Stephane, 31 years old, was raised in Fontainebleau, France, just outside of Paris, started playing gypsy jazz ten years ago, went to the Samois gypsy jazz fest for the first time in 1996 and spent significant time jamming with the Parisian gypsies while attending college at the American School of Modern Music in Paris. In 2000, the migrated to the US and eventually graduated from the Berklee School Of Music. His website is located at this location.

Stephane is coming to Portland on May 21st and 22nd to teach all 4 of his gypsy jazz workshops in one 8 hour long session. The workshop is organized into four 2 hour segments. It is meant to cover all the various fundamentals that we need to play gypsy jazz guitar in one huge session.
  * tentative workshop schedule *
Sat, 22nd, 8am-9am, (Optional) Breakfast with Stephane TBA
Sat, 22nd, 10am-12pm, Comping and rhythm technique (includes la Pompe)
Sat, 22nd, 12:15pm-2:15pm, Foundations for improvisation
Sat, 22nd, 2:45pm-4:45pm, Applying improvisation
Sun, 22nd, 5pm-7pm, Transcribing
Stephane is charging $150 for this 8 hour session. I am told that it will include a variation of all the material in his still unpublished book. Handout materials and/or a booklet will be given out to make it easier to absorb all the information. I will also be offering a bonus free video tape copy of a 40min long Stephane HCNY performance to all attendees. I will also be making an audio recording of the entire 8 hours which I will share ONLY with the persons who paid for the workshop. If you cannot take the workshop and you want the audio recording and the handouts, you need to negotiate with Stephane.
The workshop will take place in the home of Rip McColloughs in NE Portland. The address is 5614 NE 11th Avenue. Stephane arrives in Portland at 11am Friday and leaves early Sunday morning.
You can call Rip at (503) 810-4275 to let him know you want to attend. Stephanes CD is one of my very favorite CDs in this whole gypsy jazz genre. He is also well renouned as a teacher on the east coast and has many years of teaching experience with gypsy jazz.
Check our band calendar to see where Stephane will be performing in Portland on the nights of May 21st and 22nd.

Continuing my analysis of the diminished scales in my last post I found another interesting thought that I am trying to follow up on.
Romane uses the diminished scale by thinking of it as the diminished 7th arpeggio flatted one fret down, which i think is effectively the same as just thinking of it as the dom7b9 arp as I tried to emphasize in part 1 of this weblog entry. I am still trying to conceptualize what he is trying to say. He uses the G#dim7 or the Bbmin7b5 and lays that arpeggio over the top of a Dm chord in order to imply an E7b9 chord with tension. This works because if you were to play the Dm arp over the Dm chord you would not create any additional tension but by mixing the dim7 arp over the Dm chord he develops tension in the melody or the layer of sound, which resolves nicely to the Am. In affect, it is E7 -> Am just like you have in Minor Swing.
I know that this idea does not conflict with what I have said in the weblog entry before this one, but at this point I need to chew on it for a while and absorb this and experiment with it until I really understand.

I discovered an easy way to think about where to start a diminished scale. I realized recently that its very easy to confuse the WH diminished and the HW diminished scale on the fingerboard. So, based on the two most common chord shapes, here is a way to distinguish the correct dimished scale to use, which by the way is always the HW (plays over Dom7b9).
—|——————6-9-
—|—————-8—–
-6-|————6-9——-
-5-|——–5-8———–
—|—-4-7—————
-5-|–5——————-
—|——————5-8-
—|—————-7—–
-5-|————5-8——-
-4-|——–4-7———–
—|—-3-6—————
-5-|–5——————-
Practice these two patterns by sounding out the chord and then playing the pattern. Make a note of how both of these sound to your ear. Note how the arpeggio touches the tritone in the chord.
For example, with the D7 chord, use the second pattern above. Translate that D7 chord to a D7 triad using the first pattern above transposed with the root at the 10th fret and hitting the second note at the 9th fret. This gives you 2 starting points for any given chord.
You can also start on a high string with the following pattern, which also works over Am6 or D7, resolving nicely into the HW patterns I show above.
—|-11-8————8-5—————–
—|——10-7—–4—–4—————
-5-|———–8-5———8-5———–
-4-|—————————7-4——-
—|——————————-6-3—
-5-|———————————–5-
Notice how all these patterns resolve into each other. I may be wrong about some of this but most likely I am right. The biggest thing that I am unsure about is the fact that the WH diminished arpeggio should be avoided. It seems to me that since the WH is associated with the dim7th chord that it would not be as important for gypsy jazz. I am not sure if I am right about this but what I show above allows you to distinguish these arpeggios so that you can avoid hitting the wrong notes in that dim7th scale. Or maybe the dim7th is more appropriate over the triad when its interpreted as a minor and the dom7b9 HW arp (shown above) is more appropriate when the triad is interpreted as a dominant chord? Just keep in mind that when you use the WH diminished arpeggio, it touches the leading notes in front of the chord tritone rather than the tritone itself, as I mentioned earlier.

