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Posts: 33
Joined: Oct. 24 2008
From: New England, USia
Studying Alegrias.
Hello. I'm preparing myself to take on La Ardilla for the challenge (and hoping I'll have a proper mic set up by then!) but would rather take a more measured approach to the alegria form before pretending that I can truly feel Tomatito's complex song.
As much as I love Paco Pena's Toques Flamenco, I get bored by the alegria in there. I think that his playing of Montoya's La Rosa on Flamenco Guitar Music of Ramon Montoya & Nino Ricardo is very beautiful. (I believe that I can figure it out by ear at this point, but of course any scores would be welcome as assistance =]) I suppose I'm curious about other favored alegrias from traditional to modern ... my goal is to understand the form's evolution well enough to tackle the contemporary variations and then comfortably add my own character to the playing of it.
An important part of understanding any flamenco palo is to listen to the cante. Many of the melodies played in the solo pieces are inspired by the melodies which are sung. Also, especially the alegria has a relatively clear structure to it, so if you really want to get into structure of the 12 beat palos, alegrias is a good place to start - have a look at some dance choreographies with singing.
Also, for understanding listen to the traditional stuff. The modern singing and playing is great, but the old traditional stuff will give you the basis and understanding. You mentioned Montoya and Nino Ricardo already - check out Youtube for some classic alegrias dance and song.
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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
I think you do need to be really familiar with the traditional alegrias, however, the new school alegrias is alot more syncopated, and complex. So even if you know the traditional stuff upside down, and backwards, you will still need to do a ton of studying the modern style.
Understanding the traditional style will help you understand the modern style more quickly, but it will still take time and patience to really internalize the modern stuff.
The Tomatito Alegria is a good study candidate, becuase it has some fairly traditional, elementary remates, comping of compas, etc. but also has some extremely complex note groupings, and slippery phrasings too.
Its a very decieving piece. When you first listen to it a few times, its like, Ah, its not too difficult. NOPE!! Its a really tough piece. You need to have your thumb technique DOWN to nail this Alegria. And though it might not seem to tough to "get through it", However !when you actually record it, and compare it to Tomatito's performance, as far as Tone, projection, and dead on timing/rhythm, you really get the picture. To play it anything like near the original, you need to be a pretty damn ferocious player, period.
To those of you in the competition, i would highly suggest you start recording this piece IMMEDIATELY, and reviewing your recordings. Dont judge yourself by just sitting there playing along to a compas track, or playing along with Tomatito's recording in Amazing Slowdowner. Make practice recordings NOW, while you still have another month to go. If you wait until the last week of June to sit in front of the microphone and hear your playback, you're gonna be in the sh!t, trust me!
GuitarVlog, it's tough to know without knowing your level. If you're an absolute beginner get some good study material - Oscar Herrero, Juan Martín, there are others. I just had a quick look and found . Beautiful singing and playing by Cepero. You can just strum along almost the whole way through with E7, A and the occasional D (the falseta has a couple others). Again I don't know your level, but this is great for getting to know a traditional Alegria.
Todd's totally right. You're gonna have to get through all the complex modern stuff anyways, the traditional road just makes learning it a lot easier in the long run. If you want to play La Ardilla and have a very good ear, very good technique and sense of rhythm you don't need to understand the palo, you can try to reproduce it exactly. There still might be the one or other thing that's out of compás though or sounds a bit off. If your technique is error free doing it you'll still have all my respect
I always suggest the traditional approach because eventually one day you may want to accompany or play with other flamenco musicians, and all the stuff you learnt over the years, right or wrong, will have become habitual and you'll have to go through, reteach yourself and and clean it all up. Trust me, that's how I did it and it's a big hassle...
In any case Paco Pena's Toques Flamenco to La Ardilla is quite a big jump
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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
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Its a really tough piece. You need to have 
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