Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
1 year of flamenco
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
kozz
Posts: 1766
Joined: Feb. 26 2009
From: Eindhoven NL
|
 1 year of flamenco
|
|
|
Hello people,
its has been almost a year now since I started playing flamenco guitar. Never had a guitar in my hands before and I thought it would be nice to consider what has happened this year towards guitar playing.
First of all, I still enjoy flamenco very much, although I've considered giving up due to some back-issues, but since we're getting back on track, I won't give up.
The last year has been a bit of fiddeling around on the guitar, trying different palos, but it was not easy.
I am not gifted with talent, not at all, but I noticed, espacially the last few weeks, that really focussing when studying is helping me a lot. Many people have said that before, but I neglected it anyway. Studying in front of the television is not a good idea.
Now I see it really needs dedication from my site to get somewhere and I am gladly going to absorb all the advise here on the forum to me in the hope I am going to make more progression this year.
I really enjoyed the forum, and I never thought I would carve into my guitar, but it all happend and I like it.
In this last year I managed to play only one piece in "full" with proper compas, it was Manton 1 from the german guy. Looking back why that is, is because I paid attention to it, and all the other pieces I was not really paying attention, and thats what I regret looking backwards.
So I know what to do for the rest of my flamenco carrier, and my goal for this year is to play at the end of 2010 a proper solea with all techniques included. It might be a simple piece, not to advanced, but its a goal I like to work to.
Having seen here people playing only 3 years of guitar and what they have acieved is far beyond my progression rate but is something to work to.
And if the progression rate is good enough I might give myselves a new handmade present at christmas time 
Thanks for the forum and all the advices!
Cheers koz
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 28 2009 3:07:41
 |
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to kozz)
|
|
|
Hi Kozz,
I'm an old guy (66 years old!) who is relatively new to the forum, and I have finally indulged my life-long love of flamenco guitar by studying and trying to learn it for the past three years with a maestro here in the Washington, DC area. I agree that progress is achieved by intense application and practice. Even then, it does not come easily for me. But it does not come at all without a disciplined approach to practice, at least for me. I do think that having a teacher makes it easier. He can guide you and show you some neat ways to play that you otherwise might not pick up on your own or with instructional material. So far, I have learned simple Solea and Buleria, and I have actually picked up a pretty decent rasgueado and tremolo.
Keep up the good work. I think learning flamenco guitar is a little like learning a foreign language. There are times that you hit a plateau and do not seem to progress at all, and then all of a sudden you make a breakthrough and advance further.
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
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 28 2009 10:48:25
|
|
kozz
Posts: 1766
Joined: Feb. 26 2009
From: Eindhoven NL
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to kozz)
|
|
|
Thanks for all the reactions!!!
I would love to here more how people do study. Do you keep a record? How do you study a falsetta etc.
Maybe I am gonna make a monthly A4 with exercises and small piece and stick to that for one month. I knew somebody from the Forum got a website with his studies and recordings but I forgot his name.
Ailisa, your completely right. Television s*cks, apart from the Dexter series which I just love. I like your idea to, keep it simple, but with duende.
MD, hopefully you'll find some joyment in playin guitar soon, but I think you will once you've seen your girly again!
The handmate present, well, at the moment the progression rate is only worth a simple cedilla
Bill, its a good point seeing a teacher again, maybe once I am fully recovered.
I had ordered the Pasa a Paso series from Oscar Herrero, I just love it. Must say first I had an illegal copy, but I like it so much I just ordered it. Always support the people who spent so much energie in providing us beautifull things.
About the Bulerias Challenge guys.
You're all right about that, but I am not ready for that yet. The next challenge I probably will attend.
But I am glad to help out in any further way, in contraty to what I stated earlier that I had to drawback, also from collection and reposting the contestors track.
Anyway,
I love to hear it how people "measure-their-progression-rate".
For me looking backwards after one year opened my eyes that I had to reset my goals and change the way of studying.
cheers
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 28 2009 23:30:49
|
|
kozz
Posts: 1766
Joined: Feb. 26 2009
From: Eindhoven NL
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to El Saare)
|
|
|
quote:
Hi Kozz,
Nice post, let me talk about myself. I've been started to pick up a guitar about 2 years and 4 mnths ago.Directly to flamenco. and still now I can not read notation very well, I just read Tabs.
At the start I just focused on the basics and it takes long time,still now there are lot I missed.
now after just 2 years I feel happy when my school mates call me the flamenco player, too many things makes me go forward....
Somepeople arroud me enjoy some Arab solos I play with just Pulgar and it sounds like the Lute.
there are many thing to discuss I will be happy if we talk (this is my mail rolleye@hotmail.com)
Sounds you are doin well!
I appreciate your invatation to discuss, I'll certainly come back on that one. As I am figuring out now a suitable practice scheme.
