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What is true flamenco, who performs it. Any restrictions or rules?
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Doitsujin
Posts: 5078
Joined: Apr. 10 2005
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 What is true flamenco, who performs ...
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Hello forummembers!
I read the flamenco-fusion thread and came across Agujetas and his interview and the term gitano, true flamenco, old and modern flamenco. And of course across flamenco as being folklore and/or an art.
This time I hope to get some serious answers or at least start one more discussion which is hopefully interesting and and bit difficult maybe. So, please participate.
When thinking about flamenco and all the interviews, discussions I´ve read, and some personal experiences some serious questions arise:
Let me start sloppy...
"gitano" is a really strange word. It sounds somehow cool. But is it really cool? Seems to be cool only in flamenco. It means vagabond, thug, hobo... So IMO it is an insult to call somebody a gitano. How can one proudly say... I'm a gitano and I'm from a gitano-background. And honestly could somebody explain why it seems to be necessary in flamenco to come from a thug-background? Otherwise the feelings which are put in the music aren't true?? Than billions of musicians a faking no?
Thats no try for a bad joke. I really don't get this point.
Another strange thing which bugs me is. The older generation like Agujetas comes from calls themselves pure and true and all the modern stuff is just yelling of dogs and the music is elevator-music. But seriously. I really think, the modern flamenco became somehow an art which is very complex and an art, coz if you want to perform good flamenco (no matter if guitar, dance or singing) it immediately becomes very difficult and is well elaborated. And its really renewing and unique to every single artist. Not just copying over and over. Ok, if it should stay flamenco there have to be rules and things which always remind of flamenco and its different forms.
Copying over and over is the case for old flamenco. The lyrics were (as I know) most often exactly the same over decades. Could somebody tell me how a singer could sing a love-cry-song from another singer and really mean it? Maybe a bad example, but in general it is like that. The same for guitar and dance. Almost all the same and much copying. And of course harmonically and choreographically not very far developed.
This old flamenco really is folklore and no art IMO. (What doesn't mean that I dislike it. Just a sloppy definition to separate things.)
So,IMO the modern flamenco became an art itself and left the shadows of the mines where the flamenco was really true and was performed by people who needed it. And not for making many bucks in theaters like now.. You cant tell me that a Duqende or Potito really sing about their situation. . Im shure it isnt soo bad...
So, why are the traditional guys like Agujetas so arrant to jump on the train of the nowadays image of flamenco. "ART". Making a lot of money and shut the doors in front of as many people as they can (non Spanish people, non gitanos) and tell them. You cant perform "our" art, you are not born with it. .... ? Well, let me tell at this point. For me its not imporatnt who tells me. Hey Doitsujin doesnt perforem true flamenco. Its not important, coz I just like the music and play for fun and not to overcome any problems... ;.)
Does they do that because they want to keep the money making circle of people as small as possible? Or do they honestly think to be grown up within flamenco performing people is the only way to be able to perform true flamenco? In that case it also must be possible for flamenco to develop and become true in other countries with other nationalities than Spain.
Example: Do you know Jose Tanaka? Hes Japanese, lives in japan. His family are flamenco performers and his real name is really Jose. Not Hiroo or something. But he is 100% Japanese and grown up in japan but in a japanese flamenco family. So if that is necessary for being able to perform true flamenco. He must be able to do that. But Agujetas would say... No. ... Im 110% shure about that.
Well, the other argument which sometimes comes up which makes one being able to perform true flamenco and others not (which is one of the worst arguments I could imagine ) is, to have the gitano (or softer said) Spanish blood. Whats that man?? There is an accepted definition about people thinking like that being Nazis (Well, maybe not Nazis..but I dont know how to discribe it otherwise drastically enough as I want). (Sorry for these really hard words.). So how can one say something like that in a public interview and don't get arrested?
In the end, maybe I don't get any point about flamencoish definitions and about gitanos... or Im just 10% right and the whole myth about who is elected to perform flamenco is a big hill of lies and trys.
Well, now I hope some people who know much about flamenco (and here are more than enough I think), teach me where I am wrong. I'm willing to become convinced by serious arguments. So, cite me how you like but keep in mind that my words are a theory.... more or less. And I want to know exactly these points better. Please teach me where I have gone to far and ...all!
