Gypsy downstrokes

[Stu Foley]

Does the second rule of gypsy picking- 'always use a downstroke when changing strings, even when descending', confer an advantage other than a more assertive tone?

In theory, when playing three notes per string (or any odd number for that matter) on descending strings this rule would seem cumbersome but of course many practitioners such as Stochelo Rosenburg demonstrate otherwise, and I think that Mr Benson uses this picking strategy as well.

Does it offer any benefit to the bebop based player using an electric archtop?

Please excuse me if this question has been asked before but I can't find a consensus amongst convertees.

[P4guitar]

I found that the gypsy down stroke technique was best for optimizing the acoustic sound out of a selmer style guitar. It overdrives a flat top and confers no benefit that I can see for electric. That said some electric players lean to the down stroke side and they're great players.

[christianm77]

Downstroke picking can get you a very assertive old school attack on electrics as well - think Charlie Christian or Barney Kessell.

Having learned it for acoustic playing I'm starting to move away from it a bit. Can be a bit much for more modern, legato styles of playing.

[Hep To The Jive]

Downstroke picking can get you a very assertive old school attack on electrics as well - think Charlie Christian or Barney Kessell.

Having learned it for acoustic playing I'm starting to move away from it a bit. Can be a bit much for more modern, legato styles of playing.

Same here. For me, for tunes like Donna Lee the Gypsy picking is not helping much. Legato style sounds more natural. Lately though, I noticed when playing improvised solo Im mixing down reststroke with alternate picking without thinking. Are there people who do both for dynamics purposes?

[christianm77]

Same here. For me, for tunes like Donna Lee the Gypsy picking is not helping much. Legato style sounds more natural. Lately though, I noticed when playing improvised solo Im mixing down reststroke with alternate picking without thinking. Are there people who do both for dynamics purposes?

Good exercise to practice Donna Lee with the Gypsy picking though.....

I'm doing both, although I'm not sure if that's a good thing! Haha. Actually I think I whack it a bit hard and it can cause me tense up and go out of time. Good picking of any kind should be relaxed...

[Jonathan Levin]

I was just watching a segment of video with Jimmy Bruno talking about how he has worked on an approach to picking that mixes up-down, down up with just up and then just down. And that it sort of has a soloing wind instrument feel, he wasn't quite able to get with standard down-up. I'm still taking it all in. I guess that in some situations the all up or all down picking thing is quicker to get from one place to another, but this takes a LONG time to master.

He shows how he does it and it seems hopeless for me.....

Jonathan

[ecj]

Joe Pass playing Donna Lee:

Joe Pass famously used gypsy picking. Looks like it works pretty well for bop.

[christianm77]

Yeah Joe is the great counter example to the 'gypsy picking is no good for bop' - actually it wouldn't surprise me if Tal Farlow didn't use a similar approach - does anyone know?

My friend Harry Sankey is an excellent young bop & straightahead guitarist who started playing gypsy jazz AFAIK and stuck with the right hand for electric.

For me I always run into issues with muting, so I think you have to be uber clean, and have your amp set right. Doesn't quite work for me for some reason, but I think I prefer a slightly more legato sound for electric too, unless I'm really going for the '40s vibe.

So - see how it works out for you!

[P4guitar]

Joe Pass wasn't using gypsy picking in that video.

[ecj]

Joe Pass wasn't using gypsy picking in that video.

Yes he was. Pass talks about his picking strategies a lot in interviews. There's plenty out there to read up on, and watching that video it's clear as day that he's never moving to a new string with an upstroke.

[P4guitar]

Yes he was. Pass talks about his picking strategies a lot in interviews. There's plenty out there to read up on, and watching that video it's clear as day that he's never moving to a new string with an upstroke.

Downstrokes on string transitions are not the whole of gypsy picking. There is also the rest on the lower string. The angle of his wrist is a dead giveaway.

Watch some Stochelo Rosenberg to see the difference. Even the master Birelli doesn't use gypsy picking on electric - it's simply not a good fit.

[ecj]

Downstrokes on string transitions are not the whole of gypsy picking. There is also the rest on the lower string. The angle of his wrist is a dead giveaway.

Watch some Stochelo Rosenberg to see the difference. Even the master Birelli doesn't use gypsy picking on electric - it's simply not a good fit.

Why do you think he's not resting on the higher string?

Yes, his wrist isn't as severely angled. But the principles are the same.

Also, plenty of people use rest strokes and down picking on electrics. George Benson is the big one. Wes did it with his thumb.

The idea that it's not a good fit for electric seems to have originated in the 80s at GIT or something.

[P4guitar]

My last comment on this. Lot's of players emphasized downstrokes but that is not the entirety of gypsy picking.

