| DJANGO'S BAG OF TRICKS |
| Copyright 2002 Henry Wang |
| As the old saying goes, it's not what you say it's how you say it...Django was a very expressive guitarist and how he plays a phrase is as important as the notes he has played. Here you will find a few signiture techniques Django employs to make his music sound so unique and expressive, master these techniques and you will be one step closer to that elusive Django sound!! |
| Trick # 1 Vibrato: Django plays with a fast, nervous, twitchy vibrato especially on notes he wants to emphasize or on longer notes. (listen) |
| Trick # 2 Trills: Django employs fast hammer on/pull off trills in his phrases. (listen) |
| Trick # 3 Tremolo Picking : Django has an extremely fast strumming hand and throws in this tremolo picking for excitement. He does it with 2 strings here (listen) and with a whole chord (listen). |
| Trick # 4 Chromatic Glissando : Related to Trick # 3 is the Chromatic glissando, it is basically tremolo picking except you move the notes you are playing chromatically. For example here Django tremolo picks while moving down 3 notes in this short phrase. (listen) You can also employ the same technique over a longer phrase as Django displays here. (listen) You can even use this technique with chords! (listen) |
| Trick # 5 Chords As Melody : Django will sometime play phrase made up of short rhythmic chords. (listen) |
| Examples are in real audio format, if you do not have real player installed you can download one here. |