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.
|
|
RE: PDL says you dont need to study !
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login | |
|
Ricardo
Posts: 14960
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
|
RE: PDL says you dont need to study ! (in reply to aeolus)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: aeolus per guitarbuddha quote:
'Paco can't read and he is the best player in the world. How did he learn to play the Aranjuez? I read it somewhere recently but can't remember where. He accepted an offer to play it in Japan and then forgot about it and only had a month to learn it so he went to Mexico for peace and quiet I guess. I didn't quite understand how he managed it. He learned it by ear. If you actually know how to read and play, you can realized the score is some BS. Poor blind pianist wrote that song and it shows. EVERY player has to adapt some things, it's quite amusing when you get into it. I mainly used my ear too when I learned it in college. Some interpretations I heard are rhythmically ATROCIOUS. Paco learns faster than the rest of us cuz his rhythm is so good, and knowledge of the neck. Some details were filled in by his friend the great classical player jose maria gallardo del rey...who also conducted the orchestra for some performances. My guess would be a single afternoon Paco could have got it all straight with a guy showing him slowly right in front of him. I am sure the "month" spent learning that piece in mexico involved lots of spear fishing. The actual guitar parts are only a few minutes of music if you leave out all the rests waiting for orchestra. Nuñez was gonna record it long ago, and I remember him playing the entire piece (minus the orchestra part waiting) super fast just to demo his version for us, in about 6 minutes. Of course he would not play it that fast in performance, but it was more to show us his ideas, as I said every player must adapt things. Hearing so many classical players struggle on it, and worse, so many novice classical guitar fans go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and freakin on about it like it is THE be all end all of classical guitar, is painful. Ricardo
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here: www.ricardomarlow.com
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 13 2013 15:05:04
|
|
Erik van Goch
Posts: 1787
Joined: Jul. 17 2012
From: Netherlands
|
RE: PDL says you dont need to study ! (in reply to Guest)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Shroomy726 It is not a music that a conservatory can explain and say: ‘this is good and this is how you play it’. My experience tells me it is not like this, it tells me that you do not always know how to continue and so you have to invent it; to play without knowing exactly the path. There are no doubts: Flamenco needs the heart. In my opinion one does not exclude the other. When Paco Peña first talked about annotating flamenco with my father Paco honestly believed flamenco could not be expressed in written notes. So my father showed him various examples of period music (playing both the written version and the various ways he could interpret them) which made Paco realize the same argument applies to all kinds of music: without severe knowledge of the music involved (based on many hours of listening/feeling/playing/understanding) and without putting your heart and soul in it not any kind of music will come alive, nor in- or outside a conservatory. When i entered conservatory i was 22 years old, i played the guitar for 13 years and from those 13 years 4 were solely spend on (ear)playing flamenco, something i really really put my heart and soul into on a daily base... with zero results. In that period of time (70ties) living outside Spain mend you had only access to a handful of (solo) flamenco recordings on LP or written scores (cd, video and internet did not exist yet). In my case i had a knowledgeable father as well, but unfortunately i showed no interest in music theory/didactics and studying music/technique at all. I just ear played whatever i was able to trace on my guitar. As i know now i had an excellent ear for melody/harmony but a blind spot for all other aspects of music making involved like technique/rhythm/tonal quality. At the time (despite playing flamenco with heart and soul over a 4 year period) i would not have been able to understand most of what is shared on the foro. I was not able to name/picture myself a singe style (Soleares? Tarantas?), i had no clue there was something like compas or that a soleares fallows cycles of 12 beats, my rhythm was a mess and i played picado with 1 finger (and that was one of my better techniques). I would not have known the meaning of 3/4 or 4/4 (during my audition i named it hoempapa and hoempapapa) or what to picture myself when someone told me to play a C or a C chord. My only knowledge (aside my ability to ear play most things i heard instantly) was that i was able to name the open strings. I did not need to know the chord names because unlike the readers i could find the chords of any pop song blindfolded in any key they choose (the readers often were in despair when the singers selected a different key then the one chosen by their chord book or unintentionally changed key halfway the piece, which offered no problem to me as long as they did not select quarter tones). That was my level of playing/understanding when i entered conservatory. I shared the class with 10 others that could play the guitar way better then i did and already knew the names and the compas of most styles. Despite the fact that in my ears they all played as good as Paco Peña we all had to start from scratch, both technically and musically. We all were very reluctant to do my fathers technique exercises because that was considered to be theory and killing the heart and soul. Most of them (but me) changed their opinion when we discovered that all the top players we met did similar exercises (i only started to take them more seriously when i run into structural technical problems a couple of years later). Non of them (but me) showed an interest in learning music theory, which in my case included learning to recognize/name/practice/annotate notes, chords, rhythms, compas. On top (despite my innital lack of interest) i learned the THEORY of left and right hand strategy and interpretation which highly improved my level of playing. They made me aware there was something like rhythm and tonal quality, i learned the names/compas of many styles and how to interpret them the correct way (there are many many ways you can misplay/interpret them when you only put in your heart and soul but lack the talent to spot your numerous black spots). I can assure you it is extremely rewarding when you are able to read written scores made by the very best, showing you the exact notes, rhythm, left and right hand strategy and interpretation based on a lifetime of experience of both Paco Peña and my father. It basically allows you to look inside the head of the very best, especially when you have the luxury to met them on a weekly/monthly base for personal coaching. It raised my level from being a total amateur to (semi) professional levels. Still the teachers consider the course