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Yep this thing he has been preaching for years now. The first time he talked about he insulted entire groups of people that simply aren't "born" with it, according to him. But I think he is right ultimately, though its' a case of "do as I say, not as I do...". For example with Paco and John here, he is totally on the wrong down beat, foot and all. Paco and John are forced to cross the compas to get on HIS beat after he starts the intro here:
Does he teach how to do that muted picking that he constantly and annoyingly uses uses? ...and how to screw your face up at the same time ...like , as if its too difficult for him , maybe do something easier ..
Seriously though , I used to like him with the return to forever and that ..but I really dont think he would be as much help as what you think on a flamenco site ..
Much more to the point was the interview I watched the other day here , i think jg7238 put it up ,, with Paco de lucia and he was saying about the difference in Jazztype and flamenco ... He is talking about
"...In flamenco , you improvise , but in a different way , in flamenco you improvise rhythmically, depending what the singer is doing , for example , or the dancer , or the other guitarist. ..we look at each other and follow each other I never pretend to know jazz , i never learned music , i never went to (music ) school , i dont know the names of the scales i play or the chords . etc """ .... his point being the jazz style .. which includes De Meola . , is much more harmony based than rhthmically based ..So tapping your foot to keep everything square on time ...may be a bit of a disadvantage from time to time ..in flamenco .... and the big thing you have to do is ...as he says ..
""do it your own way .. be original .. this is whats difficult ... to get something that goes straight to the heart ... and surprises you ...""
just out of curiosity .. are there any lessons or advice etc on playing on youtube etc ...by Paco de Lucia ..at all ?..meaning actually by him ..not the copies ....( who shalll remain nameless)
Ricardo, you're right. I always wondered who made the mistake, haha. Btw: It seems that all of them didn't know about each others playing. For example: who starts the melody at 1:57? Maybe Al missed it...? John improvised in lower scale and Paco took the initiative a bit later before Al starts one of his selfish solos. I always thought that he isn't able to play the spanish way.... It wasn't one of the best performances of them imo. Besides the technical aspects of course.
Maybe back in the day at Jersey jazz camp he got called out for being off time and now has a complex. One of many complexes.
I feel like everybody has to work at it, but most have an inner sense. I always thought this Victor Wooten vid was interesting - where he sets the drum machine to like 5 bpm or something. Ricardo I know you posted his other video a while back.
Kiko, I think Keeping a consistent beat is totally relevant to flamenco. Remember that documentary where Paco called out Farru(sp) for being off time. The guy was already an amazing dancer, and he was great full that Paco sent him to the metronome.
So tapping your foot to keep everything square on time ...may be a bit of a disadvantage from time to time ..in flamenco ....
Oddly enough I would have concluded the exact opposite. It's precisely because "improvisation" in flamenco is based mainly on rhythm that you need a fixed beat somewhere. But I guess whether you tap with your foot is probably another issue. I tend not to, just because as a former drummer, it's seared in my mind that the feet have a musical purpose and the so-called pulse is internalized. Old habits I guess. We used to play around with the jazz band to see who could get the other players to mess up and lose the beat. Usually the guitarist was the first to go. It always ended up as a duel between the drummer and the bassist.
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He shows a good way to work with the metronome in this video. Gradually taking away the support of the metronome to develop and rely on your own timing. I found it useful.
Translated to bulerias for example, you can start with a click on every beat, then 12,2,4,6,8,10, then 12,6, then 12, then every other 12 etc..
As he shows, playing with the click on off beats is good too.
Metronome training may have advantages other then just improving timing.
Research suggests that external cues such as metronome also improve motor learning.
Most studies are in rehabilitation populations but here in healthy individuals. I currently can't find the paper I want but I'll post this for now. Only a small study of 12 people. Note that going at the individuals "preferred frequency" gave benefits; I'll take that as going much too fast for my ability doesn't help!
Research suggests that external cues such as metronome also improve motor learning.
My lady has her doctorates in occupational therapy and works with special needs kids. She uses a metronome with clapping patterns and gets big results from it, the kids have better balance, better cognition, it's a big deal, she's considering writing a paper in it.
