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without flamenco...
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: without flamenco... (in reply to Ricardo)
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Although I have loved to listen to flamenco LPs and attend concerts (my first was to see Carlos Montoya in 1960 in Phoenix, Arizona), and although I got my first guitar at the age of 17 (again, 1960), when I learned to play your basic three-chord folk music (Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul, and Mary; etc.), I never progressed or advanced in any guitar genre, and I never even learned flamenco. Meanwhile, I attended university, spent several years in the U.S. Air Force, and had a career as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State. It was only after retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service that I actually bought a flamenco guitar and began taking lessons from Paco de Malaga in Washington, DC. I have been taking lessons from Paco for six years now, in between temporary consulting gigs with the U.S. Department of State. (I am now on a temporary assignment as Charge' d'Affaires at the American Embassy in the South Pacific island-state of Samoa. I Have been here two months, with one month to go before returning home to Washington, DC.)
I would have to say that without flamenco my life probably would have turned out much the same, but without the joy of listening to and appreciating a music genre that has vastly enriched it. I find now, after two months in Samoa without my guitar, I am anxious to return and take it up again. Paco and I joke that every time I go out on one of these gigs, it is like having taken two steps forward and one step back. My flamenco toque improves gradually over time, but not at the rate it would if I were to devote all my time to it. But then, I don't want to give up these overseas gigs either. And I'm too old to consider a second (or third) career as a performing flamenco guitarist anyway.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Sep. 9 2011 20:00:42
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Mark2
Posts: 1872
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: without flamenco... (in reply to Elie)
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Your closer to the truth than you might think. I was really involved in playing flamenco, and studying flamenco, for about 20 years, but in the last ten years, not much. I'm in way better shape as I replaced sitting in a chair with surfing. Clothes I used to wear don't fit anymore. If I'm driving to a gig(mostly rumba these days-haha the heresy is complete) and see the waves firing, I'm pissed.
I have way more money because I'm not focusing my energy on playing music and learning to play music better but on my business. I might actually be able to retire one day, not much possiblity of that before. I also used to suffer horrible back pain because of a ruptured disk-that is rare now.
I don't regret the years I spent pursuing flamenco, and sometimes I really miss playing for dancers especially, but I get a small fix from reading the forum and seeing how others have gone through, or are going through the same sort of process. And I enjoy reading the experiences of people who were able to go further than I was.
I hope I can return to a more active role one day, but I'm not counting on it. Being married with kids made it dificult to fully participate in the flamenco scene. My kids are almost all grown now, but I've sorta moved on.
One conclusion I have come to is that I don't think artists should complain about the lack of money in the arts. It's more fun than business-that's why it pays less.
I used to believe that once the bug bit you, you were done. Turns out not always to be the case.
quote:
ORIGINAL: DarkElieDraven
don't get me wrong I really love flamenco and enjoy 
but when I really think about it I think "no flamenco in my life" means :
more income ( working for more hours instead of practicing ) , higher marks at college  , more friends ( as I think some of us prefer his guitar more than a friend ) and obviously a better body shape  and less backaches
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Date Sep. 9 2011 22:21:30
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Mark2
Posts: 1872
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: without flamenco... (in reply to Ruphus)
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HAHA, It's not like I burned my guitars-I did a gig last week. It was I think only the third one this year and I didn't remove the guitar from the case for at least three weeks before the actual gig-that would have never happened fifteen years ago. I enjoyed myself at the gig both for the music and the fellowship of my longtime bandmates. We didn't play any flamenco.
As far as my family, once I met a well known music critic and asked him why he didn't review my performance when I supported an act at a show that he reviewed. He said he hadn't arrived on time for my set, and went on to tell me how his father had been a flamenco guitarist and that he felt he had shortchanged his family by spending so much time practising. I told him flamenco guitar was one of those things that you had to stay on consistantly or you'd lose your technique. The look on his face told me he didn't buy it. A man in his fifties, still resentful over his father's obsession.
It made an impact on me.
I exposed my kids to flamenco-taking the older one to dance classes when she was heavily involved in dance in general, but I didn't push the issue and it didn't take. Same with the wife. She played a little guitar when we met, but soon gave it up.
I can say with some pride that the day a tune I wrote came on the radio when I was hanging out with my kids was one of the greatest things about ever playing music in the first place.
My younger daughter once asked me while I was listening to a flamenco record "what are they singing about?" I explained, and she said "Sounds horrible!"
My wife and kids think I'm a solid musician, and that pleases me, but I doubt they want to listen to me play. They've heard it all before. Ad nasueam.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
Mark2,
Won´t it suck you in when you see those taut strings somewhere in your house? Do they leave you cold these days?
- And wouldn´t it have something charming to it, if your family heard you plucking away occasionally on returning home?
Just curious.
Ruphus
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Date Sep. 10 2011 22:04:21
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jmb
Posts: 119
Joined: Oct. 14 2014
From: Vallecas - Madrid - Spain
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RE: without flamenco... (in reply to Ruphus)
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Today I'm nostalgic.
As Spanish, flamenco and other Spanish folk is other thing, flamenco is part of the culture of my parents and part of my life. Flamenco has been always there in my enviroment ... but nobody there had that current increasing obsession for profesional playing, spurce woods, Paco falsetas or this kind of things. All this sofisticated things came later.
For my enviroment is a kind of spirit, not professsional careers. It is familiar enviroment, friends trying their best, eating olives, wine, jamón, laughing and having fun, a 'jondo' concert of 'El Torta' in Sala Clamores with friends, drinking Gin Tonic. Porrina's and Tio Borrico's cassettes on my father car were always there...
I love flamenco lyrics, I love to think in compás and how singers do it... And I do not need good guitars or great flamenco stars or professional dancers. Nowdays, I do not have many time and I miss the alegrías of my 'compadre' trying his best, and my friends humbles claps on tangos or bulerías without aspirations and without guitar.
Now I can play in my expensive Felipe Conde's guitar old-style soleares, bulerías or alegrías, but the true flamenco that is part of my life has no strings and it is lost in part ... it was voices, claps, friends and family and sometimes a cheap guitar.
Without flamenco, I simply would lost part of my life.
_____________________________
Suenas payo ¡y lo sabes!
Sing and string - other flamenco blog
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Date Nov. 6 2014 12:26:19
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. so its like saying, God gives you something, but also takes something else away from you 
) 
