitar right hand.

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You’ve practiced your arrangement with the band, you played the melody well. You took a killer solo, you comped, you played the melody out and uht oh, here is the very end. What are you going to play over that typical Django ending?[private_Free] Having a good ending on hand is a challenging thing. Here are 4 Stephane Grappelli endings to add to your repertoire. Transpose these into, C, F, G and E.

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