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Date Jan. 6 2009 9:39:44
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henrym3483
Posts: 1584
Joined: Nov. 13 2005
From: Limerick,Ireland
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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doit,
agujetas is one flamenco out of thousands with these opinions, i like the mans singing very much but i don't neccesarily have to agree with what everything the man says, manuel's from a different generation with proably less tolerance and possibly some of the experiences he has had throughout his life have tainted his view on human nature, i try always to look for the goodness in people, i dont know how manuel grew up and what experience warped his views but they must have been dramatic to formulate this types of beliefs.
i got told by a spaniard that i could'nt learn flamenco cause im not from spain, it annoyed me for a while but i forgot about it because i have a whole hearted belief that a person can learn anything they wish as long as they put in the effort.
people like manuel like to put things into box's because it fits their ideas on life, well i belive that box's dont exist for people, and trying to define people is like trying to hold sand in a sive. its worthless.
right back to that solea por buleria i was working on
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Date Jan. 6 2009 10:10:38
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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quote:
Could somebody tell me how a singer could sing a love-cry-song from another singer and really mean it? Maybe a bad example, but in general it is like that. The same for guitar and dance. Almost all the same and much copying. And of course harmonically and choreographically not very far developed.
Hi Doit,
Maybe it's because they feel exactly the same thing.
I think it could be that maybe the word Flamenco does not mean the same thing to each generation, so that the artists in their 60's and 70's now, remember Flamenco more as a cultural expression where folk got together, maybe in a small bar or peña, or somebody's house, where after some bits and pieces of food and a few drinks alleviated the struggle and poverty of ordinary life and had a strong spiritual and community significance.
Maybe when faced with their 20 year old grandchildren now with plenty food in their bellies, driving cars and motorcycles and doing college courses and yakkin on mobile phones, spending money on clothes etc and judging the quality of Flamenco on it's musical complexity, technical virtuosity and innovation.....they just don't see it as being the same music!
This is just a theory. It's not necessarily my point of view personally.  
cheers,
Ron
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Date Jan. 6 2009 12:06:13
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Florian
Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to Ron.M)
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quote:
I think it could be that maybe the word Flamenco does not mean the same thing to each generation, so that the artists in their 60's and 70's now, remember Flamenco more as a cultural expression where folk got together, maybe in a small bar or peña, or somebody's house, where after some bits and pieces of food and a few drinks alleviated the struggle and poverty of ordinary life and had a strong spiritual and community significance.
Maybe when faced with their 20 year old grandchildren now with plenty food in their bellies, driving cars and motorcycles and doing college courses and yakkin on mobile phones, spending money on clothes etc and judging the quality of Flamenco on it's musical complexity, technical virtuosity and innovation.....they just don't see it as being the same music!
This is just a theory. It's not necessarily my point of view personally.
this is not necesarely my my point of view either ...
but what if the young people feel like...
I am sorry that the old people went though that..they are right ..i do live in a diferent world..am i sopossed to ignore the advances in phones, cars, and evolution in flamenco ? would that bring me closer to them ? ...I cant really turn back time and unlearn all the advances we have made in every aspect of life..I cant pretend that i havent heard Tomatito, and Diego Del Morao and Chicuelo..
besides sympathising with you and apologising for evolution theres not much more i can do..i cant pretend i dont live in this world...where there are mobile phones, not as many people starving etc..
but haing on ..u never see a young flamenco giving an interview and insulting the old ways all you see is old flamencos insulting the newer ways..
its hypocrtitical because they themselfs didnt follow the old ways exaclty when they were young..had some input ...contribued and were part of the
same evolution......they slowed down and now they hate it because it wont stop with them..and feel threatened because they all the suddent arent in the driving seat anymore..
You not really fighting young peole...you fighting human nature...evolution...its never a fight any generation could ever win
i dont know about you but i read nothing but bitterness in some of those interviews..
It has nothing to do with "real flamenco" its just selfish reasons, either trying to make people curious enough to buy the album...or feeling bitter for not beeing in control or making sure they stand out by rubbishing other people..maybe even trying to score some more publicity by contreversy..
Unfortunateley when we made advances in all aspects of life..it included reading and interpreting human behaviour..stuff like this is quite transparent now, majority of people read the probable intent behind..
we have seen any kind of scenario about a million times before on the tv lol
maybe a young person might say that ...i dont know..
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Date Jan. 6 2009 12:44:11
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John O.
Posts: 1723
Joined: Dec. 16 2005
From: Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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It's not necessarily only an issue with flamenco. With Agujetas I think it's about getting older and becoming less tolerant. I look at rock music today and think most of it is just crap. Also oppressed cultures hold their art closely and take it especially serious - how long did it take for someone like Eminem to be welcomed into the black music scene? The Gitanos stick together and consider flamenco theirs - gotta respect it because for the most part it's true.
