This video was originally streamed live on my Twitch channel. To be part of this process follow me there: www.twitch.tv/christiaanvanhemert Join my Discord to discuss: discord.com/invite/ET88wYANJb

Your videos and book are much better Larson. He can have good ideas, but they seem to not be as well organized, explained and comprehensive as your material Christian. Keep up the good work!

Hey Christiaan. Let me first say that I love your videos and have gotten a lot out of them over the years. Even though I do not play gypsy jazz, I still like the way you think about theory and music. I have definitely transcribed some Grant Green and Charlie Christian, etc.... and sometimes I even plug in some of their lines directly. The conclusion I have come to is that it's maybe not what you play, but how you play it. Would you agree? I feel like if you someone can get a solid 8th note groove with some nice articulation and dynamics, then they can play almost anything and it will sound good. I feel someone with a good groove could run a blues scale over multiple chords and have it sound hip... or play a triad with chromatic enclosures and it will sound like they're on some next level shit. You're a more accomplished guitar player than I am, so I was curious how much or little you would agree with this view.

Having also practiced loads on 2 & 4 I think you are on to something about it being misguided. On the bandstand it often leads to a feeling of disconnection and a need to reset after playing a line. 1 & 3 seems much more secure. As an aside Hal Galper said on a podcast that he has been counting the upbeats while listening to music and it certainly is an interesting experience.

Hi Christiaan, can you explain why Eb7->F is a kind of 251 ?

You’ve two ways to go, Christiaan: Either learn other players phrases and become a copycat (which classical musicians are trained to do - Don’t think! Follow the orders on the sheet music!). Or you can learn how to write your own licks, phrases and melodies, which is a skill that has to be taught and trained just like gypsy flat picking or learning how to bend notes or learning the right intencity of the vibrato etc. When I listen to cover bands, I expect to hear note-by-note identical licks, phrases and solos from the original records - that’s what I’m paying for. But I rarely listen to cover bands. To me, it’s incredibly boring listening to for instance non-sinti gypsy jazz-players copying Django note-by-note. It's stale and scholar-like. Not even Mozes plays like brother Stochelo. It's not the sinti way of learning and performing. I rather listen to sinti jazz-players adopting the gypsy jazz-way of playing to non-Django material. Or creating personal takes on Django-standards. Or improvise songs just like Django did. It’s too limiting to just learn note-by-note renditions of Django-standards. Like most gypsy jazz-players, I come from an eartrained background. I don’t read music. I learn by ear and what I don’t remember I cover-up with phrases or sequences of notes - otherwise I wouldn’t be able to play the tune. So I learn to come up with or compose music based on the core of the tune. And by training those skills over time, I will become better and better at writing phrases, lines and melodies. The number of notes, are irrelevant during the learning process. 8-notes or 4-notes are irrelevant. In the words of Miles Davis: 'The note is only 20%, the attitude of the player who plays it is 80%.' A few 4-notes can be more colourful and telling, than shredding up and down the neck. The BB King-approach rather than the Yngwie Malmsten More is More-approach. Every now and then I get the notion that you are too influenced by your own academic musical background, that you too often teach learned academic approaches. I'm not knocking your skills. You’re technically an excellent guitarplayer, but you don’t tell any stories. By making up your playing of other peoples phrases, you’re like a poet reciting poetry made up by fabulous quotes from poems by other poets, no matter how cleverly it’s been done. Music is storytelling. Storytelling is a skill that can be trained and should be mandatory. Quotes rarely makes up good stories. Other peoples fab phrases, rarely make up interesting songs. But kudos for bring up the matter of learning - how and why. 😊