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Cristina Heeren - intensive guitar in July
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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 RE: Cristina Heeren - intensive guit... (in reply to Adam)
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Ramparts,
I did this course in, was it '03? A while ago... :)
If you search this forum, you may find some comments I posted while I was there.
My overall experience was that it was good. It is probably especially good if you don't have a good flamenco scene where you live. I was taught a bunch of falsetas (tangos, alegrias, the entire Panaderos Flamencos), some scales and licks, and a course on the history of flamenco (taught in Spanish). All the students in my class except for one were from Northern Europe or the US (one Spaniard).
There was no experience playing with dancers and maybe one class period devoted to accompanying a CD. There were dancers as part of the course but they were segregated and it took a lot of work to find them :)
The best part of it was hanging out with other guitarists and seeing shows. I saw about 30 shows, I think, during the 6 weeks I was in Spain. Some of my friends attended the Paco Pena school, and it was good to bounce ideas off of them. The teachers are no slouches, either--Eduardo Rebollar accompanied Chocolate and Jose Menese during my enrollment (in outside gigs) and another guy was accompanying Arcangel (can't remember his name, Miguel something).
Maybe the second best part was they screwed up and changed the date, delaying it by a week, _after_ I paid, and never told me. So I was in Spain an extra week, not knowing anyone. They compensated me by having Tino Van Der Smaan, one of the teachers, give me private lessons all that week.
I don't know how it compares to other courses, but you could probably do a lot worse.
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Arizona Wedding Music Guitar
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Date Oct. 23 2009 9:38:59
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guitarristamadrid
Posts: 133
Joined: Jan. 27 2010
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RE: Cristina Heeren - intensive guit... (in reply to Adam)
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Maybe this will be useful to you. Here's what it was like for me studying with El Entri in Madrid:
-Initially we had class 3 times a week, two hours on monday, wednesday and friday. Recently they upped that to two hours a day, six days a week
-Almost every class there was a singer or dancer brought in for us to work with, of a high level, except when Entri went through some poorer periods when he couldn't afford to pay them, and then sometimes his gitano friends would just come in and jam with us
-They had juergas pretty often, not even for the benefit of the students as much as the fact that Entri and his crew just really like to have juergas
-The students are more like Entri's family than students. It's like everyone is a big crew. I hung out with Entri for many hours just doing random ****, eating at his house, went to his church, drove around Madrid, etc. Teaching flamenco is that dude's life, he has never done anything else
-For most of the time I was with Entri, I was the only foreigner in the room, or maybe there would be one british or japanese guy who was passing through. Most of the students were gitanos, followed by spaniards
-The classes had all levels, from little gitano kids who could barely hold the guitar, to guys like Jonny Jimenez who can play anything. Entri has a way of teaching everyone at once that you kind of have to see to understand
Entri was always extremely friendly to me, as were most of the other people.
Entri will be hard on you though, and he expects you to be studying what he gives you outside of the classes.
The purpose of his school is basically to take people at various levels and turn them into professional players who could work at Tablaos around Madrid. Also for him, teaching is a very personal, almost religous mission
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
www.myspace.com/evancary
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Date Apr. 13 2010 9:41:55
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flybynight
Posts: 121
Joined: Aug. 14 2009
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RE: Cristina Heeren - intensive guit... (in reply to Adam)
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I agree with michall - I also wonder how much genuine value people can get from such intense study at these schools.
I know I am a bit of a slow learner, but I found that one hourly lesson from a very good teacher/player every 10-14 days covering say 3 significant topics in that hour gave me enough material, thoughts and ideas so that I had something well practiced and polished to show the teacher when I went back again.
Even with weekly lessons, I found that I hadn't really got the value out of the lesson, and wasn't practiced enough by the next lesson.
The other thing is the value of sleeping in the learning process (not during the lesson ;-) . I mean the brain just goes into overload unless you sleep and let your brain make the right connections to soak it all in to your subconscious, so you 'feel' it as well as think it.
It also 'takes time, you know', weeks and months, for your muscles to learn to respond properly when learning flamenco, so as not to strain / damage them.
Never mind the cost aspect of it all..
On the other hand, just being down there, for the social side, with lots of like minded people.. the whole scene must be a great experience.
Anyway, each to their own. I'm going to take Pimientito's tip, and just find a good guitarist, call them up, ask them if the do lessons, and do one 35 eur lesson every 1-2 weeks.
But it would be interesting to hear from others who have done these intensive courses to see how they have done.
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Date Apr. 13 2010 23:00:48
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guitarristamadrid
Posts: 133
Joined: Jan. 27 2010
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RE: Cristina Heeren - intensive guit... (in reply to Ron.M)
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quote:
the way that I read it is that the cañoroto school is more hardcore in trying to teach the practical things a player needs to play professionally,
That's it in a nutshell. The first day I walked in there there was a dancer in my face and Entri was walking over to me, while still playing his own guitar, shouting "un dos TRES cuatro cinco SEIS seite OCHO....
To be honest, no one at the cañoroto school even knows what the word "ethnomusicology" means, or cares. If you go there, you will be playing millions of escobillas, hours of technique, and clapping out compas to every palo until you can do it right. You will play for singers whether you feel comfortable with it or not, and in the middle of the class Entri will happily pause everything to teach you a falseta over and over again until you play it right.
It's intense, and if you're looking for a more touristy travel experience it's probably going to piss you off. It pissed me off many, many times, but hey, it was what I chose to do with my life.
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
www.myspace.com/evancary
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Date Apr. 14 2010 1:52:04
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