Generally in the arts there is always less tolerance for change. In classical there's less of a problem because the music is the same. Compare Segova with Williams and it's clear to anyone it's pure improvement, no more no less. Get a new composer in there and the problems start - Segovia hated Barrios's compositions, Williams loves them.
Even my wife as a theater make-up artist says the old folks reminisce about the days when it was really hard work - all the modern touch-up stuff just isn't the same. And by the way, they also all fight about who's better, how something should be done or not, etc...
Agujetas is really one of the last of his kind. Surrounded by all this modern stuff he probably doesn't really understand. In his day he was a master, nowadays he can't identify with most of what's out there.
And listen to the older stuff in Youtube - El Chocolate, Antonio Mairena, Fosforito, Pepe Marchena, José Menese, Manolo Caracol, generations before that, too - it has SUCH a different sound about it. And don't fool yourself, it's art. If something you've heard 1000 times can move you when you hear it again interpreted new, that's art. And it's SUCH art to listen to Juan Habichuela or Melchor de Merchena accompanying the way they did.
I think Agujetas is a tortured soul anyways. Ever hear him doing any cante chico that sounded good? He can only do tragic stuff well. I think he had a drink too many that interview and vented a bit too much.
Keeping the money-making circle of people as small as possible... not really - but it ADDS to the problem of trash-talking, determining who's good, who's not, who's real or not, at least outside of Spain. Usually everyone knows who's good or not anyways. I'd say the ego problem (which EVERYONE has) is the main source of negativity.
As far as the naziesque way of thinking - let's take an example - someone who was born in Spain at the source with a guitar in their hand listening to their father play, practising 10 hours a day and more, a huge family of flamenco people, dancers, singers to practise with throughout your childhood, the elders know just about everything about traditional flamenco so you got a lot of that at a young age too, tour with a number of groups as a young teenager, compose, juerga after night-long juerga you spend decades getting further and further to your peak - and one day you come across a student from Illinois who is in Spain for the first time, after five years of practise can play a lot of PDL falsetas and think's he's not such a bad flamenco player? I can understand how that would seem quite rediculous.
The above didn't mean anyone here, was just something I though up... though it did almost pertain to me at a time
Going to sleep now and looking forward to how long this thread will be when I look at it in the morning
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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
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Date Jan. 6 2009 13:56:53
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Doitsujin
Posts: 5078
Joined: Apr. 10 2005
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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quote:
As far as the naziesque way of thinking - let's take an example - someone who was born in Spain at the source with a guitar in their hand listening to their father play, practising 10 hours a day and more, a huge family of flamenco people, dancers, singers to practise with throughout your childhood, the elders know just about everything about traditional flamenco so you got a lot of that at a young age too, tour with a number of groups as a young teenager, compose, juerga after night-long juerga you spend decades getting further and further to your peak - and one day you come across a student from Illinois who is in Spain for the first time, after five yeas of practise can play a lot of PDL falsetas and think's he's not such a bad flamenco player? I can understand how that would seem quite rediculous.
Sorry I disagree with this example. Im working in science and well.. it took a ****ing long time with the science to get where it is now. But every year, new crazyer and much more difficult stuff is found out or is invented. The development is close to exponential growth in complexity. But new students have to learn all the basic stuff in 2 years and than a lot more in another 2 years. And thats bla bla...I know...more than 100 timies more than the old masters of any kind of science knew for their whole life. And they thought,.. man we are the men!! But they are not really the men from the todays viewpoint. After that they have to specalize and learn even much much more complex, more difficult things and a damnlot more informations than anybody could have been able to imagine when they were the bosses. F.E. C.Darvin, Kopernikus or whoever. And we do this every year continously. (Man... arent we the men or what?? :.)) I know,.. its just for a short moment in time... Than we are the simple past!
As like that the young generation and of course people who live outside of spain can learn flamenco much much faster than it was the case in past. And they have material which makes it much more comfortable to learn it without beeing in smelling juergas where you get drunk, or high and dont remember anything the next day. And when you are livin outside of a city with a car. In many cases its faster to come to work 30km from outside than 3km through the city with the tram, which is much closer.
haha Well, Im not the best with examples but I try hard...
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Date Jan. 6 2009 14:13:42
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runner
Posts: 357
Joined: Dec. 5 2008
From: New Jersey USA
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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Ron M. and John O. have put their fingers on a very important, powerful explanation for the perceived estrangement of older flamencos and aficionados from much music they hear today that they are told is flamenco. Ron and John suggest that much "flamenco" music these older listeners hear today does not sound like what gave them so much shared comfort and pleasure in their past. We can understand these feelings if we consider the profound changes in attitude required from those, for example, who passed through the Great Depression and World War II, and then entered a world of Rock 'n' Roll, televison, and supermarkets.
