I started playing guitar when I was about 12 years old, lo these many years ago. For a while I was playing four or more hours a day – mostly improvising on blugrass songs, fingerpicking blues, and Doc Watson standards. I grew up
far out in the country and (so sad) we didn’t have any neighbors, so I never got to play in a band, except a few times at folk festivals when I’d join into a jam, whacking away with any random chord progression I thought might fit the fiddle tune they were playing.

I dropped the guitar when I went away to college – although I might pick it up for a few days at a time over the years. So it had been twenty-five years since I played seriously when I saw John Jorgenson play Django-style gypsy style jazz guitar at the DjangoFest San Francisco last year. I was blown away by his virtuosity and of course I’d always loved the music. I’ve probably played his CD Franco-American Swing a hundred times since then. This year, when I saw he was coming again to the DFSF I made special sure to get tickets for me any all the people I know love jazz. As I was standing in line to get in and get good seats for the show, I noticed that all the people in line were players as well, most of them with their guitars. Long story short, I found out that there’s not only a very active subculture of folks playing gypsy jazz, but that John Jorgenson has one of the best books out there for learning it.

At the same time, I read a fascinating Fast Company article on change that mentioned Dr. Michael Merzenich’s work on brain plasticity and the importance of continuing to challenge your brain throughout life. I’m not as young as I used to be, but I feel young and I plan to keep feeling young. (Merzenich has founded a company, Posit Science, that is commercializing software designed that older people — for now — use to exercise their brains and reduce or even reverse age-related cognitive declines.)

I put two and two together and realized I needed to start playing guitar again. And not just doing what I’d done for those high school years of noodling around with bluegrass and folk music (although I still love that and love to play it as well). But this time I’d challenge my brain and fingers with gypsy jazz, and maybe in a few years be able to play a decent pompe rhythmn backup, and then in a few years more take a short solo in a jam session. It would be a real challenge, I’d be getting back to something I loved for so long, and creating new neural pathways as a bonus.

So that’s where I am right now. I’ve been playing for about six weeks, and it’s been fascinating. My mind still has a lot of the chops from when I was a kid, but my fingers really don’t! But each week I can see tons of progress; things I couldn’t play last week I can play this week. And your mom was right – you don’t get better unless you practice.

I’m working through Jorgenson’s Gypsy Jazz book, which by the way is a fantastic piece of pedagogy. It’s packaged with a DVD and CD. On the DVD, he works with another guitarist, giving him a fast-moving two hour lesson, from the very beginning, in gypsy jazz playing. His student, Brad Davis, is an experienced bluegrass player, but hasn’t played gypsy style at all. The accompanying book covers all the same material, but with chord diagrams and more explanations. So you can see JJ play, hear him explain the concepts, and refer to the book for anything that’s not clear, or for more exercises or notations on what he just played.

Once I get a few more chops together, I’ll be taking some lessons. And I have my eye on one of the new reproduction gypsy jazz guitars that Gitane is making. I especially like the Gitane DG-255. These are very reasonably priced, and there really is a difference in how they play and sound versus the standard “dreadnought”-style guitar people use for bluegrass and folk music.

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