There is no shortage of great sounding gypsy jazz songs. I randomly came across La Gitane (a waltz written by Paul "Tchan Tchou" Vidal) on Rhapsody. I found another rendition here by the superb gypsy jazz guitarist Angelo DeBarre. Sure enough I found a powertab transcription online for DeBarre's version. The tab was done by Barry Warhoftig, who is a guitarist for the Hot Club of Philidelphia. I made minor edits (mostly repositioning on the fretboard of certain riffs) to suit my playing and also added chord diagrams. In some places I edited the chords. For instance, at measure 166 I added a II-V-I chord movement to make it sound a little more active. You can download my modified powertab file here.
La Gitane, like most gypsy jazz songs, is made up of a catchy melody layered over a straight eighth note chord progression. The waltz feel of the song is apparent from the 3/4 time signature. The song contains a considerable amount of repetition of various themes which makes the song very digestible. We will cover the song by breaking it up into logical sections.
Note: Gypsy Jazz has its own unique picking technique and there are even gypsy jazz specific acoustic guitars. I do not pretend to be a trained gypsy jazz player. I simply enjoy playing the style on my steel string acoustic using technique I am already familiar with. If you want to play pieces like this in the traditional gypsy jazz style, do some searches online to find some good video clips and other learning resources.
La Gitane starts off with a chord progression that features a descending, chromatic bass line. This is a very effective way to prep the melody. After repeating the descending pattern, the song then breaks into the melody at measure 9 with a fiery descending scale run in D Minor. From measures 9-15 this basic D Minor riff is repeated. At measure 17 we see another repeated riff, this time in D Harmonic Minor. Measures 21-22 feature an arpeggio riff that is essentially a cross between an A Dominant 7 and an A# Diminished 7. Finally in measures 23 and 24 there is a descending D Harmonic Minor riff that takes the song back to the main melody.
Below are the chords used in the first 24 measures of the song:
Above is tab for the first 24 measures of the song. The rhythm guitar part is shown as the slashes above the lead part. I took the version found here and made edits to suit my playing and I added chord fingerings as well. (In some places I edited the chords. For instance at measure 166 I added a II-V-I chord movement since it sounded too static as originally transcribed. We'll get to those later parts in a future lesson...). You can download my modified powertab file here.
I recommend that you master the chords before moving on to the melody. Start slowly and work up to around 195-205 BPM which are typical tempos for this song. Once you are comfortable with the chords you can start attacking the lead part. If you are not accustomed to playing eighth notes in swing feel then this will take some time getting used to. You may want to check out the guitar lesson I did a while back on the swing feel.
Once you are comfortable with the swing feel, either record the rhythm part and play along to it or play along to the powertab file. I found practicing to the powertab MIDI playback did wonders because it enabled me to adjust the tempo as well as enabled me to play along with or without the lead part.
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