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RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
Doesn't sound out of compás to me, Romerito.
Following the singer ALWAYS comes first.
This is the thing.
Foreigners always see Flamenco as being so fixed and inflexible with regards to compás.
Whereas in reality it's NOT amongst those Flamencos in the know.
The singer simply extended the line (because he wanted to) and the guitarist stuck to him like glue.
I believe I've heard others (including Camaron) do the same thing.
BB King sometimes adds another 4 or 8 beats into his singing verse, so does that make it a 16 or 20 bar Blues? How come the band still know how to keep up with what he's doing when they are supposed to be playing 12 bar Blues?
This is what frustrates the "white boys" from the States trying to write a music ethnology thesis, but doesn't bother the Flamencos one bit.
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
I think the singer was stretching the time out quite a bit and at that point between 2:03 and 2:13, Carrion was trying to follow the vocal and basically "faking it" waiting for the remate. I think he could have pulled it off a little better - it did look like he was having a little trouble following.
But if it had never been posted on YouTube, I don't think anybody would have ripped him apart for being out of compas.
I think these things happen especially in informal/unrehearsed settings, and nobody really cares, because the performance still comes off and the guitarist did his job to follow the singer.
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
quote:
Ramparts(if I am not mistaken) is the only one I am aware of (what happened to him anyway)
Umm...
Romerito...
He's studying Astrophysics at Cambridge University in the UK.
(And working with a mirror on his suave and James Bond-ish appearance in his spare time.. )
I'm not dissing you Rom, but honestly, Flamenco is a folk-art played for pleasure and not a mathematical formula.
"White Boy" is just a phrase that ToddK used a few years ago, which I thought was very appropriate to the relationship with foreigners and Flamenco, so don't take any offence amigo.
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
Jason does that all the time, he makes the singer or dancer look good if they get crossed. In tangos there are extra fours and or course in bulerias extra sixes. Singer scan throw in sixes anywhere they like, it can make things get all wonky if you are listening for straight lines.
In solea, hmm if the singer wants to slow down or speed up sometimes it can feel like it's out, but not really. Compas has flexibility in the hands of some singers, especially if they are not singing for a dancer. Yeah and some gypsies have better compas than other gypsies and some outsiders have better compas than some insiders. But what do I know, not much.
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RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
quote:
Could Jason or Grisha or Ricardo get away with the same kind of manipulation of the compas?
Speaking for myself "yes I can".
However, the non spanish flamenco police might not like it. I just did a concert for a singer in California that is a gitano from spain (Jesus Montoya). I think the same thing might have happened exactly in our solea. He has a baseball cap he got as a joke that says "policia flamenca". Yet he didn't critic my playing. There were NO dancers involved however.
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From: San Francisco
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
I agree the passage was weird to me, but I think the key to "getting away with it" is not the country on your passport, but your relationship with the singer.
quote:
ORIGINAL: romerito
quote:
I think these things happen especially in informal/unrehearsed settings, and nobody really cares, because the performance still comes off and the guitarist did his job to follow the singer.
Thanks for the much more productive answer. My question still remains though.
Could a foreigner get away with that?
quote:
But if it had never been posted on YouTube, I don't think anybody would have ripped him apart for being out of compas.
Don't think anyone is ripping him apart. HOW DOES ANYONE LEARN ABOUT FLAMENCO? Is it not through trial and error, experience, asking questions? I do not get why some questions are misinterpreted as attacks. I do not have a singer right next to me at the moment. I was fortunate enough to take classes with several cantaores and did ok...learned alot. Esperanza Fernandez has been doing flamenco around 40 years and claims she is still learning.
My questions are about learning and are asked with what I hope is a healthy dose of humility.
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
I'm with KMMI77 -- it's about having fun and creating an atmosphere rather than not making any mistakes.
Excuse me if I'm being too frank romerito, but you're being a total 'white boy' here worrying about compas and calling someone out about stretching some beats. When you're performing the #1 rule is - don't stop. I'm sure you already know this but it seems like your confidence is lacking here, as if flamenco has it's own magical rules that makes it different than any other music.
