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And that is the sound of Gypsy Jazz. We’re going to be exploring
the music of actually Paris in the 20’s, Le Hotclub, Django Reinhardt.
And being from San Francisco, I get a chance to play with a guy called
Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks who also has explored this kind of music
along with many, many other people.

What I’m going to do here is I’ve created a track around this style of
music and as you can see, this is a specifically different kind of
acoustic guitar. This is actually an archtop and it’s a Gretsch Synchromatic.
In fact, Django Reinhardt did play one of these. If you look at some
pictures of him in the ’20s and ’30s, he played it.

What I’m going to do is I’m going to show you some rhythm moves first,
and we’re in the key of A here. To basically run this down, we’re
dealing with an A chord, a B-7th and then a B-minor with an E-9 and
back to an A. So in slow motion it sounds like… Pretty simple
progression. Then you go to the E-9.

What’s interesting about this, if you were making a climb — so we’re
going from an A to a B to a B-minor, but there’s also a way to do it
in the 3rd position A, where we actually do a chromatic walkdown, which
is really fun. And I’m going to show you that. I played it for you on the intro.

If you look at an A chord here, you also have one here. So what’s
interesting about that is even though the bottom rhythm is making
a climb, you go against that with the top rhythm, which is a 3rd
position A chord. Here it is. See where my fingers land there?
And then you go down a half a step on the G string to an E-flat.
And one more half a step, little bit of a stretch do a D note on
the G string and then back to your A root.

So if you listen to it, it almost sounds a little bit like a banjo.
You know, the music at that time was pretty much acoustic stuff,
acoustic jazz. Stéphane Grappelli was playing violin at that time
with Django Reinhardt and amazing instrumentals, great flavor.
I just saw a Woody Allen movie called “Midnight in Paris” and
that music was playing a big part in it.

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What I want to illustrate here is, you know, a lot
of even rock players, people like Jimmie Page from
Led Zepplin and Steve Howe from Yes, obviously guys
like Richard Thompson and many different players have
classical influences in their playing for lots of
different reasons. It could be where they’re from or
what their background was. Maybe they studied. And I
think it’s a real valuable thing.

I’m now approaching finger style and a really simple
way to enter into this is that occurs to me is an
A-minor chromatic.

However, that being said, feel free to comment and
tell us YOUR favorite guitarists too!

Also please stay tuned for our LIVE call with Jimmy on Thursday.
You’ll get a chance to talk to me and JD. Call in details coming soon.

(Click in the image for a bigger version).

So the first pass is going to show you it’s just a
simple descending line. And when I say a descending
line, what do I mean? Well, in the key of G we have
some target notes that I’m going to show you that
explain how you can walk down and connect different
chords. And connecting chords is really important
in the language of guitar, in the language of music
because it’s what puts the spice into it. It really
makes it interesting.

So instead of going from just a G to a C, there’s a
way to utilize open strings and get a flow going with
your playing, and I’m going to show you how that goes.
This first example goes like this. My target notes are
going to be G, F-sharp, E, D and then on the A string
a C, a B and then you jump to a D chord. And here’s a
great passing note here, a low F-sharp. I’ll tell you,
when I learned that D chord with the F-sharp, it was a
great day. A really fat chord, really rich.

Let me just show you that slowly, one more time. Now,
watch how my fingers move here. I’m utilizing my third
finger, starting on a G on the D string. Now, what I’m
doing is I’m letting the other G string ring and this
is really important to note, because ringing out while
you’re doing passing chords, while you’re doing walkdowns
or walkups is a big part of what makes the sound rich and
interesting and chime-y kind of. It really rings out.

So I’m going to do the passage once and then I’m going
to go back and show you how I did it. So it sounds like this.

Now, you’ll notice I’m using my third finger and then
I’m moving my second finger on the D string. Then I’m
using my second finger again on the D string, E note.
You see how my finger has got everything open here? Now,
on that first part of the passage, you should notice
that I’m only using three strings: the D, the G and the
B string. So only those three strings are ringing out
for now. This is a very simple version of it. Very effective.

Now, what you can do is add your pinkie to that third
passage. And then… You see, I’m hitting the D note on
the B string. This is really in two parts. This is your
first part. Notice I’m picking up that D note on the B
string? And then you’ve got your E note on your D string,
your high D note, with your pinkie on the B string.
That’s part one of this lick.

Part two is, your target note is your low C on your A string.
You see how I’m playing a C chord there? That’s the fourth
chord to the progression. And then you move your second
finger and pick-up the B note on the A string, open D and
your C on your B string and your open G. So that’s the second part.

Now, you’ll remember from “Solo Acoustic Guitar” that picking
pattern. Down, down, up, up, down. So here’s what it sounds
like with just the first two parts together. Slowly. See my
target notes. Open D, now to the C, B with the high D, and
now you go to a D chord. Your target note here is your open
D string. Here’s the key note, the low F-sharp.

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More on that later.

