Hi everyone,
This month gypsy jazz tip is a classic among the gypsy community, and somehow, has to be mastered: the chromatic scale.
The exercise is simple, but once practiced again and again with different speeds (until doing it very very fast), it helps develop a certain gymnastic quality to your fingers, which will later allow you to go faster on scales and put some more spice in your solo !!!
So here it is: the goal is to go from the low G (3rd fret on the big E string) to the high G (3rd fret on the small E string) by playing semitones only. The secret resides in the fact that you'll use the 3rd finger (the ring finger, the annular) to do a slide from 3rd fret to the 4th each time before playing the next open string ("0" on the tab. below).
Repeat the exercise faster and faster.
Now you have mastered it that way, do it in reverse, from high G to low G.
Try then to include it into a solo (you can also listen to "Nuages" from Django Reinhardt where the famous gypsy uses this scale with only two fingers as fast as the light of speed, which I absolutely DON'T recommend to you ;)!!! Notice that we don't even remark that Django passes from a string to another string, there is no pause).
Enjoy the tip, and see you next month for another gypsy tip!
Etienne Jeanne