Learning to Play Gypsy Jazz

There are 3 main ways to How to Play Gypsy Jazz.

  1. Online Tutorials

  2. Taking Lessons

  3. “Figuring it Out”

  4. Playing with Others

Online Tutorials: There are a TON of great tutorials out there to start or improve your playing. They’re usually reasonably priced and come with a lot of music transcriptions, backing tracks, and video content from top artists.

Here’s a couple I personally love:

  • Truefire Gypsy Jazz Guitar Guidebook: just one course, but a great intro

  • DC Music School: Dennis a well-known and beloved in the Gypsy Jazz world. He works with lots of pros, so his content is great and thoughtful and helps support GJ artists.

  • Joscho Stephane Gypsy Guitar Academy: great transcriptions from a German legend. Lots of PDFs to download to stock up your music library.

Should I pay for it? YES! You’re going to be investing hundreds of hours into your learning — better to get something good. Also this is how a lot of Gypsy players make a living, so throwing them $50 for their lifetime of practice is an easy decision.

Lessons: Individualized instruction with a teacher is still the fastest way to learn an instrument well and make sure you don’t have gaps in your technique or knowledge. A couple wonderful instructors I’ve experienced:

  • Paul Mehling “the godfather of American gypsy jazz”: his site.

  • Stephane Wrembel, famous composer of Bistro Fada (the theme song from the movie Midnight in Paris). His site, but he’s also super responsive if you message him through facebook directly.

Figuring it out: the old-fashioned way, listen to Django’s music, sit down and learn to play it. If you figure something out yourself, you’ll never forget it. Those epiphanies matter…

Playing with Others: even if you don’t feel quite ready, put yourself out there and check out one of the dozens of DjangoFests. And in the time between, use forums to meet others in your area to meet up and Jam with.

Jamming with other people is the absolute greatest forcing function to get you off your butt, feeling “uncomfortable”, and learning quickly.