There are a lot of great songs to practice soloing to but I find “Sweet Sue” to be a good one for practicing my minor 6th arpeggios. The song has a chromatic run of dominant chords in the B section and it also has 4 bars of D7 in the first half of the A section and so the song creates nice movement that is easy to follow for someone who still has trouble “hearing” chord changes while he plays. Its interesting playing the Am6 arp over that D7 chord and then trying to transpose that same arpeggio to follow that chromatic run in the B part of Sweet Sue by playing bits of the Dm6 to C#m6 to Cm6 to Bm6.
I don’t really like the Sweet Sue tune. Its not something I would normally play for fun because it sounds too American, in my opinion, but I enjoy the song for how it is constructed and for soloing over.
I’ve been practicing playing the Dm6 and the Gm6 arpeggios over Dark Eyes. I have more trouble with Dark Eyes than probably any song. I will start with playing Dm6 over the Dm-A7-Dm section and the switch to Gm6 when I reach the Bb6/9 to Gm6 chords and then back to Dm and F arpeggios at the end of the form on the final A7 and Dm chords.
With Minor Swing it is a bit easier. I memorized the solo note for note and then I try to stick in some of the concepts I mention above into my phrasing. I try altering the melody, as Django played it, and try to understand my ear a bit better.

I spent a bunch of hours rebuilding the Favino archive from scratch. I am really really tired now.
The Favino Archive
If you have any photos of a Favino which is not listed, please send them to me at my alternate email addresss of “jwilliams@djangology.net” . I can accept very large attachments at that email so dont worry about size of the photos. Help me build a larger archive of these beautiful guitars.
Thanks to John Friedrichs for compiling the original site. I hope you enjoy.

Busking on the street is tough work. I’ve been doing 5+ hours every Saturday and now I am going to start doing it Sundays also since the weather is getting better. Last Saturday, when we started at 7:30am, it was only 45 degrees outside, but by noon it was at least 58, which is t-shirt weather around here. Your not hard core unless you completely forget about the weather while your playing right? I wish I lived in California sometimes.
Last Saturday, while we were playing Swing 85, the 42 year old singer for a famous rock band called Everclear, named Art Alexakis, stopped and watched us play for a few minutes. That was sorta cool, having a celebrity watch us play.

Here is my current list of Portland area bands. We will all be at Djangofest so get your guitars ready.
Django’s Cadillac, Hood River OR, CD
Kung Pao Chickens, Portland OR, CD
Djangos Tigers, Portland, OR
Gypsy Jazz Trio, Portland, OR
Rose City Hotclub, Portland, OR
The djangoloiles, Portland, OR
Stillway & Bonham, Portland, OR
Defunct???
Portland Swing, Portland, OR
Rip McCollough Trio, Portland, OR
Gypsy Ale, Parkdale OR
Gypsy Cab, Portland, OR
Everything’s Jake, Portland OR
Gadjo Djazz, Portland OR
12th Avenue Hot Club, Portland OR
Jenga Rhino, Portland, OR
D.J.  Ango, Portland, OR

Because my hand has been sore lately, I have done some research into symptoms and prevention of hand injuries related to overuse and repetitive stress syndrome. So far I haven’t obtained any hand related injury but I am intent on not letting it happen.
Lately I have been focusing on fingering my chords as lightly as possible with the knowledge that a slight pressure difference can make all the difference in the world to your hand. It seems that 25% too much pressure could cause an injury over time and I want to make sure nothing happens to me while I maintain up to an 8 hour practice day at least once a week among all of the other 3+ hour practice days.
I added two links at the bottom left hand side of my website that are related to hand injuries. Everyone should be familiar with the facts within those two sites.

Got a chance to play my Schertler through a 50 watt battery powered Crate amp a few times and so far it works pretty good. We put the Crate amp (TX-30B Taxi Battery Powered) to the test with two Schertlers plugged into it (no preamps) and the thing will go 6+ hours straight non-stop without a recharge. Thats pretty good I think.
I can get a wide variation in tonal quality from the Schertler depending on where I stick it on my guitar. If I place it so that the bridge mustache is pointing at it, it gets really “hot” and gets a quality that sounds slightly like playing in a bathroom with the doors closed. If I stick the pickup diagonal from the lower foot of the bridge, then I get a more “muted” sound that is less likely to feedback but its not as “hot”. I have been having fun experimenting with placement and so far I have been very happy with the sound that I get out of it, especially as I get better and placing the pickup.
Normally I would never consider buying a Crate. I have a Crate keyboard amp at home and they are impossible to sell once you buy them. I bought it for $450 and I can’t even dump it for $200. No buyers are willing even though its in mint condition. What is up with the amplifier market these days? An AER on the other hand probably actually has some resale value maybe?
I am curious about trying out an AER and an Ultrasound someday and comparing it to what I hear from the Crate. The Crate doesn’t have the most pleasing sound, but its incredible what you can get out of it when playing on the street.
I have to admit that I had always thought that I would need to buy an AER but I realize more and more that its your playing that counts the most. There is no reason to buy a killer amp unless you are CERTAIN that it will make a difference. If the Crate works, then almost anything else would probably work also, and its nice to know that $$$ don’t need to be wasted to get what I want.