Method for Playing Guitar Like Charlie Christian?

[princeplanet]

FWIW, I also steadfastly refuse to believe CC never played upstrokes, it just ain't human!

Then again, so much of what he came up with was still superhuman, so...

[Litterick]

"From every angle that I looked at Charlie Christian's right hand, it looked as though he were doing everything wrong. Even in his left hand. But it was his drive and his music which made him so great."

Barney Kessel, Guitar Player, Vol 7, 1973, p46

[Christian Miller]

I expect CC used either rest stroke picking or something similar. This chimes with Barney’s remarks on him using mostly downstrokes.

rest stroke picking does not necessarily mean virtuoso Django style picking. Charlie’s right hand is clearly in a different stance in photos, quite anchored and ‘locked’.

Otoh an assertive rest downstroke is a natural and intuitive way to get acoustic volume out of the instrument, and Charlie also recorded on acoustic guitar. I suspect this was the way pretty much all players played single note lines in the 1930s just to be heard at all without amplification.

On electric it gives a very assertive sound that’s a good match for the way Charlie played.

i also found it a good fit for playing his lines.

I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that Barney would have identified Charlie’s technique in this case as I’m not sure this terminology (gypsy picking, etc) was in circulation back then.

[Christian Miller]

All of that said, the Tristano school were obsessed with Charlie and guitarists learning in that school were expected to play with all downstrokes. John Klopotowski recalls Warne Marsh instructing him to do this. Afaik Billy Bauer (Joe Satriani’s teacher haha) played with downstrokes.

A modern player who plays downstrokes only at moderate speeds is Mike Moreno.

[Christian Miller]

Here’s some stuff I did ages ago, don’t know if it’s any help

[JazzPadd]

i greatly enjoy method books and the like, so id prefer a book method, as i like to deeply understand the theory behind what i’m playing/transcribing. if it helps, i am an advanced guitarist technique-wise. however my ability to read music is essentially none (i can read tab though).

thank you!

I enjoy working with books, too. This one helped to get some CC under my fingers way back in the 1980s.



I was a work-a-day musician, but eventually quit music altogether in the 1990s. Now jazz is a just-for-fun endeavor but some CC lines from way back then still pop up in my playing. It seems very intuitive to me, especially once you internalize some of the tunes. For that, listening is crucial.

It’s not a method book; it’s mostly transcriptions, but the first 10-15 pages gives enough info to get the gist of his approach, including fingerings. Here’s the TOC and a couple pages:



Not sure if it’s still in print, but well worth trying to track down a copy. It’s part of a series that has volumes on Django, Bird, Monk and others.

Good luck on your journey, and have fun!

[daveg]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swing-Bop-C...s%2C104&sr=1-2

DG

[Litterick]

Jas Obrecht and Joel Siegel interviewed Eddie Durham for Guitar Player in 1979. Durham recalled meeting Charlie Christian at an Oklahoma City pool hall in 1937:

Charlie was only playing a little piano then. He wasn’t playing guitar yet. He asked me to give him some pointers, like what to do if you want to play with class and get through life with the instrument. He wanted to know technical things, like how to pick a certain way. So I showed him the way to sound like I did. I said ‘Don’t ever use an upstroke, which makes a tag-a-tag-a-tag sound; use a downstroke. It takes an awful fast wrist to play a downstroke— it gives a staccato sound, with no legato, and you sound like a horn.

[Christian Miller]

Ah yes, Eddie Durham! Of course. Very important musican given he also came up with many of the early Basie arrangements.

I have heard it said (not sure where unfortunately) that Eddie Durham is also responsible for popularising the m6 sound in jazz which shows up in both those Basie sides and in Charlie’s soloing. I don’t know how true this is, but it’s an interesting link.

[pingu]

all this talk of downstrokes is
cheering me right up !

thanks all

I’m pretty much all downstrokes
myself

I can’t alt pick for shit ….
I’m 67 , it ain’t gonna happen now
(believe me I have tried)

so I just concentrate on playing
the good notes , telling the story ,
and making it swing
which Charlie did in spades of course

[Dean_G]

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, haven't read the whole thread.
Here's a very good Mel Bay published method book for Charlie Christian. Standard notation and fingerboard charts for patterns. Nice analysis and solo transcriptions.

[Tom Karol]

I'm 75, and I started playing the guitar when I was 12. I have lots of other influences - even went to Berklee for a couple of years - but the basis of all my jazz guitar playing is having worn out these two albums early on:

• Charlie Christian with the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra;
• The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery.