I used to play manouche style and got fairly fluent with gypsy picking. It's completely different from what Pass, Barnes, et al are/were doing...and Benson is nowhere in the universe of gypsy picking - he's had his own thing going till he switched to thumb.

Look at Rosenberg at the 2:00 minute mark. If you can't see the difference....

[christianm77]

We should probably draw a distinction between rest stroke picking and gypsy picking in particular then.

Rest stroke picking seems pretty universal - Oud players, Tenor banjoists, Bluegrass cross pickers and Cuban Tres players using variations of this technique.

Gypsy jazz is so specific and particular. I still feel like an imposter every time I pick up my Maccafferi copy, but people still book me on it for some reason.

I suppose the Macaferri isn't just about GJ. I have daydreams about playing modern and contemporary stuff on it :-) It's a great guitar.

[mike335]

Does the second rule of gypsy picking- 'always use a downstroke when changing strings, even when descending'

When I play gypsy descending lines (such as 3 note per string scales descending), I find its better just to alternate pick and then economy (aka gypsy rest stroke,) pick when doing ascending lines . Its pretty impossible to downstroke every new string when descending scales or something similiar and I highly dought Django down stroked every new string when doing those rapid descending chromatic lines.


Basically just downstroke whenever you can as it gives the most gypsy tone but dont feel like you 'need' to if it feels incredibly awkward. Like if the head is slow (such as billet doux) I find myself downpicking every note nearly.

[ecj]

My last comment on this. Lot's of players emphasized downstrokes but that is not the entirety of gypsy picking.

I used to play manouche style and got fairly fluent with gypsy picking. It's completely different from what Pass, Barnes, et al are/were doing...and Benson is nowhere in the universe of gypsy picking - he's had his own thing going till he switched to thumb.

Look at Rosenberg at the 2:00 minute mark. If you can't see the difference....

That actually looks a lot like what Joe Pass does (picking wise) to me. What do you think the differences are, outside of the slightly less angled wrist?

I feel like you're conflating the technique and the vocabulary.

[christianm77]

[QUOTE=mike335;510774]

Does the second rule of gypsy picking- 'always use a downstroke when changing strings, even when descending'QUOTE]

When I play gypsy descending lines (such as 3 note per string scales descending), I find its better just to alternate pick and then economy (aka gypsy rest stroke,) pick when doing ascending lines . Its pretty impossible to downstroke every new string when descending scales or something similiar and I highly dought Django down stroked every new string when doing those rapid descending chromatic lines.


Basically just downstroke whenever you can as it gives the most gypsy tone but dont feel like you 'need' to if it feels incredibly awkward. Like if the head is slow (such as billet doux) I find myself downpicking every note nearly.

Yep. e.g. There's that horrible bit in Montagne de St Genevieve. Actually there's a few horrible bits.

+1 also on downpicking everything at slow tempos. But this is not unusual for a guitar player - Metheny does it for example. Downstrokes have a quality of strength to them whatever type of picking you do.

And yes, I do alternate frequently on descending scales. This makes me a bad person, but at least I admitted it. It feels good don't it!

[christianm77]

That actually looks a lot like what Joe Pass does (picking wise) to me. What do you think the differences are, outside of the slightly less angled wrist?

I feel like you're conflating the technique and the vocabulary.

Andreas Oberg uses a flat wrist too for acoustic. Is he a gypsy jazz player? Yes and no I guess.

A true manouche player perhaps get such things eliminated from their playing early on (like when they are 18 months old ;-)) but for the rest of us, we adapt to our situations. I will never be a Manouche guitarist, or a Gypsy jazz player in fact, just someone who drinks from these waters. I'm fine with it :-) I suspect Oberg, Vignola etc feel the same.

Now fact 2 - anything at all sounds like 'Gypsy Jazz' to horn players when you play it on a Maccaferri with rest stroke picking, discuss. (Hence the common phrase from swing bandleaders, 'man you are so much more modern on an electric, I don't like it. Bring the macaferri next time.' ;-))

[P4guitar]

That actually looks a lot like what Joe Pass does (picking wise) to me. What do you think the differences are, outside of the slightly less angled wrist?

I feel like you're conflating the technique and the vocabulary.

The Pass attack is more aligned with the plane of the fretboard, there weren't any rests, the downstrokes were used for all string transitions but many players do that so it's not unique to gypsy. There was a lot of arm in his attack, again parallel motion to the fretboard. I would define Pass's right hand as alternate picking using a lot of downstrokes - it's a standard jazz picking technique.

