Practice, practice, practice!
I have been playing arpeggios and scales and working on my tremolo sound and bends and stuff this afternoon. It makes me so giddy. Every note gets me closer to playing like Django. But I need to get disciplined about my practice. I need to do it for at least 30 minutes a day and whip out my metronome.
Later:
It occurs to me that playing like Django Reinhardt really involves trying to think like Django Reinhardt. And since he was a genius like Charlie Parker was a genius, that'll take quite a shift in my brain. The thing is that when I have a sudden insight into how Django's mind worked, I get so excited, it flies out of my head immediately. Like when a kid first learns how to balance on and ride a bike without training wheels, realizes what he's doing and immediately falls to the ground. At the same time, it's like what I imagine religious ecstasy must be like. I get a flash of total communion, and with the next breath, it's gone. The arpeggios and scales are so that I don't have to think about my hands and can play what my head is singing. I must retool my hearing, disconnect my chattering mind in order to connect with somthing bigger. I know I can do this. I have improvised before accidentally when I was really into a song I was practicing. When I became aware of it, I fell off my bike. Fearlessness will come when my hands and ears and emotions are seamlessly connected. I am sure that there are musicians who just phone it in, but why do that when you can truly exist and feel your whole life and world in a note? Just be from note to note. And in between the notes. That's the difference between playing patterns like a machine and playing the patterns because you hear and feel them and they just happen to be how the sounds are mapped out on the fretboard.
Later:
It occurs to me that playing like Django Reinhardt really involves trying to think like Django Reinhardt. And since he was a genius like Charlie Parker was a genius, that'll take quite a shift in my brain. The thing is that when I have a sudden insight into how Django's mind worked, I get so excited, it flies out of my head immediately. Like when a kid first learns how to balance on and ride a bike without training wheels, realizes what he's doing and immediately falls to the ground. At the same time, it's like what I imagine religious ecstasy must be like. I get a flash of total communion, and with the next breath, it's gone. The arpeggios and scales are so that I don't have to think about my hands and can play what my head is singing. I must retool my hearing, disconnect my chattering mind in order to connect with somthing bigger. I know I can do this. I have improvised before accidentally when I was really into a song I was practicing. When I became aware of it, I fell off my bike. Fearlessness will come when my hands and ears and emotions are seamlessly connected. I am sure that there are musicians who just phone it in, but why do that when you can truly exist and feel your whole life and world in a note? Just be from note to note. And in between the notes. That's the difference between playing patterns like a machine and playing the patterns because you hear and feel them and they just happen to be how the sounds are mapped out on the fretboard.
Comments
and i can't improvise to save my life. take away my sheet music and i'm in real trouble, so very impressed that you can at all - keep up the practice!