Early Flamenco Publications

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larrygraham

Posts: 28
Joined: Mar. 29 2005

Early Flamenco Publications

Fifty years ago, there were very few flamenco books in English.
Here are a few in my library.

Richard W Rightmire
He published a few volume of flamenco pieces including "Flamenco Without Tears" in early 1960s.

Anita Sheer and Harry Berlow
They wrote a popular instruction manual "Introduction to the Flamenco Guitar" [1964].

Would anyone like to share more information about these authors?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2011 13:57:45

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Early Flamenco Publications (in reply to larrygraham)

Anita Sheer was a pupil of Carlos Montoya, and had quite a successful career as a guitarist and singer, You can find more about her here:

http://www.finefretted.com/html/desde_el_escritorio_sept__5__1.html

She was also one of the founders of the Flamenco Society of San José. She passed away in 1996.

I owe her a personal debt, since she introduced me to my wife, who was in a flamenco guitar class that she was teaching.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2011 16:22:27

britguy

Posts: 712
Joined: Dec. 26 2010
From: Ontario, Canada

RE: Early Flamenco Publications (in reply to larrygraham)

Yes, you are correct. There were very few publications on flamenco guitar in England in the 50's and 60's.

There was one hardcover book in Spanish that I remember, but cant recall the title or the author. He claimed to be a pupil of Ramon de Montoya, but there was some doubt about this.

British jazz guitarist Ivor Mairants (very enterprising guy) also published a book on flamenco guitar in the 60's, which I bought. It contained many photos of the author posing with several Spanish guitarists, but very little valuable stuff on flamenco playing. I seem to recall I gave it away.

I didn't know Anita Sheer had written a book. I recall, from her photos and related articles in British publications, she was an attractive female singer/guitarist who sang Spanish songs.

By far the best stuff in England on flamenco guitar in the late 50's were the excellent series of articles in the Clifford Essex magazine BMG, written by Michal E. Fisher. Entitled "The Art of Flamenco" , they were really excellent definitive articles, well-written, and covered the various techniques and most popular forms in great detail. The author also reviewed available books and recordings. I found his articles really helpful and inspiring. I believe Michael Fisher was also a personal friend of Marcelo Barbero in the 50's, who built a guitar for him. (He also wrote an excellent article on Marcelo's step-by-step building procedures for this guitar).

When I first wanted to go to Spain in the late 50's I wrote to Michael, care of the magazine, for advice. He responded with advice and details of where to go, and recommended his old teacher Manolo Bonet, in Madrid. Who became my teacher, and went with me to Jose Ramirez's old shop on Conception Jeronima to buy my first real flamenco guitar - a 1958 Ramirez cypress blanca.

I recently contacted the BMG magazine to see if there was any chance the articles had been published in book form. Sadly they were not. But apparently are still available as back issues! Would be great if they could get re-printed sometime. . .

(Hope this nostalgic, self-indulgent drivel helps in some ways. . .)

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Fruit farmer, Ontario, Canada

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2011 14:05:00

Ricardo

Posts: 14828
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Early Flamenco Publications (in reply to larrygraham)

I have some old books in my father's library. I have the Anita Sheer book, short and sweet with some good examples, but pretty watered down for classical students I would say. I have the Ivor Mairants book too, it is not bad but rasgueados are hard to read. It says it comes with a record (78 size I think) but I could never find it. Both these books have some interesting photos of hand position. Pretty misleading actually considering all the video options. No wonder not many people learned properly back then. Compas, as usual is all over the place in terms of how it is notated, as is still an issue today. A funny book was "easy flamenco variations" by Sophicles Papas.

The most interesting book I had was a japanese book. It had cool collage of photos of sabicas and others, but all japanese writing. It was pretty old too. The music was the most authentic of them all, with short pieces but accurate of sevillanas, solea buleria tango, etc. Panaderos was there, note for note,and tons of little bits from the maestros. But non of it labelled by the actual guitarist! Perhaps for copyright reasons? But all standard notation with no fingerings or anything.

Later I met a student of Ed Freeman, and kept a method book he made. Freeman had full dance accompaniments notated, and did some good transcriptions of Early PDL and stuff. This would be pre Faucher. But to be honest, Faucher is the best, and coupled with good video like Encuentro, what we have today is way better then those silly methods from the past.

Ricardo

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CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2011 14:58:44

Mark2

Posts: 1872
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco

RE: Early Flamenco Publications (in reply to Paul Magnussen)

I met Anita as well. She was a very sweet person. My first public flamenco gig was at the San Jose flamenco society. Anita was very encouraging. She passed too soon.

M. Hass transcriptions of early Paco weren't really all that early, but may have been the first commercially available accurate Paco transcriptions. They were fairly expensive by today's standards, but seemed like a bargain to me at around 20. a piece. Sadly, they didn't enable me to actually pull off Paco's music

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2011 16:33:27

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Early Flamenco Publications (in reply to larrygraham)

quote:

Richard W Rightmire
He published a few volume of flamenco pieces including "Flamenco Without Tears" in early 1960s.

Mr Rightmire seems to have been nothing if not versatile. Here are some of his titles, from Amazon:

• Easy Flamenco Guitar Playing
• The Wonderful Guitar: A Modern Finger Style Method
• Mexican Guitar and How to Play It
• Singin’ ’n’ Guitarin’ Folkstyle Handbook
• Boogie Woogie Guitar and How to Play it
• How to Play the Nashville Sound for Guitar, Country Picking Finger Style
• The First Band Book for Guitar
• Fiesta Time of Latin Favorites for Guitar: Strum ’n Hum Book
• Favorite Hymns for Guitar
• Banjo in the Blue Grass
• Folk Music for The Spanish Guitar
• Folk Music for the Accordion

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2011 17:05:24