Here is a simple diminished chord substitution that I now use sometimes over dominant chords. Here is a example of the first two chords of Sweet Georgia Brown and each one is followed by 2 diminished chords which can be used as substitutions. The first chord is E7 and the second is A7. Note the difference in the position of the substitution. Over the E7 I use the tri-tone and over the A7 I use the arp starting with the major 3rd. I am also showing here that each diminished chord is movable by a 3 fret increment.
——–|——–|-
—9-6–|—5-8–|-
-7-7-4–|-6-3-6–|-
-6-9-6–|-5-5-8–|-
—8-5–|—4-7–|-
-7——|-5——|-
Practice playing along with the song and try experimenting with the substitutions. If your lead player is trying to play diminished runs over dominant chords you might help him out by using this kind of sub.

I got really lucky and found a used battery powered Crate Taxi 30B amp (for $45) and since I also bought an 30 watt Ultrasound amp a few weeks ago (for $200) I can now say that I can tell you which amp is better.
The winner by a HUGE margin is the Crate Taxi. They are both rated at 30 watts but the Taxi can put out at least 2x or almost 3x the volume. When the Taxi is turned up to 40% its at the same volume that the Ultrasound begins to distort. In fact the Ultrasound turns out to be barely loud enough for rooms with above average talking noise. I can turn the Ultrasound up to about 2 or 3 before a BigTone causes it to distort and thats bad news in my opinion. It could be that I need a preamp to give it more power but im not sure.
The Taxi blows the Ultrasound completely out of the water. Also the Crate is smaller, lighter and has an 8 hour battery in it. I put the batter to the test and indeed will last greater than 5 hours.
The Crate will cost you $250 and the Ultrasound will cost $200. I didn’t know this a few weeks ago. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I thought I would share the information with everyone.
Given the performance of the Taxi, I still have never tried an AER but I am telling you all now that the Crate Taxi has set a tough bar to beat and so the AER better be good, especially without having battery power.
Currently my setup is a Schertler pickup and the Crate Taxi. Someday I want to try a vintage tube amp but I will wait a while until I have more performance experience.

Harness the whole-tone scale by using the tri-tone with your major triads.
The example below shows a arpeggio stack that you can play of a G major chord. Look carefully at it. It is basically 3 notes of G major arp followed by 3 notes of the Db major triad and then it repeats this theme again one octave higher. The Db is the tri-tone of G and so we are harnessing the tri-tone substitution on this run.
Now, notice the relationship between a whole-tone scale shown at the bottom and compare it to the arpeggio stack I just mentioned.

————————–| G and Db arp stack
——————–6-9-8-|
————–4-7-6——-|
——–3-6-5————-|
—2-5-4——————|
-3————————|
———————7-9–| WT scale
—————–6-8——|
————-4-6———-|
———3-5————–|
—–2-4——————|
-3-5———————-|

This run also works over Sweet Georgia Brown.

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An exercise to practice over the first16 bars of Sweet Georgia Brown. The Sweet Georgia Brown melody has 9ths in it and since rhythm sections typically use 9ths in this tune, then these diminished scales wont fit exactly, but its a fun exercise anyways. If the rhythm section stuck to strict 7th chords only, then these arpeggios would sound much nicer.
——————7-10-| over E7
—————-9——|
———–7-10——–|
——-6-9————-|
—5-8—————–|
-7———————|
——————6-9–| over A7
—————8——-|
———–6-9———|
——-5-8————-|
—4-7—————–|
-5———————|
——————5-8–| over D7
—————7——-|
———–5-8———|
——-4-7————-|
—3-6—————–|
-5———————|
—————7-10—-| over G
————-8———|
———–7———–|
——-5-9————-|
—–5—————–|
-3-7——————-|

I noticed a relationship on the guitar which seems a bit magical. The fact that a F major arpeggio can be overlayed by a A harmonic minor scale or a Ab diminished arpeggio. If you think in terms of approach notes and accept that they exist while you play then you can almost say that “Fmaj resembles A harmonic minor which contains Ab diminished”. This means that over any F major chord I should be able to play A harmonic minor (gypsy scale) or the Ab diminished right? In theory this would give me more of a gypsy sound if I use these substitutions in action right?
I’ll lay these three arpeggio/scales out for you so that you can decide. Note the relationship of these 3 items and how they intersect with each other. Notice that the harmonic minor traces many of the approach notes of the Fmaj arpeggio.
—————5-8-|
————-6—–| Fmaj
———–5——-|
——-3-7———|
—–3————-|
-1-5—————|
—————————4-5-7-| Am harmonic
———————–5-6——-|
—————–4-5-7———–|
————-6-7—————–|
——-5-7-8———————|
-5-7-8—————————|
———————-4-7—–7-10—-| Abdim
——————-6——6-9———|
—————4-7——————–|
———–3-6————————|
——-2-5—————————-|
-1-4-7——————————–|
Now if you visualize only strings D,G,B, and E then you will see that in the first diagram above I traced the Fmaj arpeggio at the 5th position. The concept that I explain above, in terms of laying the harmonic minor over that arp, also works over the major arpeggio at the 8th postion and the 12th position. This should be a massive epiphany for anyone because it suggest how to actually use the harmonic minor over major chord forms. This is where you should develop some muscle memory and its also 2 finger friendly.
NOTE: Playing a harmonic minor scale over the Major (1,3,5) chord or a V7 (1,3,5,7) chord outlines a V7(b9,b13) chord (altered dominant). Harmonic minor will NOT work over an unaltered 9th chord and so be careful about this concept over a rhythm player who plays 9th’s. I may be wrong about this but this is still my suspicion until i have more experience.
For those of you in-the-know, this adds more M.I.B.

The Stephane Wrembel visit is now finally over. It was fun having him in Portland to show us all a few things. I think he turned out to me a much more friendly and personable person that I expected.
Stephanes first set of workshops in Portland were described by him to be an “organic” method of learning and deriving music from the guitar. It was a fantastic learning experience and definitely worthwhile but left me only wanting more after watching him play. He certainly has a lot more to offer as a teacher than he was able to convey in only 7 hours of material. I look forward to the next time we get a chance to learn from him.
There were a great deal of fundamental concepts, mostly revolving around rhythmic feel of the music, which astonished and enlightened most of us here in Portland. He gave us over 40 pages of handouts describing the ideas he gave in the workshop. I think the material will keep Portland busy woodshedding for a while.
I am a very well read person as far as gypsy guitar method books are concerned. I can almost say I own or have seen almost everything out there. In terms of the rhythmic concept that we learned, there is not a book so far that is able to teach the ideas he showed us (although I expect to learn a lot from Michael Horowitzs upcoming book). In terms of licks or harmony, Stephane talked about a few concepts which are presenting in other books, like Romanes l’Espirit Manouche book, such as “stacking” and re-thinking arpeggios, but then Stephane went and added much more to those ideas and taught us ways to mix this thinking with the other “organic” concepts he discussed.
Stephanes material was a perfect compliment to the l’Espirit Manouche lessong book however and I think I learned more from Stephanes workshop after having read Romanes book. Stephane says his new book is now finished and will be in publication by Mel Bay within a month or two and I expect it will be an eye opening experience if its anything like this workshop.

I wanted to acquire a list of tunes which were authored specifically by Django himself. If you are looking at this list and you see something which is missing or incorrect, please let me know and I can update it.
I think Django deserves a spotlight on the work and contributions which were his. I hope this list can be a reminder to always return back to the catalog of tunes which he shared with the world.