my four weeks at the Cristina Heeren Fundacion

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Miguel de Maria

Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ

my four weeks at the Cristina Heeren...

Tomorrow is the last day of class, although class might be an exaggeration. I know in our Intro to Flamenco class, we´re planning on all going for cafe and churros, our last lecture was today. In our guitar classes, the teacher have been coming later and later, with longer and longer breaks, and more and more socialization.

Today we were all hanging out in the patio, when there was this CRACK!, and stuff flew everywhere. I thought it was a Spanish terrorist, but we found out that someone on the third floor had inadvertently dropped a lighter, which exploded on contact with the ground. To no one´s surprise, it was one of the guitarists in the Basico section.

I wanted to write a few words here in case anyone was interested in the Fundacion, coming here for an intensive summer course or even for the normal course, which lasts a year.

It is organized into dancers, singers, and guitarists, each having three levels--basico, intermedio, and avanzado. In the morning, at 9 am, there is the class called Introduction to Flamenco, which deals with the history of flamenco and listening and identifying the various forms of cante. If you don´t speak much Spanish, they also offer a Spanish course at this time. Then at 11, there is the compas and tecnica class, taught alternately by Tino van der Smaan and Miguel Angel Cortes. At 1 there is the accompanying the cante course, taught by Eduardo Rebollar. During the year there are other teachers as well, but as I understand it the basic format is the same.

The Fundacion itself is located in Barrio Santa Cruz, the historic Jewish District, home of the Cathedral and many other historic sites. There is a small entranceway to the street, a metal wire door which must be buzzed to open, which opens into a pretty patio. Surrounding the patio are offices and classrooms, and up some stairs are other classrooms. The guitar classes are given in medium-sized rooms which could comfortably hold about ten students arranged around a teacher. Some are air conditioned, some not.

The teachers are for the most part professional musicians. Miguel Angel Cortes plays at festivals, played in New York when Tomatito came, has CDs, and has been on TV. The same for Eduardo Rebollar, who accompanies Chocolate, and Nino de Pura and Manolo Franco, who have considerable notoriety of their own. This has, of course, good points and bad points. The good is that you know that their abilities are tested, that they are superior musicians and performers. The bad is taht they are not really professional teachers. Their abilities to understand a particular student´s needs or learning style vary. Some of them are willing to take time with a particular person, others are a bit more impatient. For example, Miguel Cortes loves to take it pretty briskly, and if you don´t get it, you will have to check out your recording.

Everyone records, by the way. Lots of people use normal cassette recorders, and the guys from Paco Penas school all use mini discs, which have good sound and memory but are a bit rare (and maybe expensive).

The curriculum for guitarists consists of falsetas, compas variations, and exercises. I´ve learned, I don´t know, maybe 15 falsetas here? How many of them can I play right now? Uh, maybe three. The rest I will have to study at home. There is not time to get much at all up to speed, unless you do this really quickly. I have exercises for picado, arpeggio, left hand, thumb, and alzapua. These flamencos do things a bit differently, at least from me. A lot of their exercises have some sort of melody, and some sort of ending. It seems to me that this way might encourage the development of other things than just purely working on a detached formula, which is my way of practicing. I´m not sure which I prefer, but it is certainly nicer to listen to a well-played melodic etude than a mindless combination of open string sounds, which you might hear if you came to my house!

Due to my being in the intermedio rather than avanzado level, and due to certain ohter people in my group having a bit less faculty with the gutiar, we did little work with the accompaniment of cante. During this month we worked with a Cd for fandangos de lucena, adn worked a bit with a singer for tangos. The advanced guys got a lot more work with the singer, a great voice named Paco Taranto. They did fandangos, tangos, solea, and cana. I learned very little about accompanying cante in this course.

I learned nothing about accompanying the baile. We did nothing with the dancers.

There was only one Spaniard in all of the guitar courses. Most of the students were from northern europe, holland (seems to be a hotbed for flamenco), germany, belgium, denmark, and a bunch from the states. In the baile, there were lots of spaniards, and in the cante, all but one (a Japanese lady!).

A lot of the students here were more advanced than me, and I got along realy well with most of them. One or two are quite accomplished, for example one played the Concierto de Aranjuez in concert! I learned a lot from my interection with these people, from discussions about practice methods, exchanging philosophies and ideas, exercises and such. I also learned a lot from seeing shows. I´ve seen maybe 25 here, been to three festivals, tons of shows at other places, a few penas. This was a vital part of my stay here.

I would have liked a lot more personal attention, but the teachers here had little to say about my technique, maybe because for the most part it funcions fairly well. Some of the guys got a lot of feedback, and if your technique is strange they will certainly try to change it.

I´ve learned a lot here, but am kind of fatigued and can´t say for sure that I´m any better! Probably after six months, when I have mastered the falsetas I like and the exercises taht make sense to me, and the many shows I have seen have sunk in, I will consider it to have been a marvelous experience! Well, I´ve enjoyed much of it, but I think the cameraderie, the interaction between guitarists and exchanging ideas, adn teh festivals adn shows have been the best part. And another very good thing is to be exposed, in a personal situation, with professional guitarists, whose word seems to carry a bit more weight than some others.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jul. 31 2003 15:23:08

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jul. 31 2003 17:15:45

Phil

Posts: 382
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Rota, Spain

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)

Michael,

Great post! All of your posts from Sevilla have been very interesting.

quote:

I´ve learned a lot here, but am kind of fatigued and can´t say for sure that I´m any better!

