Remembering Falsetas

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HolyEvil

Posts: 1240
Joined: Nov. 6 2008
From: Sydney, Australia

Remembering Falsetas

Hey there guys, I was looking through my past year of lessons that I have on video and after view some, I thought "I haven't played that since I learnt it" but when I tried playing it, I had some memory of it..

This is just after about 1 year of lessons (which I do about 1-2 lessons every 3 wks). How do all of you remember your falsetas? because losing a note or 2 may make you play out of compas.

to a beginner it should be not too troublesome to go through all the falsetas we know during practice everyday.
However, to the advanced players, surely it's not practical to go through all the falsetas you know everyday during practice.

therefore, how do you remember all the falsetas that you know?

cheers

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 10 2010 14:15:49

Exitao

Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

I think the trick is practice... If you can't remember it cold, you haven't practised it enough.

I know musicians who have huge repertoires and couldn't possibly remember everything they've played and usually decide on a set list and then practice that list before their show/performance.

Psychology of learning tells us that once your repertoire grows past a certain size, you'll never remember everything without reviewing (aka practice for musicians). However, duration of review and periods between review can become shorter and longer apart, respectively, once it's stored into long term memory.

Keep in mind, that it's not just recall either, but muscle memory too.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 10 2010 22:28:26

NormanKliman

Posts: 1143
Joined: Sep. 1 2007

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to Exitao)

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing about having practiced something enough so that it moves from short-term memory to long-term memory.

I sometimes give falsetas names. Not like Fred or Ethel

; more like "spinning wheels" or something like that. Also, it helps to establish groups of similar falsetas. For example, a basic bulerías falseta played by Morao, Moraíto and Tomate. That's a good way to spread out the variations across a performance. When you play one it makes you think of the others, you take note of that and return to each of them a few minutes later.

Also, you end up letting go of some falsetas because you learn a better variation, or maybe you notice something that you don't like, etc. You end up losing a few good ones that way, too, but it's part of the process, IMO.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 10 2010 23:34:34

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to NormanKliman)

i dont remember everything..or waiste time practicing things just for the sake of not forgetting them..

if you forghot it...its probably cause you didnt need it or liked it enough to use it all the time..

i do my practices acording to what i am going to be using..next weekend i have a workshop on jaleos and farruca...so i am reviwing what i do and transcribing new stuff in this palos and trying to refresh it and improve on the old and or add some new ...whatever it would make me feel confident about it..sometimes it just needs a facelift

so if i have a show or gig or another workshop, or its stuff i need for accompanying dance classes, or a singer i never playd for before or new letras next..i will follow the same practice regim to what i need to play for that...theres always something i need to work on ..

besides that...if you really like something outside what you need to do ...u will practice it cause you will wanna use it ..and if you dont ..well that in itself says something..

eg (this is not necesarely fact..just an example)..i am not crazy about verdiales...i might not ever need to play it again...theres nothing on the horizont that says i need to...why waiste valuable time ..on it..

if it comes to it that i need too..i can revive and practice it and update it just like all the other things i practice for something specific

theres so much to learn and so much to practice and so much you could be improving on things you acctualy use all the time that i think its important to have some sort of system then eliminates timewaisting on things you might or might not need..and use it to practice things you know for sure that you will need or atleast enjoy playing....u can use the time to really focus on the imediate things that you need and really work something out that you feel good about ..rather then using it to remember something you perhaps didnt like that much to begin with...

i think its important to start planning when you start taking lessons and have a goal and a pourpose...dont learn a million diff falsetas from a million diff palos just cause you like how it sounds..but can never use them in any context..

if you teacher is not organized enough and gets sidetracked you need to ask him..learn 2 pieces you can play in 1 year (rithm and all) then 20 falsetas you cant use

learning how to learn is probably the most important discipline you can practice

thats my view on it anyway..makes enough sence to me

whats the point of having 3 hours of music you can kind of play ok and kind of like when you can have 1 hour of stuff you love playing and do it well cause u focused on it ..and feel confident with it cause you looked at it in detail

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 0:02:55

KMMI77

Posts: 1821
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

Good points Florian!