My lady has her doctorates in occupational therapy and works with special needs kids. She uses a metronome with clapping patterns and gets big results from it, the kids have better balance, better cognition, it's a big deal, she's considering writing a paper in it.
There is a significant amount of research showing populations with movement disorders benefit from external cueing, including metronome.
There is some research suggesting that metronome and other external cues improve motor skill acquisition in healthy populations.
Anyway bottom line is do as all the great players have done, get a metronome; research and anecdotal both strongly suggest it helps.
My lady's got some great literature on the subject and has done several continuing education classes on it. I'll try to get her to dig it out. Rhythm and music really is a BIG deal for your brain.
I don't completely agree with him about the 'inherent timing' thing- yes growing up with a particular style gets it into you, but as mentioned above it's amazing what can be achieved with metronome excercises. For example, imagining 8th note triplets and having the metronome click on the final eigth note of each triplet- da da Da da da Da etc. Then playing along with that- really stretches brain and hands and makes some real changes to your ability to feel time.
Here's a clustf** of a rhythm we used to fool around with in drumming class. Take what is probably the most basic polyrhythm out there: superimposing a ternary on a binary by accentuating every 3rd 16th note. so 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 etc. Now take the superimposed beat (the ternary one) and fill it in with quintuplets. Basically like if you were playing a flamenco tremolo and the bass note fell on each of the underlined notes. The end result is a cycle of 20 notes over 3 beats, i.e. 6.666etc. notes per beat. It's a head scratcher. Not much musical value to it, except if you're trying to throw the other musicians off the beat ;-)
Here's a clustf** of a rhythm we used to fool around with in drumming class. Take what is probably the most basic polyrhythm out there: superimposing a ternary on a binary by accentuating every 3rd 16th note. so 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 etc. Now take the superimposed beat (the ternary one) and fill it in with quintuplets. Basically like if you were playing a flamenco tremolo and the bass note fell on each of the underlined notes. The end result is a cycle of 20 notes over 3 beats, i.e. 6.666etc. notes per beat. It's a head scratcher. Not much musical value to it, except if you're trying to throw the other musicians off the beat ;-)
PDL does this in bulerias occasionally. Basically taking the alegria type rasgueado quintuplet phrase (eamii,eamii,i) that occurs on counts 1,2,3 at tempos around 160bpm, and superimpose the same pattern and speed (more or less) in bulerias spanning counts 12-3 (Soniquete on zyrab) or 3-6 (Pañuelo siroco) So the start and finish are bookended by accents, but the second group of 5 tuplet comes on the "&" between 1 and 2 (or between 4 and 5 in the Pañuelo example). In context of Buleria the complexity there flies by almost unnoticed at fast tempo. At 3:44
And 3:52 (sadly he doesn't match the playback audio track in the video but it makes more obvious the technique)
In context of Buleria the complexity there flies by almost unnoticed at fast tempo.
Wow. It really does. Never noticed it. I'm gonna have to reinstall the ol' VLC player to get a slow motion on this one. And the head scratching begins.
Nice catch Ricardo. thanks for the explanation. About Al di Meola, he's basically saying the same thing since the start of his career.
Like Ricardo I'm a big fan of the guitar trio and they released some really fantastic material, much more than a bunch of notes if you ask me. "Friday Night in San Francisco" is really great for the live performance and the energy. "Passion Grace And Fire" and "The Guitar Trio" are also great efforts, there are some really cool tunes on these : "Aspan", "Chiquito", "David", "La Estiba", Beyond The mirage" "Azzura" !
I don't really like Al di meola as a player. I like mainly his acoustic work : "World Sinfonia". There is great version of la cathedral by barrios one the first album. For the trio he wrote some great tunes. I don't care about his electric stuff. They are plenty of players in this category that are way better than him if you ask me. Guys like Bireli Lagrène or Pat Metheny are way above (like really above :p) him both rhythmically and harmonically.
