Tips and tricks for practicing with Djangolizer
How we learn things
When you start to learn Gypsy Jazz, you should look for a guitar teacher or a studybook. You may also find some helpful videos on YouTube.Djangolizer will be just an addition. It will help you practicing songs and gives you the orientation over the fretboard.
There are two basic things to know about learning guitar:
- The cognitive learning
It is the understandig with your brain, the knowing, wich scale you can play over a certain chord, where the notes are, wich intervals are used in this scale and so on.It's important to repeat the learned things every day, for not forgetting them.
In this category you'll find the music theory. Thanks to Djangolizer, you don't have to study too much, because he shows you all the scales and connections you can use. If you want to learn more about music theory, ask your teacher or buy a good but easy understanding book.
But it will not help, to study only the theory. Man learns by hearing, observing and of course trial and error...
- The learning by practicing
It means, to coordinate your fingers, to synchronise the movement of both hands and to train your muscles.Not only to avoid forgetting things, you need to repeat the themes and licks every day, but also to keep the speed you increased from practicing like a crazy the last few months.
In this category you'll find the technique. In the Gypsy Swing style this will be mainly the right hand picking.
When you can play all the scales, arpeggios and licks fluently, you have to put them in action.
You should be able to play them in any song in all the tonalities without thinking.
Djangolizer will help you, to practise that at home in peace, but a jam session or a concert, the songs will be played faster than usual and you maybe cannot hear yourself well enough and neither the rhythm guitar. If you can still blow all the licks easily with a smile in your face, then you got it, you became a master.
Enough spoken words, let's grab the guitar...
I wish you good luck and a lot of fun, playing and learning Jazz Manouche with Djangolizer.
Christian Ruh