Sometimes it is good to forget some falsetas and come back to them at a later time. Especially if they are difficult and beyond you technique when you learn them. Trying to play difficult falsetas at speed is a good way to develop bad technique. I learnt that the hard way.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 0:41:12

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to KMMI77)

quote:

Trying to play difficult falsetas at speed is a good way to develop bad technique. I learnt that the hard way.

orfourse mate..we probably all have..i know i have

u go through stages or arrogance, stuberness, self assurance..

beeing wrong its part of the process...unfortunateley is not something anyone can tell you and you will just see it...you wont see it and wont do anything about it until you come to the conclusion yourself imo

just like your parents trying to advice you to protect you from mistakes they have made...you wont listen until you step in it yourself....

but then its the same for all of us, cause your parents were the same to their parents so ...maybe its just sopossed to be that way...maybe the learning is just most effective that way

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 1:06:31

KMMI77

Posts: 1821
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

quote:

just like your parents trying to advice you to protect you from mistakes they have made...you wont listen until you step in it yourself....

but then its the same for all of us, cause your parents were the same to their parents so ...maybe its just sopossed to be that way...maybe the learning is just most effective that way

It doesn't stop there either. You make mistakes, Learn it was a bad idea, Then repeat the mistake again. Lol!!

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 1:21:15

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to KMMI77)

so true

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 1:29:16

XXX

Posts: 4400
Joined: Apr. 14 2005

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

Here is some, hopefully, good tips for you...

I really believe that we learn things by picking elements of it that we experience as the most important. That can be a melody, a chord, a certain hand position, anything you want it to be... I will just give two examples... i had forgotten a chord, but i knew that the melody would be on the 2nd string and that the chord is a "m7b5" type of chord. The other thing is i tried to play the same llamada but for a different dancer and choreography, and i couldnt. Obviously i had not practiced it enough separately from the dancer, so i was connected too much with the particular dance.

But you should not stick to the idea that you need to be able to pull off your whole material in any moment. It is not needed anyway, and sometimes, but only sometimes, they will even forgive you the wrong llamada!

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 4:00:09

minordjango

Posts: 918
Joined: Feb. 26 2005

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

many good points above !! cheers folks.

john duarte (classical guitarsist /composer) had a really cool article about, say your going to learn a piece (memorize) playing slows the first few weeks and then after your muscle memory and practiced isolated areas (Tricky passages), put it away for a while like a few weeks , subconsciously you will stil work on it in your mind.

and when you get to it again its like , oh! i have worked on this before its easier to get back into and overcome technical hurdles, and there is something to be said for building up experience on a piece this way for ur memory.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 4:16:48

gj Michelob

Posts: 1531
Joined: Nov. 7 2008
From: New York City/San Francisco

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to Florian)

quote:

if you forghot it...its probably cause you didnt need it or liked it enough

I completely agree, Florian, our memory also serves as defense mechanism, purging the unnecessary, weak and uncertain part of our work-product. I am so pleased you reminded us of this rule of thumb, if you struggle with a Falseta you either do not really feel it or you are playing it out of compas.

Once, on the other hand, you do feel it or play it in compas, it will flow and find its place in your memory quite naturally.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 6:02:21

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to gj Michelob)

thank you amigo

..its not exactly how i meant ( i wasent thinking technique wise or anything) it even though you make a great point...weather you can play something in compas should probably be the very first thing you take into account when picking what you use and what you dont

quote:

if you struggle with a Falseta you either do not really feel it or you are playing it out of compas.

or practicing it wrong...and you are always going to strugle with a new falsta when learning it...so i wouldnt really judge it on that alone

I simply meant that if you forghot a falseta from lack of playing it ...it means that you havent played it or practiced for a reason...if you liked it that much you would have.....so unless u decide u need it or like it for something specific ...whats the point of reviving it just for the sake of it ..

if it meant that much to you ..it wouldnt have been forghoten to begin with...spend all that time just to be where you were 1 year ago...id rather spend that time finding a new one i might have less chance of forghetting cause il like it more and wanna play it more.....