Al di meola is very predicatable, he is rarely taking risks he's mostly a pattern guy, it's very obvious. I dont like his phrasing. Paco really improvies, if you listen to some live performance sometimes he's really making tone of "wrong" notes on some tunes but it is real improvisation : he was basically trying to figure the thing in concert he had no choice :)
John is a master, really like his work in Remember Shakti. Anyway John is still playing at a high level at 74 ! It is obvious that the bond between Paco and John was way stronger than between paco and al (not talking about al and john they basically hate each other). I really enjoy the concerts with just paco and john during the eighties (Freiburg, Berlin 1987 and the recent one : live at Montreux, where you can find a great review by Ricardo on the foro).
Al di meola think very highly of himself (interviews, his facebook). He should be more humble :p. When paco dies the man basically said he was sorry and made the event about himself saying that he found paco and that he put him on the tracks career wise with "Mediterranean Sundance" which is really a Paco tune if you remove the intro (it is cool ok but it last 20 seconds). Paco should have been given some credits for this track (50 %, 75%)
In the trio AL was full of himself, Ricardo mentionned a dispute between paco and al which ended I believe the trio. When he formed the other trio with larry and Bireli Larry was way past is prime, Al thinking he was a sort of master and that he was the best and then there was Bireli who did not play on a jazz manouche guitar but on a ****ty ovation (it was the 80s remember !). There is a concert of this trio with an awful sound on Youtube. Rapidly Al understood that Bireli overshadowed him and this trio did not last :)
Let's come back to the topic which was about rhythm and pulse. I think the advice that give Meola is great. Ricardo really like talking about rhythm and all of this stuff. Recently there are new guys who are doing really great tunes with amazing rythm chops. Let's start slow :
Dhafer youssef - Odd elegy (skip the intro and go to 1:35)
I think the tune is in 39/16. The piano is doing 7,7,7,9,9 for me. Or in 4 with a 7/16 bar at the end :) Post comments about this one. How would you count it Ricardo ?
The musicians in the video are incredible, on the piano we have Tigran Hamsyan an armenian which is for me at the top of the jazz scene but he has his own univers. He borrows a lot from armenian folklore. The guy is insane rythmically (check the other videos if youre not convinced :p)
On the oud it is dhafer Youssef, he's tunisian, the guy has one of the most beautiful voice ever and he's really good composer. For the singing you can check this one :
between 1min50, until 4min, check around 3min and tell me if he no cantaor :D Ole !
or this one (middle of the vid around 6min, tasty piano / drums on this one)
On the drums it is mark giualiana we can basically groove in anyting he wants. He's at the top of the scene actually.
I will recommend to listen to dhafer's album which feature Mark Giuliana and Tigran : abu nawas rhapsody (2010). I put this one next to the best of the best by Paco, in the genius category (which is really small with me). Insane compositions, great rythmic stuff and a really great voice. For those who dont normally like Jazz, check it out you might like it. The production is top notch, the oud sound way better than in the video, piano too. Full acoustic trio.
Let's continue with something once again close to 4/4. it is actually in 4/4 :
Ok this one is fun. Dont pay attention to the guitar it is there for fun like the whole video. The album version is different (there is no guitar in it), Tigran is a funny guy who like to change things.
I find an analysys by this guy, he subdivides it in : 5 + 5 + 3 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 5 = 32 / 16. Once again please rythm nerds comment ! Ricardo ? :)
Sure odd time signature are not new, but I find Tigran is really musical with them, plus he can improvise, groove on them with talent. I know that Ricardo was (still is maybe) a metalhead before flamenco. Likewise I had a similar journey (minus the talent of Ricardo :)) maybe some members were also metalheads. Anyways if this the case check this video by tigran in trio it is basically "trash jazz" with piano, bass and drums with INSANE rythmical chops. Ok the trash metal label is a bit exagerrated but still it's an insane concert that I store next to the live in Germany by Paco :)
Can anyone break down the rythm at 55:50 and 56:20 ?
If anyone is interested I will strongly advice them to check "Mockroot" and "Shadow Theater" by Tigran
Another one who is doing tasty rythmical stuff is Avishai Cohen (The double bass player)
I think the tune is in 39/16. The piano is doing 7,7,7,9,9 for me. Or in 4 with a 7/16 bar at the end :) Post comments about this one.
