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Putting it the other way... What makes something Flamenco to you? Not Flamenco "influenced"...but uniquely Flamenco. As distinct from any other kind of music? What ingredients make you think of a piece as good Flamenco?
Let's have the positive vibe instead of the negative now.
Flamenco to me is not just the sound, it's an experience. When you go to a flamenco show you don't just watch the players, you get sucked up into the whole show with the palmas, cante, guitar, bailor and the energy is HUGE!!!!! When i think 'flamenco' i think more about the old school stuff, where it originated, But when i play and listen to it, i can't help but love the modern style. I think it's getting to the point where it's like jazz, if someone asks me to go to a jazz gig with them, i have to ask "is it big band, traditional, free, bebop, fusion etc" some of which i like and some which puts me to sleep ZZZzzzzzz..........BUT it's all still jazz! So maybe in years to come this will be the same for flamenco, and already is to a degree.
LARONE
I think flamenco is a phrygian wonderland of rhymical spectacularisms
Carmen Amaya, Antonio, Ciro, and other dancers/singers and accompaniests. Playing accompaniment for my family and dancers and singers from Spain. Playing at juergas.
Enjoying playing flamenco guitar after work to retain my sanity and reduce my stress. Enjoying the company of people like Carlos Montoya, Sabicas, Mariano Cordoba and Juan Serrano, all of whom taught me something about flamenco.
Flamenco to me is a highly symptomatic or reactive sort of music, and deeply in tune with a frenzied emotional state. It is so charged that I cannot picture spontaneously doing it for no reason. In fact I can only play well as as a direct response to some form of rage or tragedy. You know how a deep wound festers and becomes numb, but hurts like anything when you push it deep or hard enough? To me, that's where duende resides, where the urge to express something as Flamenco begins.
What is flameco-(music) for me... hmmm. Rasguados here and there on the guitar are flamenco for me. Singers who shout and cry more than they sing are flamenco for me. Big emotions in music like llamadas or some emocial shouts from the singer are especially flamenco for me.