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what typifies flamenco
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Morante
Posts: 2179
Joined: Nov. 21 2010
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 RE: what typifies flamenco (in reply to tele)
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Flamenco is a way of life. Pohren said it and it is true. It has nothing to do with techniques such as rasgeo etc.
In Cádiz we used to have lots of juergas: Nani had a puesto in the market where we all gathered at midday, lots of cachondeo, cante and guitarra. At night with two great juerguistas, Rafael López and José Millán flamenco until dawn.
I remember one night with José, when we had drunk at least a bottle of Rioja each, we found ourselves in a bar, with closed doors and a small group of aficionados. At 5 am he was still singing and we had drunk even more Rioja. Eventually José said "play por Huelva". At this point, I was playing por medio, so just continued, though most of Huelva, apart from Alorno and Huelva Ciudad, is usually accompanied por arriba.
All went well until José sang por Almonaster (Santa Eulalia). This is my favourite fandango and calls for a change from E to A and a short outing por Am. But I was so drunk that I could not work out that in A, the next chord should be D, so I stopped. José stopped too, looked at me and said " I think its time to go home".
Everybody in agreement, we all sneaked out the back door and home to bed.
Now that Rafa and José are dead, Cádiz if left without juerguistas and flamenco de verdad is dead.
I used to be flamenco, now I am just an aficionado.
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Date Nov. 21 2013 14:58:21
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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RE: what typifies flamenco (in reply to rickm)
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Just remember one thing David
Flamenco is the expression of Andalucian people and even more of Andalucian gipsys.
Their ethics should always be taken serious. Its their music. the rest of us are just visitors who are welcomed with open arms, but I dont think we should call it our music.
Flamenco has its own Andalucian feel and richness, its Andalucian soul. I´m not talking about oldschool versus modern etc. Its not really important. You can find players playing traditional flamenco that do not have that soul or feel just as you can find modern players with a ton of it.
Just as Irish trad is traditional music with a certain set of Just as Irish trad is Irish, with a certain Irish set of rules. I was thinking what is it that makes Irish trad sound like Irish trad. Is it the rools, the bow triplets, the swing. No, its the capacity of playing something sad that makes you feel happy. rules. I was thinking what is it that makes Irish trad sound like Irish trad. Is it the rools, the bow triplets, the swing? No, its the capacity of playing something sad that makes you feel happy.
All kind of ethnical music work that way. If not, its not ethnical.
_____________________________
Blog: http://news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.com/
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Date Nov. 21 2013 15:05:24
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Arash
Posts: 4495
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
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RE: what typifies flamenco (in reply to rickm)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha
Flamenco is a living and evolving musical language.
It may be defined by the performance practice peculiar to its practitioners. And there is certainly some validity in asserting that a certain people in a certain part of Spain may be allowed primacy in defining its vocabulary and norms.
Like all languages it is evolving through reinvention certainly but also through the incorporation, evaluation and subsequent rejection or absorption of elements from other discrete performance practices.
It is in my opinion as fatuous to imagine that the language of one era should be enshrined as the yardstick for contemporary performance practice as it would be to evaluate flamenco from the perspective of, for example, classical music or pop music norms.
These tendencies would result in either fossilising the language or homogenising it.
To a certain extent one could see these tendancies in the loosely defined concepts of Sabicocentricity or Fakamenco.
In the end we must all seek our own evolving understanding of what flamenco is. No two will be the same but some may be more or less risible depending on the company one keeps.
D.
If flamenco is a language, then i would say yes one can speak it with many different dialects/accents all around the world, add some new vocabulary... and its still flamenco. But changing all the vocabulary, the grammar and the main and basic structure of a language, is basically speaking something else.
A bulerias compas is a bulerias compas. You can play any cancion por bulerias or whatever, still flamenco. But don't mess around with the compas.
Now some learn the language to perfection and afterwards experiment with new paths. You can always clearly see and hear that. All those "modern players" (lets take Dani de Moron for instance) can play extremely traditional old school puro or whatever you wanne call it stuff very well as well. Its mostly not the case vice versa. Also the attitude of most of the modern players is dual moded: they respect and love the puro stuff as much as they like the modern stuff. Its even sometimes submissive and too humble. Again, its often not the case vice versa. Many who play only the old stuff totally reject the more modern approaches and experiments alltogether.
