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What is Flamenco?
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duwen
Posts: 68
Joined: Mar. 25 2009
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 What is Flamenco?
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I have both been inspired to ask this bold question after reading article I have just seen, and by Jason's powerful post in thread 'Flamenco originally came from India', ,,,and from my own personal awe of this music, song, dance over my years growing up.
my mum was very much into Flamenco when I was a child and had the LP of the famous Flamenco dancer Antonio--an LP I went and scratched/ruined as a kid, not on purpose.
What is Flamenco? Is this a silly question?
Here is article I had been reading: Flamenco FAQ for Classical Guitarists
...."Flamencos themselves (ie guitarists, dancers, singers, aficionados),
whatever their own specialty, and for both formal and historical reasons,
usually agree that what is fundamental to flamenco is *cante* (song), i.e. a
body of several dozen forms (*palos*) with specific rhythms, melodies, and in
some cases themes, sung in a certain way.
Flamenco guitar started as accompaniment for cante, and in Spain has largely
remained that, no matter how technically refined it has become. Probably the
same is true of flamenco dance -- that it started as an embellishment through
movement of what the singer was doing."
I heard someone say at Youtube: in order to understand Flamenco before even picking up a guitar, listen to the song. Is this true?
In article it says how important it is to play with singers and dancers.
Hmmmmm, not realistic for everyone. So question: If you yourself have some flair for dance and song, then maybe solo will be alright? 
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Date Mar. 26 2009 9:54:53
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Florian
Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to Florian)
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quote:
The backbone of all forms in flamenco that have compas at all (some of the
lyrical songs don't) is the compas. Hopefully, you will play the right notes
or chords at the right time, but mistakes of that kind are quickly history.
Singers and dancers will forgive you many many sour notes, and terrible
tone. Unfortunately, they can't work with you at all if you provide them a
hesitant, uneven, or false rhythmic basis. " [ibid]
yeah obviously the compas is a must..and singers might forghive you bad notes and tone once or twice but eventualy they will not ...
but yes i guess the statement is correct, i see where its going ....without compas theres nothing you can do..
however bad notes and tones are way more forgiven around dancers than singers..because its one of those things that can really stand out if you get it wrong and it reflects badly most of all on the singer, a general unflamenco public will just assume that hes singing wrong..so in the end its just as bad as not playing in compas imo..the whole feel evolves around the quality of the cante and the quality of the cante evolves around the quality of the accomp..ironically the most importnt thing its also the hardest to practice..since if u live outside spain singers dont grow on trees and if they do its hard to get them to practice long lol
i enjoy it more with a singer but i am always also a litlle bit more stressed when theres a singer around...its alot more cruzy when its just dancers...no matter how much i practice for cante it never feels like i have done enough
but theres other ways ..slowly we all get better oportunityies to practice for cante, with cds that have just voice to practice with..also practice along side cds..got to work with what u have and take advantage of technology...we lucky this days...everything is at a push of a button and we can acces alot of good info and lessons and ideas over the internet, we can slow things down, buy lesons dvds, have online lessons , books etc
so personally id put playing the right cords when cante present just as important as compas, i know the statement is correct in a very broad , general way and techinally possible...but i wouldnt wanna go to a show where someone takes it literally 
id have compas and tone where singer present at an even importance..if you gonna keep playing the wrong tone while singing ...compas wont save you 
u might as well be out of compas...dosent matter anymore
with dancers..its a litlle more flexible as long as theres compas
quote:
In article it says how important it is to play with singers and dancers.
Hmmmmm, not realistic for everyone. So question: If you yourself have some flair for dance and song, then maybe solo will be alright?
Imo Ideally yes..but i realize its not realistic for everyone, so everyone must work with what they have..
again with all the dvds, cds, lesons, available with a litlle bit of creative thinking one could take advantage and put it to good use if hes interested in knowing on how to acomp dancers or singers..after all , everything you need is right there on every flamenco album or dvd...just copy until eventualy your own light goes on and you start recognising patterns, and eventualy it always does..if you listen to enough flamenco you realize you know stuff u dont remember learning ..like a natural pattern, things feel familliar and internalised
where do you live btw ? you would be suprissed...unles you live in the country somewhere u will be surprised at the amount of flamenco schools around every country and every city..
do what you can with what you have
and if you wanna just do solo guitar thats fine too just depends of what your goals and plans are..
oh i wrote to much for one night lol i am not even gonna attempt to go into the main question of the thread..its gonna take me about 20 pages and to arrive at a place where you will be even more confused then when u asked and by the time i get to the end i would have agreed and disageerd and contradicted myself about 30 times..
