How often did you make music in the caravans ?
Among the Manouches, there is music every day. It's
the tradition. Perhaps today the children play with their Playstations, because
it's the year 2000, another world, but there is still a place for the musicians,
the guitar and the violin. At our house, there is music every day with my
children. My daughter is eleven and my son two.
Bas your son started to play yet, at two years? Yes,
for only three days now! Be is beginning on what?
My flfSt guitar, which I had when I was three. A very
small guitar.
You teach people how to play jazz manouche. Bow do you
go about explaining this style to students ? The first thing to learn is the
rhythm, a mixture of jazz and French swing. We take the harmonic
structure from jazz, from standards like "1 Can 't Give You Anything But Love," but the rhythm is Gypsy. [Christophe demonstrates.]
Is that rhythm derived from a previous, pre-jazz style
of Gypsy rhythm guitar playing?
A little. Gypsy music is usually played faster than
swing. It is more like punctuation. [He pJays a rapid series of bass notes,
each followed by a short percussive strum.] The rhythm is very, very rapid, and
very binary -one, two, one, two. Jazz is a bit more temary -one, two, three,
one, two, three. So, the music of the tsiganes is very close to the
rhythm of jazz. It's just a question of speed. By contrast, the music of
flamenco and the Spanish Gypsies is not so close to jazz. It's not the same
pulse.
And the guitar solo style, is that an initiation of
the violin?
Yes. But one can't play as fast on the guitar as on
the violin. Bow does the guitarist approach improvising a solo, then?
Django listened to Gypsy music, jazz, and classical
music. AlI three are important for playing this
style. There is a lot in common with classical music,
Paganini, Ravel, Bach -especially the use of arpeggios (chords in which each
note is sounded individually}.
What about the pick ? Is there a particular manner of
using the pick ?
One must pick each note separately. In American bop
and jazz, one plays with many legatos (multiple notes per each siroke of the
pick} but in Django, every note is attacked. Very powerful, rhythmic, like a
train.
What about the direction of the pick ?
There is a logic. It is mostly down-up, down-up. We
use "sweep picking" for [ascending] arpeggios but never for
[descending arpeggios]. It lacks power. [He demonstrates, connecting several
notes of an ascending arpeggio across the strings without changing pick
direction, then playing the descending arpeggio using altemating down and up
strokes.] Why? Historically, there was no amplification, so you had to attack
the string very hard. And if you rest your hand on the guitar's soundboard, you
block the sound. So you have to play with the arm bent, to let the top vibrate.
And the left hand?
With Django, everything was played with two fingers.
So unlike classical style, you must move constantly and choose the path you
want. It is not written down in a score. It's for that reason it's so difficult
to play Django. You have to listen and learn where he is on the guitar. [He
plays one of Django's solos for "Minor Swing," using only two
fingers.] The force is in the first two fingers. One doesn 't use the fourth
finger much. In modem jazz, yes, but not Django.
But when you yourselfplay Django, you use other
fingers occasionally...
Yes, now. Because it can hurt! Django was very strong,
a genius. I learned alI his tunes with two ….