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.
We will continue to look at La Gitane, this time examining measures 25 - 40. Measures 25-28 are more or less just like measures 9-12, so there is nothing new to learn here. But starting at measure 29 and continuing to measure 40, there is a new motif that we'll see a couple more times in this song. The melody lines in these measures are essentially arpeggios that follow the chords.
More specifically, measure 30 features a descending riff based on G Harmonic Minor. In measure 31, we have an ascending D Dominant 7 arpeggio. In measures 32-33 we have a descending/ascending G Minor arpeggio. Measures 34-35 contain a descending/ascending Deb Major arpeggio. Measures 36-37 have you playing a descending D Minor arpeggio and then a descending run based on the D Minor scale. In measure 40, there is a D Minor arpeggio riff that takes you back to the main melody once again.
Notice that some of these chords were featured in the first 24 measures. I found this part of the song easier to play with these particular chord fingerings. But feel free to experiment!
Above is tab for measures 25-40 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.
Note: the audio file contains the first 40 measures. The audio for this part of the guitar lesson comes in at about 0:23.
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