thats like asking "the meaning of life" so i soposse the quic answer is whatever it means to you, then that is the meaning of life...to you
il save that for another day
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Date Mar. 28 2009 5:19:26
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Florian
Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to duwen)
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quote:
Tell me. Is it rare--unheard of for flamenco guitarist to sing?...I mean whilst playing guitar, and/or being percussive on guitar...?? I hve never seen this--off the top of my head
well i dont know..many of them can sing, paco de lucia sang on his album, david cerreduela can sing ( for fun), and I am sure many others if not the majority..
but many guitarists chose just one path..imo its beter to focus on one and do it well than both and do it average, guitar requires so much concentration that i am yet to see someone sing a buleria like duquende and than accompany himself like diego del morao
Singers playing guitar to accompany themselfs its a bit more common, i seen Potito do it, Camaron, Diego Carasco ( they just do simple stuff and chords mostly)..i imagine many of them can and have a guitar around the place...to work out stuff and practice
but in shows and where it matters its different..obviosuly , everyone sticks to their speciality..i imagine it would be harder to sing and play at the same time...you couldnt get the best out of your playing and singing..
its fine if its rumbats etc.. but things like fandango, buleria , etc.. both voice and guitar require so much concentration each that it would be very very difficult to do a great job on both at the same time imo..its like trying to play striker and goalkeeper at the same time in the same match..
quote:
I really hope you will make an effort to try and explain for you what is flamenco?
I will try but i wasent kidding..we did another one of this threads just a few months back...at the end i contradicted and argued with myself about 5 times ..i know what it means to me..to put it on paper i find it very very difficult lol
i find it very hard to give a acurate description of what it means to me...so many things affect it..
have a look in the general thread a few months back..for the same topic, you will see what i mean lol
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Date Mar. 28 2009 21:54:59
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gato
Posts: 322
Joined: Jun. 9 2007
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to duwen)
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What is flamenco? God, there are concrete statements and rules about the meaning and origin of the flamenco, but on top of all of that and in the meaning of the stories that are told and the meaning of the cante, it's really up to you to really make your own perception based on all of that stuff, and what people like to say all though they may disagree.
What is your own perception of your experiance tells you what the flamenco is to you, and that's what you must try to convey to your audience in every aspect of your ability, strength, and contribution.
Otherwise you are just another yes man going around with no self inside, and you follow what you see and hear, and you will begin to experiance nothing. That is what it's about, we all have to contribute, and even on this forum. You have got to see that.
That conjures in my mind the beauty of self expression, and co operation that is the meeting of peoples who come together to convey in a certain way, and that is what you have got to choose, wether it is painting, poetry, or the flamenco.
If you have a heart inside you know what I am reasoning. The form is the flamenco, and we are all living out our lives and thoughts and emotions, and what do you get?
Gary
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The Life Everlasting/Oswald Utopia
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Date Mar. 30 2009 1:19:45
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duwen
Posts: 68
Joined: Mar. 25 2009
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to Florian)
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quote:
That conjures in my mind the beauty of self expression, and co operation that is the meeting of peoples who come together to convey in a certain way, and that is what you have got to choose, wether it is painting, poetry, or the flamenco.
If you have a heart inside you know what I am reasoning. The form is the flamenco, and we are all living out our lives and thoughts and emotions, and what do you get?
Sorry Florian, I clicked reply to yours but for some reason Gato's quotes showed. This is not a mistake though because i really want to say how beautiful I find your comments gato. You say what I really feel.
About music per se when it has duende there are no boundaries. I rarely like some musicians who claim their music is better than another form. There should never be boundaries in music-------------yes forms of course, but there are myriad influences and so on as well. But music so much connects us. IS so understood by peoples and animals alike!
Florian, I have tried to find that other thread about the question I am asking here, do you know what month--about--it was released?
I still hope you wax lyrical about your feeling about what flamenco is
As for me.......From first hearing flamenco as a child thanks to my mum, it has this power that makes you shiver.
And I used to try and do the dance moves and do rythym with heels --and I wanted to be a dancer and even left home at 15 for this purpose to the big city---whereupon i was turned onto LSD, and because i was this uyoung kid right in heart of tail end of Hippy/Head scene --and became disillusioned with the form of dance being taught me--Jazz Merican, where the others seemed to be double jointed, and the pressures of having to support myself-------------all the temptations OMG, my dance classes waned and I entered the mysterious explorations of psychedelia
Regrets?.................What happens happens you cant undo it.
I am still a dancer. When your a dancer your a dancer. End of. I also love singing too
I had this friend some years back who had young kids, and when I toked I would have session in her chill out room. Floor cushions , guitars. And I would like to sing and the kids would hear me. I thought i was singing like Blues...Gospelly, which I also love. And one time I brought a CD to let my friend listen, it is called, Cante Gitano: Gypsy Flamenco from Andalucia, featuring Jose de la Tomasa, Maria la Burra, Maria Solea, Paco del Gastor and Juan del Gastor , an amazing CD
Anyway when her kids heard it they said I sounded like that....LOL, I was really complimented!!
I have a book called Psychedelic Reader, and it has articles by all the powerful personalities of that era. There is one very interesting article which talks about duende~~a term I now know very familiar with flamenco traditions. Anyway it says that in Mazatec tradition, there is a sacred term, 'duendes' :
"In the accounts of the visions that the Indians see after they consume the sacred food--whether seeds or mushrooms or plant--there frequently figure hombbrecitos, 'little men', mujercitas 'little women', duendes 'supernatural dwarves'. beginning with our maiden at her metate ['grinding stone' where she grinds up sacred mushrooms] , here is a fascinating complex of associations that calls for further study and elaboration."
So is there a connection between that Mazatec term (the Mazatec people were 'discovered' in 1950s by Gordan Wasson --internationally-- and found to secretly carry on a very old sacred mushroom religion) 'duendes' and the Gypsy flamenco term duende?
I am very much loving Frederico Lorca's poetry art, full of the duende, and of course therfore he mentions very much about duende!
"Whoever inhabits that bull's hide stretched between the Jucar, the Gaudelete, the Sil or the Pisuerga - no need to mention the streams joining those lion-coloured waves churned up by the Plata - has heard it said with a certain frequency: "Now that has real duende !" It was in this spirit that Manuel Torres, the great artist of the Andalusian people, once remarked to a singer: "You have a voice, you know all the styles, but you'll never bring it off because you have no duende."
In all Andalusia, from the rock of Jaen to the shell of Cádiz, people constantly speak of the duende and find it in everything that springs out of energetic instinct. That marvelous singer, "El Librijano," originator of the Debla, observed, "Whenever I am singing with duende, no one can come up to me"; and one day the old gypsy dancer, "La Malena," exclaimed while listening to Brailowski play a fragment of Bach: "Olé! That has duende !"- and remained bored by Gluck and Brahms and Darius Milhaud. And Manuel Torres, to my mind a man of exemplary blood culture, once uttered this splendid phrase while listening to Falla himself play his "Nocturno del Generalife": "Whatever has black sounds has duende." There is no greater truth.
These black sounds are the mystery, the roots that probe through the mire that we all know of, and do not understand, but which furnishes us with whatever is sustaining in art. Black sounds: so said the celebrated Spaniard, thereby concurring with Goethe, who, in effect, defined the duende when he said, speaking of Paganini: "A mysterious power that all may feel and no philosophy can explain."
The duende, then, is a power and not a construct, is a struggle and not a concept. I have heard an old guitarist, a true virtuoso, remark, "The duende is not in the throat, the duende comes up from inside, up from the very soles of the feet." That is to say, it is not a question of aptitude, but of a true and viable style - of blood, in other words; of what is oldest in culture: of creation made act. " http://www.musicpsyche.org/Lorca-Duende.htm
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Date Mar. 30 2009 5:04:19
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gato
Posts: 322
Joined: Jun. 9 2007
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to duwen)
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Thankyou duwen for that post. Not too many people are able to contribute like you just did, and hey, that's what this forum is all about. When I was a boy I got in to Jazz, I was inspired by the music of John Coltrane, in his later years, and I know how psychadelic experiances in music are so profound. And yet you really don't need to take anything to be inspired by such a master.
I was deeply touched by his connection to expression of the higher senses, and his relationship with God. I use to say that, "creativity is my religion," and I really felt that by knowing creative expression you are in deep association with God's being in that, God created the heavens and earth and everything in it. So you are partaking in the joy that is of God. And in that his love for Creation. Not too many people understood me I guess, but that was long before I started using substances, and long before I knew about Coltrane. He was so tight with my childhood obsessions, and I found that I wasn't alone.
Anyway, the art and music of expression really mooves us, and that is one of the concepts in duende that I find so fascinating, in that there is so much out there that is really utilitarian in that it is just for the sake of capitalism, and has no real expressive input, and yet that wonderful and expressive quality that is so vital is what I love so much about the flamenco. It's amusing that you should see it all much as I do in that you have deep thoughts and feeling on the matter, though, I don't use drugs anymore, and I find that they get in the way of creative perception these days. As an artist, I am really turned on to wanting duende, and though I think that I may have my own thoughts about it, and in that I probably am much alone, as it is personal and it really depends on our own perceptions. I am glad to see that you are so open with your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
Right on! That is truly a rare gift. Keep it! I think that you can answer the questions that were posed in this thread, and I don't doubt it at all though you may feel different about that, and that is truly special. Post more often....