There is another factor augmenting this estrangement, and that is the fact that evolution of/in the arts is episodic. There are longish periods of stasis or slow change that are interrupted and ended by bursts of rapid change. This is certainly true of flamenco. Disregarding whatever has been written about past flamenco and relying only on the recordings, it is clear that much flamenco actually changed very little between the early 1900s and near the end of that century. One can listen to tientos and siguiriyas, for instance, recorded in 1909 by Manuel Torres and Juan Gandulla "Habichuela", and then to similar utterances by the Pavons, by Terremoto, by the Sisters, by Chocolate, right up through the decades. If Torres came back in 1989 (80 years later) and listened to siguiriyas and soleares by Jose de la Tomasa and Paco del Gastor, he would have felt at his ease, among friends and the music he was used to. It would all still be, to Torres, Flamenco.
But as rapid change occurs in the arts, a name is given to the period of stasis or slow(er) change that has been closed--Baroque, Classic, Romantic, Hudson River, Hellenistic, etc., etc. The burst passes, we enter a new period of stasis, and apply a new name to that new, next period. Florian is right when he accuses many older flamencos of trashing the newer music, but I think that the trashing is a reflection of the fact that the older listeners hearing newer "flamenco" think that the music is bad because it calls itself flamenco (but is not flamenco as they knew it to be), not necessarily because they think it is bad music. This is an important distinction: many older listeners would probably like/enjoy/play the new music if it had some other name than "flamenco".
The point is that perhaps, at the rate that "flamenco" is changing, and is cross-pollinating with other musics, and is using alien instruments and modalities such that Manuel Torres (or Agujetas) no longer can recognize it, it may no longer be useful or accurate to use the same term--flamenco--that has been identified with a certain kind of music for probably at least a century. If it's the music that counts, then let the old fogies have the old name flamenco; why not honor and baptize the new music with a new name or set of names? We can't keep calling everything flamenco, can we?
runner
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Date Jan. 6 2009 16:48:09
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gj Michelob
Posts: 1531
Joined: Nov. 7 2008
From: New York City/San Francisco
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to runner)
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quote:
The point is that perhaps, at the rate that "flamenco" is changing, and is cross-pollinating with other musics, and is using alien instruments and modalities such that Manuel Torres (or Agujetas) no longer can recognize it, it may no longer be useful or accurate to use the same term--flamenco--that has been identified with a certain kind of music for probably at least a century. If it's the music that counts, then let the old fogies have the old name flamenco; why not honor and baptize the new music with a new name or set of names? We can't keep calling everything flamenco, can we?
A brilliantly illustrated arguement, Runner, and wisley drawn summations. Something about "open-mindedness" that always strikes the right Chord with me (a flamenco chord, naturally).
You have my vote.
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gj Michelob
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Date Jan. 6 2009 17:26:05
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Ricardo
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: What is true flamenco, who perfo... (in reply to Doitsujin)
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I used to get upset when I felt some good flamenco was written of as "that's not flamenco...." by some aficionado. Watching Rito y Geografia, it became clear to me it is not at all an issue of "old vs new", that type of criticism has been going on since the beginning of flamenco. In almost all cases it is not meant to be literal, but a way to put the interpretation down. Solea is solea. If it is done very badly, it is common, and I have come to feel it is appropriate to say "that is not flamenco" even though we mean it is simply a very bad, non exemplary interpretation. Agujetas is an example on one extreme end of the spectrum, perhaps ottmar leibert on the other end. It is important to have the extreme cases so we can see where in the "middle" we personally stand. And we each have our own place as flamenco aficionados.
The term "gitano" as applied to flamenco is another thing. Again it is not meant racially. For decades aficionados refer to Ramon Montoya as the gitano that exemplifies
toque payo" and Manolo de Huelva or Niño Ricardo, the payos that exemplify "toque gitano". Nothing wrong with the term so long as you understand it's meaning and how it may be a compliment to one's playing style. Nothing in there at all glorifiying crime, for cryn out loud. 
I personally really enjoy the peronality types of Agujetas and our friend Jacinto here, etc for examples. On one hand the extremism amuses me, and on the other, the little purist inside me has a champion. It's all good for me, even though I know where I draw my lines personally. So many times when someone has presented some flamenco to me that is not to my taste, I can play the part of Agujetas and say " that singer is not flamenco, bow wow!". Partially joking, making fun of those types of extremists, while at the same time admiting I don't really like it. Of course I know perfectly well, just because I dont' like something it doesn't mean it does not have merit!
Ricardo
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CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jan. 7 2009 11:00:51
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