Gypsy Jazz short piece- part 1(taken from gypsyjazzschool.

com promo video)

This piece is in the key of D major and demonstrates a few gypsy jazz style phrases. The piece is
an improvisation over one chord: A7 that leads into D. First let’s get a basic understanding of
the chord progression, because it is important to understand what you are playing in order to
use it again in different situations.

D is the root chord. For a major tonic chord we can add the 6th and 9th degrees, as I have done.

A7 is the 5th degree in D major scale and is a dominant chord that leads into D.

There are lot of scales, arpeggios and sounds that we can play over dominant chords. We will
play a few of them in this piece.

First phrase
The piece begins with a C#dim7 arpeggio, starting from the note E and then goes into a very
well-known arpeggio lick over C#dim7 that Django used a lot. C# is the 3rd degree of A7. Playing
a dim7 that starts on the 3rd degree of a Dom7 chord gives us the 7b9 sound.

Figure 1: C#dim

For further
information,
please see lesson
7.

Ex 1: the first part

1|P age
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