The Rosenberg attack on the other hand is much more 'in' to the strings, almost a 45 deg attack. The pick rests on the lower string. The right hand rotates in a twisting motion at the wrist sort of like a palsy and the hand seems to bounce off the string in preparation for the next attack.

At one time I was proficient at both and know them to be totally different. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

[ecj]

The Pass attack is more aligned with the plane of the fretboard, there weren't any rests, the downstrokes were used for all string transitions but many players do that so it's not unique to gypsy. There was a lot of arm in his attack, again parallel motion to the fretboard. I would define Pass's right hand as alternate picking using a lot of downstrokes - it's a standard jazz picking technique.

The Rosenberg attack on the other hand is much more 'in' to the strings, almost a 45 deg attack. The pick rests on the lower string. The right hand rotates in a twisting motion at the wrist sort of like a palsy and the hand seems to bounce off the string in preparation for the next attack.

At one time I was proficient at both and know them to be totally different. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Got it. I think we're talking past each other.

The physical mechanics of how one holds the pick and strikes the string with the arm and wrist weren't what I was trying to say by "gypsy picking". What I meant by "gypsy picking" was setting up your technique such that you use rest downstrokes, and you make every string change with a rest downstroke.

I know you don't think Joe Pass is resting, but I think you're wrong about that. It's pretty well documented that he used the rest stroke technique. If you search around for interviews or do some zoom and slow down on the videos, you can see it pretty plainly.

George Benson also uses the rest stroke technique - he just holds his pick in a weird enough way that it's been hard for people to tell. Benson plays a lot of lines that are pretty much stolen from Joe Pass in terms of the use of slurs, chromatics, etc.

I don't think you could describe either of them as "alternate pickers" like you could someone like Pat Martino.

If you pop over to the Benson picking thread you'll see a lot of discussion about this.

And, edited to add, the whole point being that you don't have to be a strict alternate picker to play bebop, and, in fact, if you look at some of the best bebop players in the history of the instrument (Pass, Benson, Montgomery) they were not using alternate picking at all. I think the rest stroke technique is actually more amenable to getting the right "accent" when playing jazz guitar. Can't remember who the heavy player was who said, if you ever can't figure out how to articulate a lick right, just drop your pick and try to do it like Wes then grab the pick again.

[christianm77]

The Pass attack is more aligned with the plane of the fretboard, there weren't any rests, the downstrokes were used for all string transitions but many players do that so it's not unique to gypsy. There was a lot of arm in his attack, again parallel motion to the fretboard. I would define Pass's right hand as alternate picking using a lot of downstrokes - it's a standard jazz picking technique.

The Rosenberg attack on the other hand is much more 'in' to the strings, almost a 45 deg attack. The pick rests on the lower string. The right hand rotates in a twisting motion at the wrist sort of like a palsy and the hand seems to bounce off the string in preparation for the next attack.

At one time I was proficient at both and know them to be totally different. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

How can you tell Pass isn't using rest strokes?

[monk]

The idea that it's not a good fit for electric seems to have originated in the 80s at GIT or something.

Evan,
As a former student at GIT in the 80s, I can say that this isn't true. Joe was a regular teacher and counselor when I was there and he talked about his picking many times. During the 80s, little was known of gypsy picking outside of Europe and there was certainly a major disconnect with old school jazz guitar picking in the USA. The strict alternating free stroke picking may have originated at some other music school and, at that time, was certainly a part of rock guitar but it definitely didn't originate at GIT.
Regards,
Jerome

[ecj]

Evan,
As a former student at GIT in the 80s, I can say that this isn't true. Joe was a regular teacher and counselor when I was there and he talked about his picking many times. During the 80s, little was known of gypsy picking outside of Europe and there was certainly a major disconnect with old school jazz guitar picking in the USA. The strict alternating free stroke picking may have originated at some other music school and, at that time, was certainly a part of rock guitar but it definitely didn't originate at GIT.
Regards,
Jerome

Thanks for the info, Jerome. I've always wondered where the strict alt picking dogma originated. Maybe from the metal movement?

Even the Berklee method teaches rest strokes on the downpicks these days.

[monk]

Every bit of research that I've done into the history of jazz guitar playing (and plectrum guitar playing in the first half of the 20th Century) points to the fact that this was the way acoustic guitarists played at that point in time. I don't think that rest stroke picking originated with gypsy players because there were acoustic archtop guitarists in the US playing this way before Django's records ever made it across the Atlantic. It's more likely, I think, given that fingerstyle playing was the norm in the first decades of the 20th Century that early adopters of the plectrum, like Eddie Lang, borrowed and adopted techniques from mandolin or even tenor banjo.

[Frank67]

Yes, I think that is right. Django also played Banjo before guitar und apparently adapted the technique. I'm definitely sold on it