Then of course we have those who are too lazy or incapable of learning the main concepts (the language) and try to compensate and mask this incompetence with jumping right to the creative composing and experimenting part. You can also always clearly see and hear that as well. Its often embarrassing, if then they claim to play modern flamenco.
I also think its no problem at all to 'steal' certain elements of flamenco (and ignore other elements) and use those elements one likes for their own style of music. Be it sound, certain techniques, etc.
Its more the attitude, the labeling, etc. which then determines whether one belongs to the fakemenco community or not.
_____________________________
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Date Nov. 21 2013 15:16:57
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z6
Posts: 225
Joined: Mar. 1 2011
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RE: what typifies flamenco (in reply to rickm)
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Sex.
I don't think it's compas. I don't really know what compas is but I doubt real flamencos give a rat's a r s e. Rhythm. Absolutely. But imagine a bar full of people who don't know how to play or sing or dance out of compas. But they still do and it doesn't matter. If I'm there I don't notice. Ricardo's not quite sure cause he's telling Rombsix to clam up. And Rombsix is telling Ricardo that he knows it's out. And he's right. But nobody bothers because the imperfections, even in compas, are crucial to its astonishing speed of development. (And everyone except Romb is drunk anyway.)
Flamenco drips with sex. Blues is from the soul, country from the heart, flamenco is driven by our base urges. (And classical doesn't exist; it's too broad, a superset. Unless we're describing a period or movement.) Flamenco guitar is a beautiful snare drum.
I can't watch male dancers, in the main, but I can watch men dance flamenco. And watching women dance flamenco is a trip to bonerland.
I am never moved by recordings of cante but always moved by live performances. (Always, but I have not seen many; the best of which was by a guy in a bar one boozy evening without any instruments.)
Flamenco is incredibly evolved, to me. It's always 'the groove' to me. The rhythms are like sonic fractals, as long as it 'rocks' anything goes.
Flamenco guitar is like driving a fast car and classical guitar is like watching a nice game of cricket (although I believe Bach and all the rest have nothing to do, per se, with classical guitar (they cannot, for classical guitar does not exist). Flamenco technique 'sounds' haphazard and dirty. Classical guitar 'sounds' clean. But flamenco cannot be played without a 'mastery' of the basics. Classical guitar purports to interpret 'the classics' (and the proper name is 'classic guitar'). But flamenco has endless intellectually impenetrable rules across all dimensions (and even those dimensions are not separate 'things'). Flamenco has rules and regulations hidden within music so vibrant it belies its own depth. But it's all for fun.
Nunez is a force of nature. In my estimation the equal of the greats in any genre. Paco is an alien sent to remind us, as seemed Mozart, of the potential of our species. And within a sprawling genre that has jiggling grannies and caterwauling retirees bringing us to tears of both laughter and deep, emotional states, sometimes touching pre-existing wounds or driving memories into the light.
Above all, it's the sexual nature of the form that hits me.
I expect that explains the puffy shirts and the lack of idiotic or artificial posing associated with genuine mastery. Even if it's 'only' mastery of the basics. We all know that a guy singing, or not, a single note, or a guitarist playing 'one' chord, or the way a woman might sway her hips before she even starts dancing can say it all.
I believe that the evolution of the genre (some of the fuzzy little branches) is even taking place right here, in some of the music people are producing. And romb I love your posts. Keep em coming. You guys help to map out some of the roads for me.
But, it all boils down to sex, in the end.
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Date Nov. 21 2013 15:45:24
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: what typifies flamenco (in reply to Morante)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Morante
Flamenco is a way of life. Pohren said it and it is true. It has nothing to do with techniques such as rasgeo etc.
In Cádiz we used to have lots of juergas: Nani had a puesto in the market where we all gathered at midday, lots of cachondeo, cante and guitarra. At night with two great juerguistas, Rafael López and José Millán flamenco until dawn.
