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why do you want to study and play folk music from another country? Why not focus on your own culture and find folk music that is relevant to you?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'm currently researching into Celtic music and I am finding that what we are doing by playing flamenco is exactly what the flamenco's who perform around the world are doing anyway.
Flamenco itself is a blend of many cultures music and is progressing more into the jazz seen daily. They are branching out and taking from other cultures, like we are by playing flamenco. I think that we are at a disadvantage when we do that, as we are starting with a folk culture that is not our own and hence beating ourselves with lots of hard work, where as if we started with our own folk music and then incorperated flamenco into that we might stand more of a chance, and hey it is all modal too so it shouldn't be that hard to mix it all up.
I have found also that if one plays a irish reel in the key of D, then one looks at Tomatito's Ardila (alegrias) you find where he got his ideas from to play and alegrias in the key of D major (which is unheard of lol)
Any ideas, critiscism, positve feedback would be much appreciated on this subject...
What does modal mean in this context? In computers it means that you cannot get past an event by going off and doing something else within the same application, you must pass through, no exceptions e.g. a dialog box that says "OK" "Cancel", if you click off it, the computer will beep at you.
BTW - flamenco is not just the music to so your question is hard to answer in terms of music. As Emilio Maya and I agreed, it is also about friends, laughter and enough money to buy them a beer. Maybe a car
Most if not all folk music is modal, in that it moves around a tonal centre LOL, im getting technical
Like solea is based on the phrygian modal scale, it revovles around the E, and in Irish folk music they have a bass drone, or in an Indain Raga on the Sitar it has a drone note which is what all else revolves around...
For instance if you play all the white notes on the keyboard from A to A an octave higher you have a modal scale. But play C to C on all the white notes you have a major scale, you can hear the difference. So if you keep the same space between notes, tone semitone etc// etc.. you can move that modal scale to any key you wish.
That is why folk music has a distinct sound, in fact it goes back to the days when the church dictated what notes could be played and what was considered blasphemes. In the olden days chromatic notes were considered to be in league with the Devil, so modal scales were the law!....So it is a bit like computer programming in that if you go off the modal scale you lose the tonal centre, or drone or whatever is in the listeners mind. The sense of coming home so to speak is then gone and who knows where you will end up...crash time...or maybe as we have discovered it brings new feelings and meanings to music.
A bit like traditional flamenco versus modern flamenco which uses new keys and chordal progressions, whereas traditional flamenco sticks to the modal scale, the pure sound.
Some music speaks to you louder than others. Some music gets inside you and plays out continuously in your head, almost like a sound track. When that music is tied to a strong culture and lifestyle, it can become consuming. No doubt celtic music can become that for some people I suppose (growing up in an Irish family, I've heard my share), but it just doesn't reach me the same way. Sometimes some music forms are more about life and living even when they aren't saying anything with words.
As an aside, Oscar Herrero has a farruca done with bagpipes on his album Hechizo. A lot of people thought it was out of place. I actually enjoyed it. Listen to it and you hear the auditory equivalent of a visual story. Flamenco can do that, many other musical forms, good as they may be, aren't necessarily as adept at giving you that feeling of immersion and drive to participate.
ORIGINAL: musicalgrant A tutor of mine once said to me, why do you want to study and play folk music from another country? Why not focus on your own culture and find folk music that is relevant to you?
You're right. Sod this flamenco nonsense, where's the nearest male voice choir, I suddenly feel the urge to engage in close harmony vocals about mining and saucepans.
I don't know Grant, but I find the harmony and rhythms in flamenco captivating. As you have already pointed out, a great deal (but by no means all) of flamenco is in the phrygian mode, which I've always liked the sound of. Whilst some of our own folk music in the UK is modal, it aint Phrygian, which has that eastern exotic flavour to it.
I'm no expert on Celtic folk music, but a lot of the stuff I've heard is straight major/minor key stuff, I expect the modal songs you talk of in Scottish/Irish music would be Dorian? (taking Aeolian as the natural minor and Ionian as the major scale anyway).
In any case, our own folk music has a completely different flavour to flamenco because of the different modes. Add to that the complex rhythms in flamenco, and there you go. Some Celtic stuff sounds really nice on guitar - particularly DADGAD material on a steel strung (ever heard Piererre Bensusan?), but it just doesn't hit me THERE, know what I'm saying?
You're right. Sod this flamenco nonsense, where's the nearest male voice choir, I suddenly feel the urge to engage in close harmony vocals about mining and saucepans.
Oh Jon you'll have to wear a blue blazer
I just learnt on another forum that it was thanks to the Methodist ministers that the Welsh dont have tradition of dance as they banned it !! But can you actually imagine the Welsh male voice choirs dancing as well as singing
Flamenco is just COOL, man. I really don't know, but I have always liked Spanish and Spanishy music... a Peruvian bass player I know thinks it was because I spent 3 years in Panama (where there is presumably some kind of Spanish influence on the music), when I was a young child. I don't know, but I do know, that ever since I heard Malaguena at about age 7, I did like it and always liked that sound. When I started playing classical guitar I always sought that Spanishy (phyrgian and harmonc minor) sound, and when I found flamenco, there was a feeling like--Oh, this is what I was looking for! So the end result of this journey is I still have no idea, but it does seem that flamenco was an inexorable force, pulling me in all the way.
But flamenco is only part of what I play, although I can't say I enjoy anything as much as flamenco. I have a double CD called "The Best Flamenco Recorded Ever"--it's a kind of obnoxious title, but it really does feature a lot of cuts, some rather commercial, some not. I love listening to it and the many different styles and voices. Starts off with Camaron, does some Paco, some Vicente, some Remedio, some Merce, some Bollywood...good stuff!
Yep I think you lot have the fever too then It was the same with me I started with the classical rag time guitar etc, and when I heard flamenco, that was it, I spent all my money on flamenco books and video's and now I'm close to living on the street lol Yep I love flamenco music it is so passionate and alive, and I don't like playing anything else but flamenco....though I still dapple into all sorts...flamenco is it, yep it has that feeling
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It was the same with me I started with the classical rag time guitar etc, and when I heard flamenco, that was it, I spent all my money on flamenco books and video's and now I'm close to living on the street lol Yep I love flamenco music it is so passionate and alive, and I don't like playing anything else but flamenco....though I still dapple into all sorts...flamenco is it, yep it has that feeling 
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