Minor Swing: chords & grille (gypsy jazz)
Minor Swing by Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli, key of A (manouche), form Intro Chorus. Below is the full chord grid; on Haute Gitanerie you can play along with a scrolling chord ribbon, transpose to any key, set the tempo, and switch on a rhythm backing (la pompe) to practise your solos over the changes.
About
Recorded by the Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1937, Minor Swing is the gypsy-jazz anthem, the first tune almost every manouche player learns, and the one that opens most jam sessions.
The sound: a minor i–iv–V in A minor (Am, Dm, E7) and nothing more. What makes it sing is the E7: leaning on its ♭9 pulls hard back to Am, the classic harmonic-minor tension the whole style is built on.
Practising it: drill the A harmonic minor scale and the Am, Dm and E7 arpeggios, then target the 3rd of E7 (G♯) resolving to A. Start slow; the recording sits around 160+, but the changes stay just as useful at half that.
Minor Swing chords: the grille
Intro : | Am | Dm | Am | Dm | Am | Dm | E7 | E7 |
Chorus : | Am | Am | Dm | Dm | E7 | E7 | Am | Am | Dm | Dm | Am | Am | B♭7 | E7 | Am | E7 |
Chords used
Videos, Minor Swing
The original recording
- Django Reinhardt (1937), Django Reinhardt
Understand the chords
- The proper chords of Minor Swing, Sven Jungbeck
Learn the solo
- Django's original solo, Clément Réboul
Watch it played
- Michel Mercier's own solo, Michel Mercier
- Good old Minor Swing #hautegitanerie #jazz #guitar, @bucobucolini
- MINOR SWING Multiguitare 🎸 | Lâg - Altamira - APC, Clément Réboul
The theory in this tune
How a chord is built · Scale formulas · The dominant 7 and its resolution · The chain of dominants · The diminished on the dominant
Play along
Open the interactive grille for Minor Swing: loop any section, transpose to any key, set the tempo, and play over a rhythm accompaniment, with a real recorded pompe on featured tunes. In the browser, free.