As to your original question - I believe that yes they can. Doesn't matter if you're a gypsy that never ate breakfast or a rich chick from Belfast, if it sounds good and you're in the moment than you can get away with anything, IMHO.
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
I agree with Chester. When you're in the moment; whatever goes. There's no point in trying to figure it out either. Flamenco is art, it's from the Heart. If your heart says "do it this way" you should listen to it.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm playing with a cantaor I can hear when they are ending a phrase. I don't have to count, nor would I anymore. You lose focus on the aire. I guess what I'm saying, is just follow the singer.
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From: Wooli, NSW Australia
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
A lot of people in Australia play didgerido , a lot of them are very good , but unless they are indigenous they ain't blowing from the same place no matter how good they are . I love flamenco however I know I will never be flamenco , not in this life time . A cultural insider has the right to play the guitar with thier feet if people are being connected .
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RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
quote:
@ KMM177: That was about as useful as ground chile in the eye. You got any insights about the passage itself that might enlighte
Hi Romerito,
Sorry about that. I just got an image of everyone getting upset in my head and it made me laugh.
Well I think this is just a case of the singer concentrating more on expressing his letra to the people and creating a somewhat unconventional version. I agree that your outlined section doesn't follow the form very well.
Maybe Norman would know if the same letra was recorded earlier and if the original version was also sung out of time? I have noticed the compas going out the window in quite a few very old cante recordings that i have. I just accept it for what it is, "old school heavy Flamenco with the compas out the window"
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
Regarding rules: It seems you have to be a cultural insider to be accepted above a certain level. Conversely people mentioned the "non" spanish police, which might not like things that the insiders do. So, to me it seems there is NO WAY that you can assure you do things correctly for everybody, according to the above rules. What about following offer:
We dont care anymore about cultural insiders, police, what ever. We just judge things openly according to our tastes. Because thats what we do anyway. The rules we agree to are the effect of our taste anyway, not the cause (if you would be fan of an artform without liking it, that would be pretty crazy). We dont try to convince others with rules or arguments, which are in no way objective anyway. If people can enjoy something like THAT at 2:00, and be considered experienced accompanists in this artform, then obviously the rules are worth nothing.
I did not enjoy it the least, because my tastes are mainly musically based, not cultural or letra or whatever. I dont even speak spanish or understand the letra.
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
I don't think Carrion is out of compas here. For me the singer have a personnal style in the interpretation of the compas and the guitar just try to follow him.
Just have a look at this vid. You could understand better the particular style of this singer regarding the compas...
This vid bother me a little some time ago. I already posted it and asked questions about the extra beat (coz i've trouble to clap the compas)...but received NO answers! So when you state : "Geez, might as well quit asking anything on here. Everyone already has the answers ". Well it depends who is asking I suppose
Anyway i notice some "special" thing happening in this vid 1. In the 2 first ayeos Carrion add extra beats. 2. At 3'02 and 3'32 Carrion repeat the beat 3 (he play it 2 times). I think this is what happen in the vid you post at 2:00 3. At 5'22 Mairena start singing in the middle of a melodic guitar phrasing...sounds a little unusual for me. Then I'm not able to understand what happen until 5'41. Carrion just don't mark the compas clearly but for me he's not out, he's just waiting for the remate of the verse. 4. 6'15 IMO here you can notice clearly the personnal style of the singer. I don't understand what's going on there (extra beat, extra compas...???)
quote:
Then what is it exactly that a foreigner has to learn in order to accompany...and why do we spend so much time with compas?
For me the most important is to understand how the melodic line of the verse works. Coz the melody gives you the compas info you need. That's how Carrion follow the singer IMO, when he repeat (or add) beat coz he follow the melodic line and if the singer decide to insist in a specific part of the verse, or zap it very quickly, just trying to do his job.
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"The most important part of Flamenco is not in knowing how to interpret it. The higher art is in knowing how to listen." (Luis Agujetas)
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
Hey Rom,
I understand where you're coming from when everyone is shouting in one ear "The compás is sacrosanct and in the other ear others are shouting "yeah, but sometimes not."
