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.
|
|
|
1st INTERNATIONAL GUITAR MAKING COMPETITION ‘ANTONIO MARIN MONTERO’. GRANADA, 26-29 October 2017
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
  
Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
|
 RE: 1st INTERNATIONAL GUITAR MAKING ... (in reply to johnguitar)
|
|
|
I skimmed through your blog and it looks like it was a nice event. Cheers!
For the constructive criticism part, my feeling is that the next edition could use having separate categories instead of lumping everything in together. At least that's my gut reaction.
It is interesting though. We've had other threads on here discussing the history of the guitar and in particular when classical and flamenco split. In a way, having a competition without two distinct categories could be seen as a good thing, a way of trying to go back in time and bridge that gap that has emerged over the last century. If that were the intent, then it would make sense to have no categories and then have both "styles" played on each guitar (It wasn't specified in your blog, but I assume each of the two players were specialized in one style and not the other?).
I'm one of those who would like to see the two come closer together but I suppose specialization also has its advantages. In any event, we live in a time where specialization rules the day, and the organizers should be aware that separate categories is what people expect. Basically put, if they don't want to have separate categories, I think they'd have to give a clear reason why. It could be under the banner of the history of guitar and more or less what I was talking about above. But if no explicit reason is given, they risk giving the impression to people that it's done merely for economic reason (too expensive to have two separate categories) or that it was all just sort of improvised.
Anyways, all of this should be taken with a huge grain of salt. I'm just thinking out loud and I'm not a builder myself.
edit: oh and anonymous entries. That too could be an improvement on next year IMHO if ever you have any sway.
_____________________________
"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."
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 3 2017 17:02:41
 |
|
RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
|
|
RE: 1st INTERNATIONAL GUITAR MAKING ... (in reply to johnguitar)
|
|
|
I was able to attend the competition but I went to Madrid for five days afterwards and now that I’m home I finally have the time to post about it. John Ray has already given a good account of the competition on his blog and names the winners and follow ups, so I’ll just give my impressions without going into that level of detail.
The event was primarily a competition and less emphasis was placed on the exhibiting the instruments. The demographic of the entrants was, perhaps not surprisingly, of new and upcoming makers working towards establishing their careers.
Of the 17 entrants, 12 were from Spain and the remainder consisted of two from China, one from Japan, one from Portugal and one from Germany. The two Chinese entrants were past students of the Stephen Hill course in La Herradura, the Japanese entrant served a three month apprenticeship with Antonio Marin five years ago, and I didn’t meet the other two non-Spanish entrants so I don’t know their backgrounds. The gold medal winner and one of the two silver winners were from the Granada region, and both were also alumni of Stephen’s course. Stephen and family attended the last day of the event and from the beaming expression on his face it was obvious that he was very proud of their accomplishments. The other silver winner was from Germany, and was the only female contestant.
Five or six of the entries were Flamenco guitars, the remaining were Classical. The contest required each guitar use the same brand of strings (Saverez) and each guitar was demonstrated by either a classical player or a flamenco player, each playing the same piece relating to the type of guitar. Apparently the judging ranked sonic quality at 20%, but following the progress of the guitars through the contest I think the judges gave much more credence to sound quality than that. The guitars that made it to the last round all had excellent sonic qualities that stood out during the first rounds. That being said, the overwhelming majority of the guitars sounded great, so relying on sound alone would have made the judging very difficult, IMO.
That brings me to what I felt was a disappointing aspect of the event, in that the public was never given the chance to see the guitars in an exhibition setting. So, I was only able to judge the guitars visually from a distance and had to rely mainly on the sound of the demos to assess their quality. On behalf of future entrants, I hope that the organizers would consider adding an exhibition event to showcase the work of all entrants, perhaps held on the first day before the contest begins. For a maker, it would go a long way towards justifying the expense and stress of entering if the public could see their product up close.
As far as the judging goes, I think it was conducted fairly. I had no sense that there was any bias. While two of the winners were from the Granada Provence, their guitars both stood out from the first round as being excellent instruments. By the way, one of the silver winners was a Flamenco Blanca guitar. I personally thought the Flamenco entries overshadowed the Classical entries in the sound demonstrations, but that could have been due to the player.
From an entrant’s perspective, I think the event caused a few lost pounds and sleepless nights. But I really don’t see this as having been a vanity event, the judges and entrants were all very sincere. The judging panel contained some of the top builders active today, and I think they were studiously impartial.
The contest did have some program inaccuracies that are likely typical of first time events. The public displays alluded to in the program were actually closed door, and while the program indicated the sound demonstrations were closed to the public, I was able to attend all of them without issue, but maybe I was just lucky. The only event attended by a large public gathering was the concert held on the final day, in which the final five entrants had their guitars demonstrated, judged, and the awards granted.
I hope this event continues and is held regularly. It’s a great idea and it truly was a celebration of the craft. My congratulations go out to all the entrants and to the winners.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 6 2017 4:31:54
|
|
 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 |
0.09375 secs.
|
Printable Version
