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.
I have been thinking of learning Tomatito's minera in full. In the past I used to mix parts of it with material from Paco and Vicente, but I found that the falsetas together did not always mix in an organic way to sound like a structured piece.
I watched this interesting clip of a guitarist doing this type of mixture. The great thing about this approach is that the minera probably comes out different each time which I think is the ideal. But then there is the issue of unity. When playing this type of piece do you prefer playing all the material from one guitarist and throwing in small variations to preserve the unity or doing a minera mishmash like this guitarist here?
_____________________________
"I'm just a poor crazy man in love with his art." Santos Hernandez
improvisation in this context is that you know approximately what you're going to play, where to start, where to finish, but the way in between is unknown...different ornamentation, technique or notes happen on the spot, depending on your mood or just whatever that comes into your mind while playing... when i totally improvise on stage, i find myself playing it safe and it's less exciting for the listener, so it's better to have something in your mind at least, i think...
I definitely agree about performance, but I suppose my concern has more to do with voice. I do not compose my own material, at least not enough to fill an entire piece. When I started playing, I saw no issue with mixing falsetas and ideas from different guitarists, but for the last year, I have felt that it is better, especially in toque libre, to use ideas from one guitarist so that the piece will have more of a unified feel. Going back to the video above, I find that the mixture of ideas almost works but not quite. It is still well done, but for example the Paco section sounds like an introductory part, and it comes in late into the piece for this type of feel.
_____________________________
"I'm just a poor crazy man in love with his art." Santos Hernandez
the Paco section sounds like an introductory part, and it comes in late into the piece for this type of feel.
You spotted that well....you might become a good arranger/composer :-). Paco used it indeed as a long introduction and in the very same way your musical taste will guide you in selecting/combining material from different sources (including material you composed yourself) while maintaining a unified feel. Like xirdneH_imiJ suggested i often stick to 1 piece with the option to change things to my likings/possibilities, leaving out a couple of variations here, adding or replacing a couple of others there... all with respect for the total picture and keeping an eye on remaining the united feel you mentioned (in my bulerias i have 1 single falseta/remate combination that combines Quique Paredes, Pepe Habichuela, Paco de Lucia and myself so smoothly that only an expert can tell it's a frankenstein combination).
ou spotted that well....you might become a good arranger/composer :-). Paco used it indeed as a long introduction and in the very same way your musical taste will guide you in selecting/combining material from different sources (including material you composed yourself) while maintaining a unified feel. Like xirdneH_imiJ suggested i often stick to 1 piece with the option to change things to my likings/possibilities, leaving out a couple of variations here, adding or replacing a couple of others there... all with respect for the total picture and keeping an eye on remaining the united feel you mentioned (in my bulerias i have 1 single falseta/remate combination that combines Quique Paredes, Pepe Habichuela, Paco de Lucia and myself so smoothly that only an expert can tell it's a frankenstein combination).
Frankenstein combination
I like your description since it sounds like a good blend of both using other ideas and building on them which is what I will try. For now though I feel good about learning one Minera, but trying small variations here and there to keep it spontaneous sounding.
_____________________________
"I'm just a poor crazy man in love with his art." Santos Hernandez
I once had the idea to comment a flamenco guitar player like one uses to comment the world championship figure skating or gymnastics: there comes the double arpeggio (pimami) fallowed by the famous frankenstein combination only he can play...just a few seconds and....but what's that, he adds a full round of picado .... and a second.... and a third... can you believe it????....rounding it up with a standard finale rasguedo, finishing exactly on 10 with perfect pitch and timing...BREAKING A STRING IN THE PROCESS !!!!...this will absolutely cost him some points but what a performance...will this be enough for gold?????
Printable Version
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