It's puzzling and annoying.
I've got to admit, I can't recall hearing anything like that happening on LPs or CDs...but maybe I haven't looked hard enough?
A few years ago I used to watch programmes of "live" performances from various peñas in Jerez on the TV station Ondajerez. I used to keep a little cassette recorder running, fed from the line-out socket on the audio card so I could playback some stuff I liked later. The audio quality was horrible since it was still on dial-up Internet, but it was good enough for learning falsetas.
Now all these artists were experienced (some famous) Jerezanos(as), but man...you ought to have heard some of the compás violations that went on... yet nobody got lost and everyone stuck together like glue.
I was totally puzzled. These were not like extra 6's or half compases, but odd stuff, like an extra 3.
I would slow the questionable part down and tap it out while counting to confirm that this was indeed the case.
Now, I had to ask myself...who is right or wrong?
A bunch of experienced Flamencos, (some Gitanos) having a juerga in the heart of Jerez...
Or some pathetic "white boy" in Scotland sitting with headphones on playing the stuff back at half speed and tapping on a piece of paper with a pencil?
So I've just learned to live with it and always try to play in compás myself, as I know at least this can not be wrong.
RE: Solea - Rubato vs. Out of compas (in reply to Guest)
Most of what he does is to evoke the finer moments of his brother's cante, usually with the same letras and the same way of using his voice, but without any kind of rhythmic rigor, at least not until some kind of obvious pattern emerges. Carrión will also lengthen and shorten ideas at will (especially Melchor's falsetas), so neither of them are good subjects for this kind of observation, in my opinion. Do they actually "get away with" this kind of performance? In some parts of Spain people might not notice anything wrong, but I'm very sure that in other parts people would not like it at all.
In any case, my description of his art is based on what I've seen in recent years, and I'm referring to his soleás. He's now over 70 and has been very ill in these recent years, so maybe his sense of compás used to be better in the past.
quote:
When you're performing the #1 rule is - don't stop.
I disagree: The most important quality in these styles is the consistency of the compás and an appropriate tempo for the singer. Obviously, consistency involves not stopping, so you might be saying the same thing with different words.
quote:
I have noticed the compas going out the window in quite a few very old cante recordings that i have. I just accept it for what it is, "old school heavy Flamenco with the compas out the window"
How old are the recordings? Who's singing and who's accompanying? If you're talking about 78 rpm disks, there are a number of recordings of good singers accompanied by guitarists who didn't have very good technique or any sense of compás (Pepe el de La Matrona with Gaspar). Some of the better guitarists back then were contracted by record companies to hire and accompany all of the label's singers, and that can lead to undesirable situations. Of these "house" guitarists, Niño Ricardo is the only one I can think of right now who was from Andalusia, but he was still very young when he worked for Regal. In any case, you can hardly expect solid compás from certain singers. Pepe Marchena was great at some cantes but not so good at soleá and other styles (unless of course you feel otherwise).
quote:
Now, I had to ask myself...who is right or wrong?
A bunch of experienced Flamencos, (some Gitanos) having a juerga in the heart of Jerez...
Or some pathetic "white boy" in Scotland sitting with headphones on playing the stuff back at half speed and tapping on a piece of paper with a pencil?
I've seen some people mess up the compás like that, but, if we're talking about artists with good compás, I think what usually happens is that the guitarist will lose the compás and the singer will adjust to that. In my opinion, most of these artists are trying to match verse with rhythm in unusual ways but with perfect compás, and that is usually very difficult. Manuel Moneo is probably the best I've heard in that sense. I think those artists with solid compás and the guy with the pencil and headphones spent years doing the same thing in different ways, and that one should never underestimate the analytical capacity or rhythmic precision of certain gitanos, despite their appearance and demeanor. You'd be surprised to know who's studied recordings!
quote:
So I've just learned to live with it and always try to play in compás myself, as I know at least this can not be wrong.
Ole tú. Aside from the half compás in bulerías, that's the way to go, no matter what some people might say.
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