as just a start for future personal development... a future development supported by (potentially) professionally trained hands and minds and the didactical knowledge of how and what to study. When we had to learn Paco's Solea por bulerias like usual it took me 3 hours to memorize that piece from paper. Some parts were so complex i had to conceptualize them on paper before i was able to understand what was going on. One of the other students (years ahead on me in technique and in understanding flamenco) suffered the same problem of conceptualization. Unlike me he was not able to analyze it on paper and as a result it took him not 3 hours but many months to learn that piece. The same applied to a tricky tientos variation we learned. Despite being years behind on the others i was the only one playing it correctly because i was the only one able to conceptualize it on paper, allowing me to see/understand were my brain tricked me (in the same way it tricked all others). When i entered a dance school i was submitted to numerous rhythmic patterns not practiced by me before. On top the teacher made numerous mistakes in compas and individual beats which was not a big help in understanding what was going on. Fortunately i have a natural ability to feel when something is correct and when not. I simply recorded all the lessons and every time a pattern came out correctly i annotated it on paper. Some dance parts went wrong almost every time and sometimes it took many takes before i was able to capture the last black spots of the choreography. The end result was a written score of the complete piece showing all the the patterns in the correct order. It allowed me to understand the events more quickly, to compose music that really supported the dance (both on the field of inspiration as well on the field of didactics, when possible correcting the teachers lack of didactical skills) and it allowed me to share that knowledge with other players joining in (if they showed an interest and were able to read rhythm). So in short conservatory showed me a totally different way of looking at music/flamenco and made me a 1.000.000 times better then i was before. They did not kill my individuality (nor my heart and soul) all they did was hand me many many tools to express myself the most optimal way, first of all by pointing out and helping me solve my technical and musical lacks of skills. Harmony lessons did not change my compositions, but the lessons in technique, rhythm and interpretation i received highly improved my level of playing and composing. Technique and interpretation in a way are theory based as well, not meaning everybody has to use the same fingers, hand position, intonation, notes and interpretation etc, but MY experience is that only a limited amount of people (like Paco de Lucia) are able to play the guitar with a natural technique "out of the blue" and without making numerous translation mistakes between thought and execution. Conservatory doesn't offer you instant solutions for all your problems and there is still a lot you have to discover yourself, but they can help you to develop yourself more structurally. Conservatory (like real life experience) can be a perfect start for a musical career but it obviously is not the only way and basically nothing more then just a first step in a future career as an individual (heart based) musician. Obviously Spain hosts many many players way more capable as me, but i believe there are also lots of players that will struggle to play some of the stuff i learned to play (and i play less then 2 hours a week). Why should listening to records of top players be better then receiving private lessons of them on a conservatory? Obviously when they basically live in your house 24/7 it's an other thing, especially when you study 12 hours a day on top of it. Even paco plays the same stuff over and over again, the same notes, the same interpretation, ... only over time interpretation will change. His involvement with others did not kill his individuality but inspired him to develop and to get the very best out of himself (like conservatory did with me). In the same way music theory did not kill the individuality and heart of Bach, Mozart, de Falla and Ridrigo like Shakespeare did not suffer from his ability to write and read.
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 13 2013 16:13:01
|
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3435
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
RE: PDL says you dont need to study ! (in reply to aeolus)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: aeolus I have adapted as I remember you saying yours was too bright and I wouldn't like that. Also I live in a backwater on the Jersey cape and their is no point in doing anything without competent people as you have access to. The brightness was on the first iteration. I have been back to the audiologist a few times to get them dialed in. After paying a fairly stiff price for the aids themselves, the subsequent adjustment sessions have been free. I tested them out by going to the symphony, chamber music and guitar concerts, then I went back for fine tuning. I feel that I have them dialed in pretty well now. I'm playing the guitar again. It remains to be seen how far I will get. I'm playing easy classical stuff like the Ponce Preludes and a couple of Villa Lobos Preludes more or less OK. I'm getting through Falla's "Homenaje", but not reliably up to speed yet. The Escudero, Sabicas and Ramon Montoya flamenco stuff I used to play is still a bit beyond me, but I'm making progress. As long as progress continues, I'm happy. I started with the same audiologist on annual visits back to Texas while I lived on the remote tropical island, because I was having trouble with conversations in the noisy dining hall. The hearing aids fixed that right away. When I retired and came back to Texas I made a few more visits to the audiologist, since I now have a way of testing the music settings. It has made a really positive difference for me. Mokotoff could suggest a way to find the nearest good music-friendly audiologist. There is an organization for hearing-impaired musicians that he belongs to. He is on this forum: http://www.classicalguitarforum.com Maybe across the bay in Delaware? Surely in Philadelphia, if you could get there a few times. RNJ
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 13 2013 20:38:15
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
RE: PDL says you dont need to study ! (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
|
|
|
quote:
As to life plans for old men, when I was in the Army my platoon sergeant said he planned to live to be 85, then to be killed by a jealous husband. Having just this year entered my septuagenarian decade, I am not yet ready to think of an epitaph. But should fate decree one necessary, I can think of nothing better than the lines Lady Caroline Lamb wrote in her diary about her lover, Lord Byron, upon his death. "He was mad, bad, and dangerous to know." Would that there were some fair ladies who would write that about me in their diaries. 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. 13 2013 22:16:37
|
|
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 |
9.570313E-02 secs.
|