Since I am back to work half a days, after a half a year of staying at home, I got a little problem with " time-management" 
I also do like Arab music. Next week a friend of mine from Morocco is comming over to my place and he got me an Ud. I cant wait to have one actually. Did search on Maqam, but hell heee, those rjythms are even more complicated as Flamenco.
cheers
koz
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 4 2009 2:15:24
|
|
Ramon Amira
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to El Saare)
|
|
|
TO EL SAARE –
I have just read your last post, and I see you said you would like to learn notation. Yes, I would strongly encourage you to learn to read music. It's really not that difficult, and will greatly help you to learn flamenco. I will recommend a book for you – it is entitled "Classical Guitar Technique," by Aaron Shearer. Start with Volume One. I have used this method with my students for many years, from as young as six to as old as eighty-three. It may have been designed for use by teachers, but it is so clearly written and so well organized that anyone can use it for self study. It will not only teach you to read guitar music, but it also covers all the techniques that are used in flamenco, which of course really are more or less the same as in classical, except that flamenco uses some techniques not used in classical – rasgueado, etc., and some techniques, though the same, are sometimes executed slightly differently in flamenco. Also a four note tremolo instead of three. But if you use this book, you will learn all the basics, and most importantly you will easily learn to read music. Once you have learned to read music, learning flamenco will be infinitely easier. You won't need any of these expensive and dubious courses, etc. – you can just pick up any of a large number of books containing written flamenco, and just play it right out of the book, and learn and memorize whatever appeals to you.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 4 2009 7:06:41
|
|
mark indigo
Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to El Saare)
|
|
|
quote:
my goal... to learn notation
most flamenco music is not written down, a lot of what is written down is written in tab, and most of the top players don't read or write notation, so what's the point learning to read notation?
what you will need in order to learn from players who don't read and write notation is a good ear and a good memory (and good co-ordination to reproduce and play what you learn and remember).
If you don't have a good ear and memory, learning notation won't help you get it, but you can study aural training and/or get a teacher who can teach you simple stuff "cara a cara" that you can learn by ear and play by heart, and/or you can use recordings, cd's and dvd's in the same way.
And if you do have a good ear and memory, you won't need to learn notation!
Also, even if you do learn notation, you will still have to memorise what read in order to play it convincingly.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 4 2009 13:40:27
|
|
Ramon Amira
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to mark indigo)
|
|
|
|
Actually there is a great deal of flamenco written in standard musical notation. I have dozens of books, and a mountain of individual sheet music of various toques. It's true that most of the well known flamenco guitarists of past and present can neither read nor write down their music, but some of them could and did – Mario Escudero was one – Luis Maravilla, Juan de la Mata, Pepe Romero, and others, and some of them even studied classical guitar as well, and so could read and write music. But even of those who couldn't, a lot of their music has been transcribed and published. However, when I said he could play it right from a book, that was assuming he had already studied and learned the various toques, compas, etc., and had listened to a great deal of recorded and live flamenco, and so had a basic understanding of how it should sound. You can learn it from a book, but obviously you can never make it sound right merely from playing sheet music. But neither can you make it sound right merely from learning by ear. Written sheet music is a great source of all kinds of material, from traditional to more modern, so the ability to read music offers another avenue to learning new material. And there is nothing mutually exclusive about learning by ear and learning from sheet music. One complements the other. Either way, it's up to the individual guitarist to then learn how to make it sound right. I said exactly that in my earlier post, if I can paraphrase, I said with respect to flamenco, "You can learn the notes, but making it sound like flamenco is an entirely different matter."
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 4 2009 19:29:53
|
|
mark indigo
Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to Ramon Amira)
|
|
|
quote:
Actually there is a great deal of flamenco written in standard musical notation...... etc.
yeah, yeah, i know what you're saying, but this thread was started by a guy who has been learning flamenco 1 year.... he has thousands of hours of listening and watching to catch up on, he has all the techniques to learn and practise, he has all the palos, toques, styles etc. to learn, and learning to read notation is gonna take time on top of that, and my point is that it is not necessary and that it will take up time that would be better spent on the above.... we live in a literate culture and most people assume they can learn most things from books, but the first job of the flamenco teacher in so many cases is to get the students nose out of the book and get them to start listening....
and your list of flamenco guitarists "past and present" who read and write music - you "forgot" to mention Manolo Sanlucar and Rafael Riqueni
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 5 2009 2:38:59
|
|
Ramon Amira
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to XXX)
|
|
|
quote:
This is not classical guitar.
1) I never said that flamenco guitar was the same as classical guitar. 2) I did say, and it is an indisputable fact, that most but not all of the techniques used in flamenco guitar are the same as classical guitar technique, and I added the modifying statement that the techniques that are used in flamenco really are "more or less" the same as in classical, except that flamenco uses some techniques not used in classical – rasgueado, etc., and some techniques, though the same, are sometimes executed slightly differently in flamenco." It's clear from the above that at no time have I ever said that flamenco guitar is the same as classical guitar.