I can't play every note, but I can still sing along accurately to almost every note in every solo!

[mr. beaumont]

Re: downstrokes, I will say this...

I do NOT play every CC lick I've stolen with all downstrokes...but you know what? I could.

[PMB]

Jas Obrecht and Joel Siegel interviewed Eddie Durham for Guitar Player in 1979. Durham recalled meeting Charlie Christian at an Oklahoma City pool hall in 1937:

Charlie was only playing a little piano then. He wasn’t playing guitar yet. He asked me to give him some pointers, like what to do if you want to play with class and get through life with the instrument. He wanted to know technical things, like how to pick a certain way. So I showed him the way to sound like I did. I said ‘Don’t ever use an upstroke, which makes a tag-a-tag-a-tag sound; use a downstroke. It takes an awful fast wrist to play a downstroke— it gives a staccato sound, with no legato, and you sound like a horn.

Eddie's comment that non-legato downstrokes help guitarists to achieve a sound like a horn is counter to the thinking of most bop and post-bop guitarists (at least if we take 'horn' as meaning saxophone). In fact, Chuck Wayne was by his own admission a CC-style player until hearing Charlie Parker perform one evening. His immediate thoughts were that he either had to give up playing altogether or totally revise his technique. He chose the latter and basically invented economy picking (Wayne called it 'consecutive alternate'). Wayne's contemporaries such as Jimmy Raney and Tal Farlow made similar adjustments to translate bop lines onto their instrument. More recently, Allan Holdsworth considered legato as a key factor in his attempt to imitate saxophones and he sought to minimise pick attack altogether. His example has informed the approach of Kurt Rosenwinkel and so many other recent players.

[Christian Miller]

I thought Charlie C was heavily influenced by Prez?

[Jimmy Smith]

Learn at least one solo note for note. Then you're going to want to get your theory down so you can understand what the characteristic devices are in his playing and do them yourself. If you can't do that on your own, then you have to get a teacher.

[Jimmy blue note]

I thought Charlie C was heavily influenced by Prez?

Yes, well documented anecdotes and stories were that when Charlie was on the bandstand, musicians would mistake the soloist as being Prez, so similar were their phrasing. I got a lot from learning Lester Young solos after hearing these stories and I certainly learned a lot from immersing myself in Lester's solos. I find it a little funny that so much is emphasized in Charlie Christian studies and until now, overlooking Prez's heavy guiding sound to Charlie's light touch.
He's certainly the one that Charlie himself learned from.

[MorganP]

I bought this Charlie Christian Method e-book from JoeDocMusic the other day.
Looks pretty good.

https://www.joedocmusic.com/product/...-method-ebook/

[David B]

Try playing along with Frank Vignola in this 30 minute+ class to get a few riffs and some phrasing under your fingers.

[trabant]

Great topic! How is it going with your Charlie studies?

I've recently taken a deep dive into Charlie Christian's music and it's very rewarding! I've been playing guitar for many many years in the typical blues/rock realm and while nowadays I mostly listen to jazz and different fusion (world or ethnic music, don't what to call it) my playing has been pretty firmly in the more bluesy stuff. I can hear jazzy melodies and harmonies in my head but aside from phrasing and 'the swing', the actual notes I play are still mostly same old, same old.. My more active days playing with bands and gigging are long gone so now I'm a hobbyist with a family so I have some time constraints as well.

In this context, it seems Charlie's solos and the tunes with Benny are a fantastic place to spend the time I have with my guitar because they are very approachable and easier to learn by ear than a lot of the stuff I usually listen to while being in the swing and jazz idiom (or creating it esp. for the guitar).

First I try to internalise and learn the tunes and solos by ear and I also use these resources to fill in the gaps and to make sure I fully understand the theory and Charlie's method: the soloflight.cc web page, Charlie Christian method book and The Best of Charlie Christian book. They're all excellent resources and the CC Method book is especially good if you're more of a beginner. Otherwise the soloflight.cc web site is more than enough to complement learning by ear and transcribing.

Right now I'm thinking that once I have a dozen or more CC/Benny tunes fully memorised and firmly under my belt, I will learn the Swing to Bop solos. They're pretty straight-forward stuff but so goddamn swinging and tasty, especially given the time and context. I love those two solos to death! I think maybe that way I can start a new approach towards the later more beboppy stuff with a better understanding of jazz and swing than before.