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 6:28:42

Ricardo

Posts: 14825
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

quote:

How do all of you remember your falsetas? because losing a note or 2 may make you play out of compas.

Well that is just it. You need to let the compas and phrasing guide you....that way you KNOW intuitively there needs to be 2 notes there. What they are is less important than the fact there need to be 2 notes there to keep the rhythm and phrasing. If you play wrong notes, it will be obvious and next time you play it you can fix em. But too many students learn the notes first and try to force em into compas somehow. It should be the opposite. Let the compas force YOU to come up with the right notes.

Practice makes permanent not perfect. If you practice wrong, then you just solidify the wrong thing, wrong tempo, wrong place in compas, wrong notes, etc. It is good idea to get feedback and record yourself soon as you can so you don't have to unlearn anything. You need to understand first how a falseta starts, how they rhythm of the prhase aligns to your internal clock, and how it ends. The rest will fall into place so long as you have that inside. A good way to think is you should be able to SING anything you play. Perhaps not the exact pitches, but the PHRASING of it you should be able to sing. That way you can easily retain falsetas and rhythm patterns, even without your guitar. It can be very mental, but that is safer then letting your fingers guide you, that muscle memory thing can really get you stuck in a corner when performing. But if the phrase is in your head and you could sing along, or without the guitar, you will never get lost. Even making up new notes by accident can be a good thing.

Paco once said "making mistakes will happen to us all. but if you THINK you will make a mistake, then you are lost.".

Ricardo

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 7:11:55

Ron.M

Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to KMMI77)

quote:

You make mistakes, Learn it was a bad idea, Then repeat the mistake again. Lol!!

Yeah...it's like that saying...that if you could live your life over, you wouldn't make the same mistakes again.
Correct...you'd make a complete bunch of new ones instead!

Anyway...

What Ricardo said is the absolute KEY to everything in Flamenco IMO.

(Whether it's learning or modifying falsetas or remembering or anything.)

Learning note by note is dangerous.
If one note gets lost or you fumble it, your whole timing collapses since it was based on note timing and not phrasing and compás.

You need to learn and understand the phrase and how it fits into the timing.
If you can remember that, then even if you can only remember the general chord structure and some of the actual notes....all the rest will quickly fall back into place.
Or you may even discover a better way of reconstructing it!

Anyway...Don't study note sequences.

cheers,

Ron

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 7:45:53

HolyEvil

Posts: 1240
Joined: Nov. 6 2008
From: Sydney, Australia

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

thanks for all the replies!! =)

ricardo: any tips on how we can learn how to let the compas guide us?
just repetition of the compas over and over again?

cheers

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 17:42:11

KMMI77

Posts: 1821
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

quote:

how we can learn how to let the compas guide us?

Like PDL says, you first have to be in a position where you are not thinking about the technique. A good exercise when playing with a solo compas Cd or loop for example is to try to listen to everything that is going on. When i say everything, i mean every sound that you are making on the guitar and every sound that has been recorded onto the cd or loop simultaneously.

Only by listening to both simultaneously can you find your space inside the compas and only when you find your space inside the compas will you be able to hear both. One enables the other. In the beginning you may find yourself listening only to the accents of the compas as apposed to making sure you are hearing every sound.

Lets say you have a falseta, and your teacher has told you that it starts on 12 and ends with a ras starting on seven. Many beginners try to listen out for the 12, begin playing the falseta, Ignore the sounds of the palmas cajon etc, and then listen for the 7 to begin the ras kind of hoping for the best in between. This is when you have two rhythms conflicting. There is the pre recorded or live rhythm that you must follow and an unrelated rhythm inside your head that you are subconsciously following.

