HOT DAMN!! That was beautiful.
When you practice playing gypsy jazz, do you find yourself learning the scales/rhythms and nuances of the genre mostly, or do you practice by jamming more? What (if either of those) do you think is most beneficial?
I'm looking to dip my toes into gypsy jazz and have started learning the modes of harmonic minor. Where is a good direction to go from here?
Thank you!
I practice by playing tunes, that's pretty much how I've always done it. Of course I know a couple scales and licks that typically work but typically I practice gypsy and any other style by playing over tunes.
Now, when I do play tunes I do try to keep gypsy things in mind like rest stroke picking and targeting the second and the sixth to give it that gypsy flavour. Rest stroke picking for me is more do a downstroke whenever I can because that works for me. By practicing tunes I do really mean play over the backingtrack and not learn Django's stuff note for note. As a start of point you could try both
As for good tunes to start with Minor Swing, Dark Eyes and Blues for Ike will be good ones since they don't have a super complicated harmony.
You can also check out these which has a free gypsy jazz crash course
Gypsy Jazz Crash Course
www.learngypsyjazzguitar.com
And this which has a free 14-days trial
Gypsy Jazz Club - The World's #1 Gypsy Jazz Guitar Online Learning Platform
www.gypsyjazztransfusionclub.com
And lastly he has a youtube channel where he has some free lessons as well:
