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Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada
Palmas questions
I was just listening to Son de la Frontera today (even though I hate the “tres” guitar, I keep coming back to them for some reason, maybe it’s that Moron style), and they actually give credit to the palmeros on their CDs and video recordings so this made me pay a little more attention to how much the palmeros actually contribute this time. As I was listening to the palmas in their recordings I was interested how they change their palmas patterns. For example, they seem to go contratiempo during a buleria’s falsetas and use different patterns at different places.
This made me wonder how people ever learn to do palmas in a coordinated fashion? (e.g. do they have names for the different patterns?) I’ve seen video of their playing and listened to recordings, and they’re very close, so I guess they must have worked it out or rehearsed the palmas for that song. Then I wonder about what happens in a juerga or en tablao when it’s more spontaneous and improvised (because with singers and dancers and players things adjust on-the-fly) is it just sort of common practice that certain palmas patterns get used during llamadas, remates and falsetas?
This also made me think about how inadequate palmas loops are to the task when recording and how daunting it would be to learn how to use a drum or audio track app to prepare a palmas backing track for a specific song, and get the timing right based on the sheet music.
Is there anyone who could give me a brief “for dummies” explanation of how these apps handle this sort of thing and if they can recommend any apps that are either easy-peasey and/or have good freely available tutorials?
Do I ask stoopid or boring questions? Do you just not like me?
Anyway...
I've been pondering the software issue and I decided that they must have apps that can import music files (like Music XML or midi) and that you can build a backing track based on the the sheet itself.
First off you need to find some people to work with. Palmas are accompainment, you need somebody to accompain. Another thing is, you need at least one more palmero for most patterns. As for patterns, there is a DVD which gives you the illusion of practising with guitar and other palmeros, because each is recorded seperately and you can turn them off so that you can clap along. I never used it though, i dont want to clap at home...
Anyways, what is more important than rythm is to develop a clean sound first. Each beat has to sound even with the others. Try clapping a simple 4/4 and make the beats sound equally (with or without accents). Record yourself and you will see what i mean, its VERY hard.
Good palmeros are rare outside Spain. This video has always fascinated me because the palmas are so upfront.
Exitao, I've got the DVD "Aprende y parctica la palmas" from Jeronimo Utrilla.
It contains a booklet with some explanation and the different variations on Solea / Buleria / Cantina / Fandango / Sevellinas / Tangos / Tanguillos / and for Rombsix they even included a Rumba Chapter.
It's a nice DVD because you have a lot of different options eg. palmas + foot / palmas + guitar / palmas1+palmas2 etc.
The only thing I find a bit of a pitty is that the recorded loops loop for 8 beats or so and than starts over again with a half beat pause.
A few months ago Ailsa I believe posted a video from a guy on youtube explaining the Solea,....I'll see (hmmmm might be an abbrev for Ai l sa) if I can find it.
Just one thing, I'm not actually trying to learn to do palmas at the moment, I am really just trying to understand them... structurally - I guess that's the word I want.
I was also asking about how you would go about pre-recording a palmas backing track that would be specific to a particular piece of music. As many of us don't have access to palmeros or bailores, arranging/pre-recording a plamas backing track (not a loop) could be a worthwhile project.
I was also asking about how they... arrange (?) palmas for pieces.
I like that Tomatito piece, it's very demonstrative of how that palmas patterns change with a specific piece of music as opposed to palmas loops which are pretty much constant or at least, far from tailored.
This is the SdlF piece that made me start asking these questions, the bailaor joins the palmeros fairly quickly making for 3 palmeros(including the cantaor and bailaor) and 2 tocaores:
kozz:
That sounds interesting, but it will be a while before I buy a dvd just to satisfy a theoretical curiousity.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been more published (if there is I haven't come across it casually, so I guess I'll do some searching).
Not sure what you mean with "understand them", but theres just two things to understand in my view. If you want to learn how to do (or arrange) palmas to a specific music you need to study the music first, develop a feel for it and look for standard patterns for this type of musical section. It could be a strumming or a falseta, doesnt matter. Whats important is that the rythmic feel of it is represented in the palmas. Thats it about arranging palmas imo. If you want to do that you need a music first. You could take SdlF, why not.
As you see in the video most of the palmas are just in 6s and, which would be the second thing, it is done by overlapping different patterns, not just one. Jason had made a good post recently. There is always one base pattern, and on top of that the rythmic variations done by other palmeros. In this video the clapping 1,2,3,4,5 makes the base. Other times it is just 1,2,x,4,5. Hope this helps.
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