Not sure where you get that. It is a 4/4, then 6/4, and repeat. That's it. I mean, the different instruments are doing lots of cool stuff off-beat, but the basic pulse is not odd-timed; just has the 4+6 quirk.
EDIT: that was wrong - it is indeed 2 bars of 4/4, followed by a bit which is 7/16 in length.
quote:
Can anyone break down the rythm at 55:50 and 56:20 ?
The structure is a slow 3-3-2, 3-3-2 and it takes them two 3-3-2s to get one complete musical phrase (I mean I guess you can say it is written in 4/4 since 3+3+2 is divisible by 4, but the 3-3-2 makes you feel it better I think). Listen to the piano starting the theme from 56:05 repeating a single note for each "beat" (three of them) of the first 3 of the 3-3-2. Then on top of that basic structure they play with different rhythm patterns.
I don't hear this at all in the first one. Maybe I'm crazy but for me the first part the melody start on the offbeat it's 2 bars of 4/4 and then one bar of 7/16.
I think the tune is in 39/16. The piano is doing 7,7,7,9,9 for me. Or in 4 with a 7/16 bar at the end :) Post comments about this one. How would you count it Ricardo ?
It's a 3-bar cycle with 2 bars in 4/4 and the last one in 7/16. Writing it out in 39/16 wouldn't make all that much sense.
quote:
Let's continue with something once again close to 4/4. it is actually in 4/4
7/4. It lends itself to other time signatures but the easiest would be 7/4. The two-beat pattern that the drummer plays makes it sounds likes it two black notes, but if you hear it as a syncopation (beat and 3rd 16th note), the 7/4 is easy to hear. At least that's how I would count it. It's kind of like some forms of Gnawa or to a lesser extent Tanguillos where it's easy to use different time signatures.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
It's a 3-bar cycle with 2 bars in 4/4 and the last one in 7/16. Writing it out in 39/16 wouldn't make all that much sense.
I'm agree with that 2 bars of 4/4 and then one bar of 7/16.
quote:
Not sure where you get that. It is a 4/4, then 6/4, and repeat.
This is is not correct.
From a comment on youtube I think the guy is correct : For Vardavar It is 4/4. The sixteenth notes are grouped 5535545. For a portion of the song, the bars are broken down harmonically into 553 then 5545, which makes it feel like the next bar is starting earlier then it actually is.
Anyway I like this stuff :) It must be amazing to have that musical freedom.
It's only 4/4 if you think the "half time" effect they do towards the end is the same time signature as the rest of the song. In fact, when they do this effect, it clearly highlights where the base line of the tune is. So sure, it can be in 4/4 if your starting point is that the base line is syncopation. Otherwise you get 7/4.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
I could be wrong. I mean I'd need to write it all out to be sure, but it's how I'm hearing it.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
The thing with this kind of stuff, it that sometimes it sound complicated where in fact the basic pulse is just a 4/4, like around 5min10 the drummer is playing just a 4/4 for me, it is all about the subdivisions and some accented 16 notes. The others instruments are playing odd groups against a 4/4 pulse for instead and at a moment everyone meets up.
Yeah I get you what you mean. 5min10 is an interesting spot because yeah, if you look at the drummer what he's playing is 4/4, but you could also say that about the next section he plays where he half times it (though technically he's not half timing, he's playing the dotted blacks of his previous rhythm, if that makes any sense. If I were to write that, I'd keep the 4/4 time signature but I'd add the tempo change "black = dotted black", though you could also write it down without the change in tempo, in which case you'd have a pretty complicated score to read.. That's kind of what I meant for the first tune. I hear 7/4 as the easiest way to break it down, and I think it makes sense with the melody, but other options are possible. That's really what's so fun about these complicated polyrythms. I like this even more than the first video because adding a 7/16th, although interesting and fun, it pretty much precludes adding too many other rythmic layers, whereas here they can just pile on the layers and it still works.
Great discussion we have here, we need more members joining the discussion ! Let's discuss about other tunes by Avishai Cohen who is a master of tastefull rythms
'Seven Seas' which is is indeed in seven, the pianist seems to be lost at some point !
'Dreaming' (the drummer is 17 years old on this one :)
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