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Sounds interesting - post it up if you get the chance! On 'la pompe' front, there are so many different ways of doing it: Dennis Chang posted an interesting article about variations in style that's worth a read - http://www.djangobooks.com/blog/the-secrets-of-authentic-gypsy-jazz-rhythm/ (intro probably a dig at Robin Nolan, I'd guess)
DanS
@Dooks-Fatberg
^ awesome. Where do I get one?
^ awesome. Where do I get one? I need moar fuzz in my life.
On the gypsy jazz thang: Thanks for the tips and clips chaps. The commission I have is for a short doc about a retired mineral collector (it's better than it sounds). It's in French with subtitles. I pitched half a dozen things assuming the director didn't want anything overtly French sounding. After two meetings (read: drunken dinners) it became apparent he DID want something overtly French so I went back to the drawing board.
I had a nice little country/blues instrumental thing that had been kicking around for ages that I wanted to use. I tweaked it and added some 9ths on the 5 chords and passing a diminished under an new tweaked melody for that (in)authentic gypsy flava. That really made a big difference actually. So with that as the base, I proposed doing: a sparse slow version for the reflective moments, a mid-tempo picked thing as the main theme and a nicely up-beat Django-esque version for the up-beat ending.
He dug the slow one and that is recorded, done, accepted and in in the film. He didn't dig the picked one at all and wants something else which I'll have to come up with next week. It wasn’t the best rendition to be honest and he wants more textures than just guitar so perhaps a new version with upright and accordion might fit the bill. We shall see.
So that left the gypsy version to knock up. I spent a week watching videos and practicing the rhythm till I was comfortable with it. I also listened to nothing but Django all week. I sat up late drinking wine and recording on Weds and ended up with a rhythm track I'm happy with. Widdly bits will be attempted on Sunday. I have a "head" motif and a melody which alternate. By slightly embellishing the melody I can fill 3 mins without sounding too repetitive or having to rely on my non-existent jazz impro skills. Sweeet!
^^^The version of la pompe that worked best for me was to have the full chord on the 1 and 3 and muting the fretted chord on the 2 and 4. I thought that completely choking it off (fnar fnar) to just a rhythmic chop on the 2 and 4 (as suggested in that vid up there ^^^) didn't sound right at all. Totally agree that the key seems to be keeping it straight and clean however. Trying to add any kind of fancy upstrokery in the rhythm track almost always sounds messy. Actually, the hardest bit for me was to check my natural inclination to add root/fifth bass after years of playing country rhythm. I kept catching myself doing it and having to start over. Anywhere, got there in the end I hope. Although to be honest I haven’t listened to it sober yet…