For now, grab your gee-tar and learn this cool lick.

GO!

You know, you can’t get enough hot licks or enough
great new licks. So what I’d like to do now is just
show you in the key of G and also in the key of D,
which we’ve been working in, some licks that work
around that key. So this is in the key of G. I’ll
show you a couple cool licks.

This one here was shown to me by a friend of mine
who’s a great picker. Now, what it is, is you’re
in the key of G and so you slide up to a B note.
If you remember, G has many positions. One of
them is this one. We’re going to talk later about
how chords can inform melodies, chordal melodies.

In this case, we’re working off this position of
the G chord. I’m going to show you a lick that’s
descending in an interesting way. It has some
dissonant notes to it. It goes… It looks
complicated and it’s got some weird little
angles to it, so I’ll take it apart slowly.

I’m doing a half step on my high E and there’ll
be a tab for this. But you go up to a B note
from a B-flat and then you land on your G note.
So that’s a B-flat to a B, a G note on your B
string and then an E, open E. Now here’s where
it gets tricky. That’s an E-flat. It sounds
weird, doesn’t it? But the dissonance and we’re
going to get into this later, dissonance is a
fun thing. This is dissonance. It kind of makes
it sound sort of like biting into a lemon, isn’t it?

When you put it in context it really pulls. If
you’re in the key of G… So I’m going to context
this to that. So dissonance, again… So the first
half is… Oh, the butler did it. And then from an
E-flat to a D. You reach down and pick-up your high E.
Then you go down here to a B-flat and then pick up
your B string and all the way down to a low G.

Right now we’re going to get a little bit of
Celtic music coming at you. I’m Irish-American;
that’s my heritage. On my dad’s side all my
relatives come from Ireland, from southern Ireland.
So I feel the Irish, the Celtic music in my blood.

I wrote a song called “Clan Dillon”. My last name
is Dillon, obviously, and “Clan Dillon” is really
to my ancestors. And the other name for the song
is called “Rituals”. When I wrote “Rituals”, I
wanted to capture the mood of the green hills of
Ireland, if you will. And so this is called “Rituals”.
And what I’m going to do is I’m going to show you the
chords to it and then I’m going to show you the lead
that’s got some really interesting Celtic patterns
in D-minor.

First of all, I want to say that we’re in drop-D tuning.
What we’ve done is we’ve taken our E string and dropped
it down a full step. D-tuning is kind of nice because
you get that bottom. Very dynamic. Now what I like to
call this — it’s sort of a modal tuning. It’s neither
major nor minor, but the scales we’re going to be working
on and the passage we’re going to be working on for all
intents and purposes are D-minor.

Now, in this particular song, the way it goes, I’m going
to teach you the changes. They’re really basic. It’s a
B-minor, which you probably know by now. That’s the first
chord, and the second chord is just a straight C. Now,
be careful when you hit this C not to hit the low D at
the same time. It’s not the end of the world if you do.
It’s a little bit of a discord. So, in general, when
hitting the C, make sure your target note is this one
right here. And then your target note on your first
chord is your low D. So the verses are just simply a
D-minor, then back to your C, back to your D-minor.
It’s got a kind of nice strum. This is what marks the
end of the verse.

Now, the B section is interesting. This is a B-flat
chord. So you’ve got a B-flat on your bass on your A
string and your pinkie is on the B note of your B string,
and then a half-step up to a C. So from a B-flat, a B, C.
See how that’s going? It’s a C with a D in it.

The bridge goes to a G. Now remember you’ve got your E
down to D. So you’re going to have to do a different kind
of G. Check this out. This is a cool kind of G. It almost
sounds like bagpipes. So the way you accomplish that is,
you take your third and your pinkie on the 3rd fret of the
E and the A string and slide it up. Your first finger is
on your C note on your B string and your D note slides up.
It’s almost as if — you have to visualize that if it was
down to an E, your G position obviously looks like that.
But because we’ve gone down to a D, we have to finger it
this way. But what happens, it gets a very dark sound.
You hear that? Almost a foreboding kind of sound.

So that’s how this song goes. It’s called “Rituals” and
I wrote “Rituals” — I came up with the name “Rituals”
because to me, a ritual is something that’s a little more
conscious than a habit. A ritual is something you do over
and over. And for me, like practicing guitar could be a
ritual. I pick up my guitar every day and practice. So I
wanted to basically describe — we talk about acoustic
enlightenment, so a ritual, you know, if you practice
your guitar every day, you’re going to get better. My
job is to find something inspiring to show you. So in
this one I’m going to show you some different chords.

Hey guitar friends! Claudio Johnsonater here and excited as
heck about the new course from Jimmy Dillon. It’s called “Acoustic
Enlightenment” and it comes out in a few weeks.

It picks up where “Soul of Acoustic Guitar” left off… I think you’re
gonna really dig it.

Please post your comment!

Hi, I’m Jimmy Dillon. Welcome to “Acoustic Enlightenment”.