Nor have I ever said that anyone can learn to play flamenco guitar from a book. To the contrary, I have twice said with respect to learning flamenco guitar that "You can learn the notes, but making it sound like flamenco is an entirely different matter." I also said "You can learn it from a book, but obviously you can never make it sound right merely from playing sheet music."
It should also be noted that not everyone has access to a teacher, and even less so to a good and qualified teacher, nor can everyone afford a teacher, which is an expensive proposition. But a student who has been seriously studying flamenco guitar with a teacher and through other venues for one full year, should have at least a knowledge of the main toques, and should have learned the main techniques utilized in flamenco guitar – at least rasgueado, picado, arpeggios, and tremolo. Having reached that point, a one year student needs to hone those techniques, and a thorough study of classical guitar technique combines buttressing technique with simultaneously learning to read music, so he kills two birds with one stone, and no time goes to waste. Also at that point a one year student needs to learn more material, not only to play, but also that new material is used to continue to improve the above mentioned techniques. Where will he learn this new material. From a teacher? He will go through an awful lot of money to learn not a great deal of new music. On the other hand, anyone who can read music can – as I said – simply buy any number of books containing more falsetas than he could ever learn from a teacher or from recordings, etc., and for what amounts relatively to a pittance. I will reiterate that there is no end of flamenco music published in standard musical notation. Without even rummaging through my own pile of such music, I can state for a certainty that I have books and sheet music with music by Sabicas, Juan Serrano, Carlos Montoya, Mario Escudero, Luis Maravilla, Mariano Cordoba, Manuel Moreno, Emilio Medina, Juan Grecos, Martin Rosado, Jose de Azpiazu, and many more, including even Nino Ricardo. And learning new material from sheet music is infinitely easier and much faster than learning by ear from a teacher or recordings. Learning falsetas from a teacher is very slow going, and expensive. Recordings cost very little, but to learn from a record entails playing it back numerous times, which means lifting the needle, putting it back, never in exactly the right place, etc. Incredibly cumbersome. A tape has to be rewound again and again to listen to it numerous times. On the other hand, you put some sheet music down next to you, play through the falseta, then you just instantly play through it again and again – it's incredibly fast and easy, and you can play through a falseta ten times in less time than it takes to rewind a tape twice and play back. By pure chance, just last week I plucked out a book of Nino Ricardo sheet music. I was in the mood for Siguiriyas, so I just opened the book, and played straight through pages of his Siguiriyas. Now I'm not all that wild about his music, but out of all those falsetas I found three that I really liked. I was able to learn them in no time flat for the very reason I have stated above – it's right in front of you, so you can easily play it many time in succession. Another advantage to using sheet music is that you can modify any falseta to suit yourself by simply doing it right on the music – a few pencil strokes does it, and then you can read the ensuing falseta right off the sheet.
Nor is this unrelated to practicing technique. Obviously you must use your technique to play this sheet music, and so you are at the same time engaging in practice, and really in a better way than rote practice of the various techniques, which is better done in the early stages of learning.
No one can learn to play flamenco guitar from a book. But having learned the basics, the ability to read music is an additional invaluable asset to a budding flamenco guitarist. As is a complete mastery of classical guitar technique.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 5 2009 9:41:14
|
|
John O.
Posts: 1723
Joined: Dec. 16 2005
From: Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany
|
|
RE: 1 year of flamenco (in reply to Ramon Amira)
|
|
|
quote:
Recordings cost very little, but to learn from a record entails playing it back numerous times, which means lifting the needle, putting it back, never in exactly the right place, etc. Incredibly cumbersome. A tape has to be rewound again and again to listen to it numerous times. On the other hand, you put some sheet music down next to you, play through the falseta, then you just instantly play through it again and again – it's incredibly fast and easy, and you can play through a falseta ten times in less time than it takes to rewind a tape twice and play back.
Nowadays you have mp3's on your computer and just need to click on the arrow of the Media Player. Nevertheless I do see your point.
On the other hand, playing flamenco focusing on notes is very limiting, unless you want to become a soloist. Flamenco involves hearing a voice or another guitar and reacting on it without notes. It involves not going strictly by sheet music and changing a falseta on a whim where necessary, adding a compás or leaving one out, being extremely flexable. As I wrote, learning notation is good no matter what music you play, still I believe training your ear by doing what you above describe as cumbersome, is very important - more important than notation. Flamenco is much about using your ear. An important part of learing to accompany singing is playing along with recordings.
And in the end it is cheaper. You have to buy notes. Don't need a teacher for falsetas, I'll record a good player when he's not looking though and transcribe it for myself later There's absolutely NOTHING I can't transcribe myself and if I do, it definitely won't be in notation, it'll be in tab. If I know the song, notes are not necessary. You can even write tab with the staffs for halfs, quarters, eighths, etc. so you know the time values of the notes, making standard notation almost completely unnecessary.
_____________________________
Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 5 2009 10:25:37
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.140625 secs.
|
Printable Version