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You do not want to put the wrong strings on your gypsy guitar. The guage of string you pick for your guitar can make a big difference in tension. Too much tension can dampen the spruce top of your guitar, especially with a high bridge, which has a larger force vector created from the bridge angle. Also in the wrong environment, with low humidity, perhaps too much tension can hurt a gypsy guitar which is designed for lighter stress.
I was playing with the string tension calculator. Consider this data:
A bluegrass guitar with bronzewound strings (scale length 25.5 inches):
E, .012″ PL == 23.35# ( 0.0057gm/cm 329.6hz )
B, .016″ PL == 23.3# ( 0.0101gm/cm 246.9hz )
G, .024″ PB == 30.24# ( 0.0209gm/cm 196.0hz )
D, .032″ PB == 30.53# ( 0.0375gm/cm 146.8hz )
A, .042″ PB == 29.94# ( 0.0656gm/cm 110.0hz )
E, .053″ PB == 26.06# ( 0.1017gm/cm 82.4hz )
total == 163.42 pounds
A gypsy guitar with medium Argentines (scale length 26.3):
E, .011″ PL == 20.87# ( 0.0048gm/cm 329.6hz )
B, .015″ PL == 21.78# ( 0.0089gm/cm 246.9hz )
G, .023″ XS == 27.3# ( 0.0177gm/cm 196.0hz )
D, .029″ XS == 24.32# ( 0.0281gm/cm 146.8hz )
A, .037″ XS == 21.46# ( 0.0442gm/cm 110.0hz )
E, .046″ XS == 18.23# ( 0.0669gm/cm 82.4hz )
total == 133.95 pounds
A gypsy guitar with light Argentines (scale length 26.3 inches):
E, .010″ PL == 17.25# ( 0.0040gm/cm 329.6hz )
B, .014″ PL == 18.98# ( 0.0078gm/cm 246.9hz )
G, .022″ XS == 25.02# ( 0.0162gm/cm 196.0hz )
D, .028″ XS == 22.36# ( 0.0258gm/cm 146.8hz )
A, .036″ XS == 20.41# ( 0.042gm/cm 110.0hz )
E, .045″ XS == 17.52# ( 0.0643gm/cm 82.4hz )
total == 121.54 pounds
And finally, a D hole with light Argentines and a short scale length of 25.2:
E, .010″ PL == 15.84# ( 0.0040gm/cm 329.6hz )
B, .014″ PL == 17.42# ( 0.0078gm/cm 246.9hz )
G, .022″ XS == 22.97# ( 0.0162gm/cm 196.0hz )
D, .028″ XS == 20.53# ( 0.0258gm/cm 146.8hz )
A, .036″ XS == 18.74# ( 0.042gm/cm 110.0hz )
E, .045″ XS == 16.09# ( 0.0643gm/cm 82.4hz )
total == 111.59 pounds

I have been playing more than I ever have in the last two months but my soloing has gotten worse. I still can vaguely recall the note for note Minor Swing solo and the Djangos Tiger head but if I don’t keep practicing them I will lose them. Since I have now memorized the repoirtoire of songs for my band I now am starting to have time to work on soloing again.
In the last few days I have been sitting down with the Robin Nolan jam tracks for Djangology and Dark Eyes and putting them through the Transcribe slow downer software so that I can practice at various speeds.
I start by playing my solo extremely slow, with one note per chord at first. Then I speed up my solo by playing the 3 note triad of each chord as I follow the changes. This creates a “skeleton” of a solo pattern for me to work around. From that point eventually I warm myself up and I can solo around this foundation and it helps me think about the changes.
My soloing still sounds terrible but I am trying to develop “rhythm” within the melody that I play and I suppose that starting out slow is the best way to do it. Above all, the hardest part about soloing is just being capable of anticipating chord changes and following the ii-V-I’s with speed. This has been completely daunting to me but I can see how this goal can be achieved. I am going to stick with deep analyzation of the songs that I play until I internalize them to the point where I can easily see and anticipate EVERY chord while I solo. I am hoping that as I do this, as I analyze more and more songs, it will get easier and easier. Crossing my fingers, my pinky and ring finger that is.
Besides that I am planning the memorize the 1941 Dark Eyes solo and reinvigorate my Minor Swing and Djangos Tiger licks. I also need to quickly do a run through all the basic melodies to the songs that I know. Also, I need to memorize the daunting melody to Rose Room.