In a few weeks you will pick up your guitar one day to practice and you will suddenly play better than you have ever played before. There's often a delayed reaction in the learning process. You go along for awhile with no apparent improvement and then BAM! It all suddenly comes together. You have probably learned things during your stay in Sevilla that you don't even realize you learned. You also got to meet, observe, and be taught by some top notch guitarists: Eduardo Rebollar, Manolo Franco, Niño de Pura. WOW! Even if one doesn't particularly care for their recordings or style of playing, you have to admit that it's awe inspiring to see these guys play up close and personal.

If you ever come to Spain again for lessons check out Jerez. I'll introduce to a guy that's a full time teacher, although he also still plays professionally on the weekends. You'll get the personalized attention that you're looking for.

Phil

PS. How do you like this heat wave we've been having in Spain the last couple of days? I saw that it got up to almost 120 degrees in Sevilla today.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 1 2003 0:49:14

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)

Michael,
I can't thank you enough for taking the time and sharing. You will realise upon your return how much better you have become - one week in Granada took a while to show up in my playing, but it did.

3 points:

I bought a used Mini-Disc recorder with a digital mic. but it connects with an analogue cable (go figure). About $100. Nice thing about them is the recording time (70mins) and the track markers. Each recording gets a marker which you can skip to immediately and you can set your own markers as you listen to a playback. Very useful for skipping to a particular falseta.
Flamenco is hot in Holland? Damn, I lived in Amsterdam for two years but wasn't into flamenco at the time!

quote:

if your technique is strange they will certainly try to change it
How would they have reacted to Todd and his pick?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 1 2003 18:41:57

Miguel de Maria

Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)

Simon, I showed up using a classical footstool, which I used to use for practice because it costs me less energy. That was the first change me made, and I haven´t used it since. If Todd came to my school, they would of course try to get him to change, and if they survived, would of course let him play however he wants. It´s his money, right? But as experienced these teachers are with foreigners, I can´t imagine them ever approving...

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 2 2003 8:54:03

steenland

Posts: 36
Joined: Jul. 7 2003

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)

To: Michael Cho

Is there any writtten material handed out, such as tab? Would be great to learn from a traditional guitarist such as Manolo Franco, a great flamenco guitarist who is almost unknown in the US.

Recuerdos,

T. J. Steenland

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 2 2003 23:52:56

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 4 2003 13:47:09

Miguel de Maria

Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)

Well, I actually did not meet Manolo Franco, although he is one of the teachers here. He and Nino de Pura teach the advanced kids in the third year of the program. I should have mentioned that! However I did see Manolo Franco at the Moguer Festival... I would consider him traditional. He is maybe a bit post-Sabicas, but I don't think he has listened to Paco very much! He has loads of technique, but he doesn't sound very flamenco to me. He is one of those virtuoso type guitarists, that can blow you away on stage as easily as in person. He often accompanied a famous singer called el Naranjito de Triana, who died this year. The guajiras accompaniment I heard him play was so boring and annoying! I think his solo stuff is better than his accompaniment.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 4 2003 16:33:51

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 4 2003 22:29:45

steenland

Posts: 36
Joined: Jul. 7 2003

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)

To: Micheal Cho

All can say is that if had choice of flamenco guitar teachers, my choices would be as follows:

(1) Paco de Lucia
(2) Juan Martin
(3) Manolo Franco
(4) Dennis Koster
(5) Tomatito

Since interested in traditional and not jazz flamenco or South American elevator music would not consider Vicente Amigo, et. al.

Even though Paco may play some Nuevo Flamenco, the basic toque is still there.

Manolo Franco did win a flamenco guitarist award in the mid-80's in Spain. Will probably never win a Latin Grammy award, since the genral public in the USA has never heard of him.

Recuerdos,

T. J. Steenland

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 4 2003 22:48:29

Miguel de Maria

Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to steenland)

TJ,
I would also love to have Paco and Tomatito as teachers. Of course, being a great player is not always the same as being a great teacher! Some of the guys at the Fundacion are great players but they have a hard time understanding the student's point of view. Remember the old adage, those that can't do, teach? Well, some people can do, but can't teach! Is this why you have Dennis Koster and Juan Martin on there, because they are proven teachers?

As far as players go, I would sure love to have Pepe Habichuela show me some stuff, and I'm a sucker for that Vicente Amigo guy too.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 5 2003 20:45:48

steenland

Posts: 36
Joined: Jul. 7 2003

RE: my four weeks at the Cristina He... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)

To: Michael Cho

Should also add Mariano Cordoba. Listening to " 3 Guitarras Flamencas" ( Manolo
Franco, Qiique Paredes, and Jose Antonio Rodriguez). Sounds like they all studied with
Serranito. Quite a bit of it is Ida y Vuelta, but can still recognize the traditional
flamenco toque. In my opinion a good recording. There is some cante on there,
but cantaor's names not give.

Recuerdos,

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 5 2003 22:57:55