Gary
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The Life Everlasting/Oswald Utopia
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Date Mar. 30 2009 8:16:38
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duwen
Posts: 68
Joined: Mar. 25 2009
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to gato)
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Thankyou for the link Flo, I will read it when I have time
Great post, gato. I also love Jazz. And this is why I want to keep as eclectic as possible with guitar even though this may seem spreading thin
I am more Goddess than 'God'. I have had deep interest in exploring mythologies and religious beliefs for quite a few years, and I notice far and wide that the sacred feminine is often suppressed--ie., especially from patriarchal religious beliefs, and as a result in reality so are women (ahaaaaaa, a thought just came: is there ONE flamenco guitarist female?--now, if you say no, in no way am I going to call flamenco patriarchal ;), but i AM curious!)
Goddess, in mythological belief is earth, the soil. And the earth and the universe was seen to birth life, thus metaphor of woman was more making sense, though of course the male principle was there also as the sacred phallic mushrooms for example, the Son/Lover of the Goddess, god of nature
So can we call the magic mushrooms the duendes? Why not!
When I had a magic mushroom Trip some years back, I saw the duendes with eyes shut while i was flying through a huge serpent spiral, they were like little people with very colourful (bright Mexican-like colour) clothese on, playing hide and seek behind the coils of the serpent, and I felt they were guiding my experience. You know they have a sense of humour
Another flamenco term for the duende is 'spirits of the earth', and also that fusion to be had when musician, singer and dancer are in fusion with one another and the land and air!
So this is all connected, yes?...!
I am an artist, and did BA in fine art, painting. Our class went to this beatiful place which was for the time we were there covered in snow, and we all would go out paining. And me being the rebel was only one of two who took Acid on the Wednesday.
What I noticed was--when not laughing like a mad man lol--was that the rational choice for colour mixing had waned (i am not sure if this is lack of exprience) but the sense of form and boldness in applying shape and colour greatly increased.
So it is like you are in a nonrational dimension where measure becomes irrelevant. You may see two paintings, one by a child another by a very skilled painter, but both will be significant!
So how would the duendes help the flamenco...? haha
I would encourage you and others to deeply respectfully join hands with the duendes and your guitar, and/or singing and dancing. For the sacred mushrooms (and other plant teachers ) are sacred medicine. They can help resolve blocks, not only for guitar etc but for our lives in general (please checkout my blog where I go into this in more depth)
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Date Mar. 31 2009 3:33:42
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to duwen)
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quote:
I am going to really research about Peter!
Hi Duwen,
Note though that Peter Walker does not play Flamenco, but his own music which is influenced by listening to Flamenco.
In fact the Gypsies of Andalucia whom he praises and admires, would probably be pretty puzzled by what he is playing and probably assume he was trying to learn Flamenco but hadn't quite understood it!
A lot of guitar players with an interest in World Music are happy though, just to "dip their toe" into this music and just pick up bits and pieces of the tonality and techniques and incorporate them into their own compositions.
In fact there are quite a few famous examples around, some quite famous amongst the record collecting and concert-going public.
But it is important to differentiate between this and Flamenco "Puro", which is the music developed by the Gypsies of Andalucia and has certain fixed structures in order that the singers, dancers and guitarists (and audience) can communicate and improvise.
It is not just "free association" and "play what you feel from your soul", as is often thought.
Also, in all my years of listening to and reading about Flamenco artists, I can't say I've ever come across any mysticism or psychodelia in this culture, (although certainly drink always did and certain drugs did feature in the lives of some Artists from the 80's onwards.)
But as I said, there are a lot of "eclectic" musicians who do not want to get involved to such a level, but just generate a "flavour" of the music in their own material, which is fair enough, so long as they don't then go on mislead others by claiming it to be some sort of genuine Flamenco.
As I said in my last post, this is mainly a learning site for students of orthodox Flamenco music, artists and techniques, so we don't really cater for these sort of musicians, not because of any kind of "snobbiness", but because there are other "World Music" and guitar sites around on the Net and this one specializes in what we do! 
I'm pretty sure you could contact Peter Walker though. He seems quite an approachable guy.
cheers,
Ron
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Date Apr. 7 2009 8:57:30
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Guest
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RE: What is Flamenco? (in reply to duwen)
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Its kind of like when you are on a roller coaster ride and you get splattered with what you thought at the time was some one else's vomit, but soon after realise it was only water.
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Date Apr. 9 2009 0:22:22
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