I remember one night with José, when we had drunk at least a bottle of Rioja each, we found ourselves in a bar, with closed doors and a small group of aficionados. At 5 am he was still singing and we had drunk even more Rioja. Eventually José said "play por Huelva". At this point, I was playing por medio, so just continued, though most of Huelva, apart from Alorno and Huelva Ciudad, is usually accompanied por arriba.
All went well until José sang por Almonaster (Santa Eulalia). This is my favourite fandango and calls for a change from E to A and a short outing por Am. But I was so drunk that I could not work out that in A, the next chord should be D, so I stopped. José stopped too, looked at me and said " I think its time to go home".
Everybody in agreement, we all sneaked out the back door and home to bed.
Now that Rafa and José are dead, Cádiz if left without juerguistas and flamenco de verdad is dead.
I used to be flamenco, now I am just an aficionado.
Indeed...the most flamenco moments of my life have been in some amazing juerga situations...never on stage or practicing techniques in my bedroom.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Nov. 21 2013 21:09:50
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gmburns
Posts: 157
Joined: Nov. 20 2012
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RE: what typifies flamenco (in reply to Morante)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Morante
Flamenco is a way of life. Pohren said it and it is true. It has nothing to do with techniques such as rasgeo etc.
In Cádiz we used to have lots of juergas: Nani had a puesto in the market where we all gathered at midday, lots of cachondeo, cante and guitarra. At night with two great juerguistas, Rafael López and José Millán flamenco until dawn.
I remember one night with José, when we had drunk at least a bottle of Rioja each, we found ourselves in a bar, with closed doors and a small group of aficionados. At 5 am he was still singing and we had drunk even more Rioja. Eventually José said "play por Huelva". At this point, I was playing por medio, so just continued, though most of Huelva, apart from Alorno and Huelva Ciudad, is usually accompanied por arriba.
All went well until José sang por Almonaster (Santa Eulalia). This is my favourite fandango and calls for a change from E to A and a short outing por Am. But I was so drunk that I could not work out that in A, the next chord should be D, so I stopped. José stopped too, looked at me and said " I think its time to go home".
Everybody in agreement, we all sneaked out the back door and home to bed.
Now that Rafa and José are dead, Cádiz if left without juerguistas and flamenco de verdad is dead.
I used to be flamenco, now I am just an aficionado.
Dammit, I got gu'd.
So yeah, that's what I've been trying to discover. For me, flamenco is expressed through music, but it's a way of life and it starts there.
_____________________________
Greg Mason Burns - Artist
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Date Nov. 21 2013 22:26:52
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Tomas
Posts: 22
Joined: Aug. 16 2013
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RE: what typifies flamenco (in reply to rickm)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rickm
I love you guys to death and your a immensely talented group but you have misunderstood the question and no one answered it. Lets put it like this. your driving in yr car with yr friend from the north pole who has never heard music. A song comes on the radio and he asks what is it? and you state well that is rock and you can tell its rock because it has a backbeat, its 120 beats a measure and follows a form of the blues pattern. then another song somes on the radio and he asks what is that, and you say that is blues because it stay true to the original blues patterns blah blah. and then a classical song comes on and you say its classical because there are no embellishments its played strictly in accordance with as the author intended and its follows cleanly along the lines of that intention. [Im making this up you understand] and then a flamenco piece comes on and you say its flamenco because --------
for me the one thing that seperates flamenco from anything else that you rarely hear in other forms is the dynamics associated with the right hand, that is golpe, ras and of course alzapua.
that is my question, what technique typifies flamenco other than the progression of the notes themselves. It has to be right hand versatility.
That's a very guitar-centric way of putting it. What typifies flamenco musically is that it's a collection of song formats, with a particular rhythm, metre, and tonality. Combine that with a characteristic manner of singing, a characteristic approach to playing the guitar, and a quite unique way of uniting dance with the music. Fill in the details and you're a long way towards coming up with a (rather boring, dry) way of defining flamenco in musical terms.
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Date Nov. 22 2013 9:19:44
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