Manolo sanlucar was telling me about the importance of making every sound count and being consciously aware of them all. How often do you hear a falseta played really well only to have the brakes put on the rhythm by an upstroke played in the wrong place for example. This is why it is as important to put as mush time into rhythm as into playing falsetas.

It is hard to get everything perfectly inside the compas. It's also worth pointing out that all the solo compas cd's i have encountered are not perfect and there may only be sections that offer a round enough groove to get inside of. It only takes one sound to be slightly out for your ear to become distracted.

Start with a small and short idea you are comfortable with and play it as loop for an hour or so. Each time listen intently and try to let the sounds separate more and more. This should enable a better understanding of what you are trying to achieve.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 19:08:23

Ricardo

Posts: 14825
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

quote:

any tips on how we can learn how to let the compas guide us?

You need to get it ingrained. Over and over all day imagine the beat inside, and the different patterns that go on top of it. Metronome is important to practice. Just walking down the street imagine the compas going on to your footsteps. Everywhere you go all the time.

When learning a tricky phrase, just pick a group of notes, maybe no more then 4, tap your foot and keep it going with the metronome at a comfy medium speed, not too slow, not too fast, just so you can feel it and groove. Make those few notes groove over and over, don't think about 8 beats or 12 beats or whatever, just keep a BEAT and make the notes groove to it. Then add another few notes to those, so you have an 8 or 9 note phrase. Always make sure you feel where the beat is relative to those notes, and keep repeating it till it is just natuaral like speaking. Keep adding notes of the phrase till you have the whole thing.

You can do that to without the guitar just by singing the phrase of notes, but make sure you have a metronome and or your foot going, or if you can clap the beat and do it that is good too. So long as you get the way the phrase feels inside and groove with it over and over, you will remember it and never get lost.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 11 2010 21:35:15

Ailsa

Posts: 2277
Joined: Apr. 17 2007
From: South East England

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to Ricardo)

Great post Ricardo

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 12 2010 0:55:04

Doitsujin

Posts: 5078
Joined: Apr. 10 2005

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to HolyEvil)

For me it works differently. I want to play and not sing and I want to spend as less time as possible to be occupied with remembering than with actually playing it... So Im just going through tough new falsetas very slowly at first I ignore the compas and only pay attention to the fingering.
When I got the fingering I play along with a slowdown original if there is anything available. When I got the timing I switch to metronome and build up speed day by day. I start each day again with slow speed. i.e. when I start playing bulerias, I always start with 160bpm and go through all falsetas I wanna practice. When you can play through at slow speed, it doesnt mean that your fingers really got it. Youll understand if you play immediately at higher speed and you begin to search and get lost behind the beat. Than its still not in your fingermemory.. and you need to practice at slower speed more often. When I made it several times, I go through them with 208 bpm. Than when Im still happy with the result, I go with 220 or 230bpm. If not, I switch back to slower speed and lay the guitar aside for the day.
The remembering process takes not much time for me. Just listen to the original often enough. When you can go through it mentally maybe when you are going back home from work... than you listened almost enough. Use the repeat option of your mp3.. thats it. You´ll remember automatically.

There is no systematical cut down or mathematical analysis needed in my case. I just pay attention to the original and learn it by feeling.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 12 2010 1:22:52

flybynight

Posts: 121
Joined: Aug. 14 2009

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to Ailsa)

Great post, great thread, great site, damn it.

I love the sensation of having to read a thread top to bottom 3 times before I can take it all in. Then that's just the beginning of putting it into practice.

So many great contributors, thanks all.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 12 2010 1:34:51

KMMI77

Posts: 1821
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under

RE: Remembering Falsetas (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

Make those few notes groove over and over, don't think about 8 beats or 12 beats or whatever, just keep a BEAT and make the notes groove to it

I understand what you are saying but this is easier to do if you already have a firm understanding of the compas. For me, i had to first become comfortable with the cycle of compas in its entirety before understanding how to syncopate a small section of rhythm strumming or of a falseta against it. This involved lots of counting in the beginning.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 12 2010 1:37:23