Influence of Django and Paganini

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One artist I admire most, not only in their creativity, but also in technical ability is Django Reinhardt. In the 25 years he was active, he essentially invented a whole new sub genre of jazz and playing styles. When Django was 18, he was badly burnt in a caravan fire and as a result, lost most use of his third and forth fingers on his left hand. This however seemed to be a blessing in disguise as he had to relearn how to play the guitar in a whole new way, creating his unique style. Being a jazz musician in the early to mid 90's, he used acoustic guitars with steel and nylon strings with oddly shaped sound holes taking away more bass than traditional guitars, and giving them an almost staccato sound. With his injuries he could only use his last two fingers for chords (which strangely enough worked well for 7th s) and his first two fingers for soloing. As most guitarist would know, soloing with only the first two fingers is extremely hard and makes a different sound as opposed to using all four in a legato form, using nearly primarily arpeggios. To gain such proficiency in this unique and unorthodox style, Django learnt using the gypsy method. This usually consists of many long hours of practice with usually minimal or no music theory knowledge at all. Players will learn from direct imitation of more experienced players around them or simply learn by ear. Gypsy jazz players will generally play in minor keys, bringing a darker sound to their jazz, and use a lot of minor 7th's and diminished/augmented chords. Soloing in this style is usually always arpeggios (due to Django's injury) made into long runs creating a detached sound. This can trick first time listeners into thinking that the playing is out of key, but from more exposure to the music, you will notice the different melodic qualities. Another artist I admire greatly is Nicolo Paganini, for basically the
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