The Blog
Gypsy and Jazz News Stream!
Arpeggios over All of Me: what notes to play for each chord
Dive into the world of arpeggios, explore how they can become a powerful tool for your improvisation skills. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned musician.
15 November, 2023
Avalon and the Magic of Melody Mastery
Django Reinhardt shows us how to give choruses ending with a II V I progression a clear ending that beautifully leads into the next chorus.
21 August, 2023
II-V-I bursting with diminished arpeggio energy- Demonstrated over All of Me
Django Reinhardt shows us how to give choruses ending with a II V I progression a clear ending that beautifully leads into the next chorus.
26 February, 2023
Classic II V I – Django’s Ending Demonstrated over All of Me
Django Reinhardt shows us how to give choruses ending with a II V I progression a clear ending that beautifully leads into the next chorus.
21 February, 2023
How Many Sharps and Flats are in Each Key?
We guitar players have a very easy way to remember what sharps or flats are in each key sitting right under our fingers.
20 February, 2022
Four Layers of Learning Improvisation
4 key layers to learning improvisation on guitar: the form, the shapes, melodic ideas & the anatomy of melody.
09 June, 2021
Make Your Guitar Sing Using Trills & Vibrato
Whether you're playing jazz guitar or gypsy jazz guitar, playing the "right" notes or chords is simply not enough in order to play a solo that is exciting and fun to play.
17 May, 2021
ONE DIMINISHED ARPEGGIO TO RULE THEM ALL – HOW TO IMPROVISE OVER A CYCLE OF DOM7 CHORDS – Mr. Sandman
|This is an idea that you can implement over many different tunes and you’ll also get a very cool lick that doubles as a great technique exercise for you.
27 December, 2020
One Magic Shape Over All Chords Part 2- How High the Moon
Take another trick from Django Reinhardt, that just adds a bit to the one magic shape idea by using the magic shape just a half-tone above the root of the DOM7 chord. Try i
19 November, 2020
One Magic Shape for All Chords – Take the “A” Train
Learn to see these magic shapes over each one of the chords in any song that you play and make them your own with little changes, taking another trick from Django Reinhard
12 November, 2020
Minor Swing 1947 Solo – Improvisation with Octaves
In this lesson, you'll learn how to improvise with octaves and build structure in your improvisation. We will learn the octave chorus of Django's solo over Minor Swing from
29 January, 2020
Bireli Lagrene’s Chords for Made in France and Nuages
Bireli Lagrene was fun, friendly and brilliant when we played together last week. Most of all, he was an inspiration, sending out musical ideas that I’ve been enjoying pla
21 November, 2019
Minor Swing 1947 – Improvisation with Structure
In this lesson, you'll learn how to build structure in your improvisation. We will learn the beginning of Django's solo over Minor Swing from 1947. This improvisation is a
26 September, 2019
How to Hold the Pick
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to hold the pick like Gypsy guitarists do to get the greatest sound when playing jazz!
22 August, 2019
How to Use Open String Ghost Notes to Swing Like Django Reinhardt
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to make your playing more swinging and groovy. It’s about a special ornament, adding a ghost note on an open string just before the note yo
31 July, 2019
Winning Improvisation Structure #2 – The Blues and Coquette via Melody
In this lesson I will show you how to improve your improvisation by basing it on the structure of the melody. I'll walk you through this method over Blues for Ike and ove
23 July, 2019
Winning Improvisation Structure #1 – All of Me via Harmony – The Road to Stability
In this video, I show you how paying attention to the harmonic movement, direction and energy of a song transforms your solos into beautiful music. Make your jazz improvis
18 July, 2019
Django’s Castle – Solo Guitar Arrangement and Improvisation
In this lesson, we’ll learn the beautiful ballad, Django’s Castle (Manoir de Mes Rêves), by Django Reinhardt. We’ll start from the basics so everyone can follow and move on
28 March, 2019
Improvisation with Triads
The triad improvisation method allows you to simply improvise over any note you like, chromatically and diatonically in a simple and fun way, by visualizing and mastering t
12 December, 2018
Double enclosure – Improvisation method, taken from the first phrase of Django’s Tiger
The first phrase of Django’s Tiger is so beautiful that I just had to understand it. It makes it easier to see it over the following chord shape:
02 December, 2018
A lot of new guitarists in the Gypsy Jazz genre have the same dilemma
A lot of new guitarists in the Gypsy Jazz genre have the same dilemma: Should I learn the Rest-Stroke picking method (The Gypsy traditional picking technique) or not?
01 October, 2018
How to Improvise with the Half dim Arpeggio over the Blues and add a Trill Ornaments
In this lesson, we will learn how to improvise with the half dim arpeggio over the dominant chord to get the 7add9 sound.
05 September, 2018
La Pompe
In this lesson, I will talk about the Gypsy Jazz accompaniment, La Pompe, and about a very important and interesting question I got from one of the students of my La Pompe
24 July, 2018
How to simplify chord progressions
Some songs have so many chords that change so fast that it's very hard to improvise over them. You find yourself just running after the chords and after the form of the son
26 May, 2018
La Vie en Rose – Gypsy and Jazz Chord Study
Let's talk about your chord playing and about your chord vocabulary. But , before we start, what are chords? A better answer, for our needs, than the basic definiti
13 January, 2018
Talking Jazz with Evan Christopher and Yaakov Hoter – Part 3 Phrases, Performance and Practice
A person can know many phrases, Gypsy Jazz licks and Django Reinhardt's licks very well and still not have the knack of producing an interesting solo. You can think of phra
20 October, 2017
Talking Jazz with Evan Christopher and Yaakov Hoter – Part 2. Melody, Chords and Colors
A few years ago, my band, Swing De Gitanes, and I played a series of concerts with Evan Christopher - one of today’s leading clarinetist. Between the performances, we had a
26 September, 2017
Talking Jazz with Evan Christopher and Yaakov Hoter – Part 1. Swing, Groove and Time.
I divided our talk into 3 parts. In this first part, we talk mainly about swing origins, groove and time.
14 September, 2017
How to Spice Up Your Accompaniment
I remember when I was young and started to play, I always used to sit around and play songs that I learned from a real book or something and would just play the straight ch
24 February, 2016
How to Spice Up Your Melody Playing
In this lesson, I show you how to play a melody all by yourself and how to make it interesting. One thing I love to do is to add chords to a melody.
24 February, 2016
Insights about Jazz Improvisation:
After years of playing, hundreds of students, hours of online lessons at my site and a lot of questions from frustrated students around the world who just want to learn how
24 February, 2016