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.
|
|
|
"Flamenco IS fusion" is a tired argument!
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
Mark2
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
|
 RE: "Flamenco IS fusion" i... (in reply to Leñador)
|
|
|
I've seen a lot of this in the dance scene. Flamenco dancers often want to do their thing to different music than flamenco, or add non traditional instruments. Personally I usually dislike the result. But it's not surprising they want to do it.
I've spent years studying flamenco guitar because I really really like the sound of it. I love the sound of guitar, palmas, cante. Spent more years learning to play for the dance in order to accompany it properly.
Finally start getting gigs and now the dancer wants a violin to do the falseta?? No bueno! Really? I learn all your breaks, played for your dance a dozen times, then comes the falseta, and you want to give it to a flute player who can't feel bulerias compas if his life depended on it??
Or they want to play a recording of some other music during a gig. I get it, because flamenco guitarists play other music besides flamenco plenty, so why shouldn't dancers have the freedom to dance their style to other music? I don't have to listen or care. And I usually don't.
"Oh, that falseta the flute, violin, trumpet, etc. guy played really killed me" is something I've never said.
I have to say though, that the reverse is not true for me. I don't want or need to have tap dancers dancing when I play flamenco. But...... there was this one time I was in a studio laying down a rumba and a hot looking belly dancer came in. We asked her if she could dance to our music, and she took a figurative look toward her boyfriend to make sure he wasn't looking. She opened her shirt and made a few moves while our tune was playing. We were smitten.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 16 2018 19:09:59
 |
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: "Flamenco IS fusion" i... (in reply to Leñador)
|
|
|
Agree completely, Lenny. That various elements went into the development of flamenco as we have known it, and know it today, does not in any way make it "fusion." Flamenco is a unique, well-defined genre and has been at least since the latter part of the 19th century.
I have come to intensely dislike the term "fusion," not only in music and dance but in other areas as well. It has become a catchall term for the intellectually lazy who don't want to adhere to the parameters and limits of a given genre of music or other activity. Much like the dancer you mentioned above, they don't want to put in the time and effort to learn something well, claiming that their more "free style" of performance is "fusion" and therefore just as valid. They are wrong.
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 Jul. 16 2018 20:50:58
|
|
Ricardo
Posts: 14802
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
|
|
RE: "Flamenco IS fusion" i... (in reply to Leñador)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Leñador
Recently a dancer sent me a video of a well known baile teacher in Sevilla teaching a choreography to some reggeaton song. Needless to say my response was......"passionate disapproval" we'll call it.
Her defense of this is "flamenco itself is fusion so what's wrong with more fusion." This is not the first time I've heard this argument. "Sephardic music, Moorish music, Ida y vuelta bla bla bla". This seems like such a weak argument to me. Sephardic and Moorish influences happend hundreds of years ago and ida y vuleta is over 100. Why is it not allowed to be it's own unique and defined genre now?? Should we be calling Spaghetti with meat sauce fusion food because pasta comes from china and tomatoes come from the americas??? By this standard EVERY music is fusion of some sort.
If you want to make fusion that's fine but defending it by saying "flamenco IS fusion" is a really lame argument to me.
Partially a rant, but also want to hear some other opinions on this.
Well, you provide no video so this is all about what one person’s words and ideas are compared to another person’s. So my brain has to fill it all in. I will say that Raggaeton is clearly your typical Rumba pattern and tempo, so musically could fit right in to any rumba, tientos or Tarantos escobillas etc etc, depending on the chord progression, I have already tossed in some despacito as a joke myself....the pattern has been universal as probably the most successful fusion/rhythm pattern everywhere on earth accross dozens of cultures. So in my mind, I don’t see it as much of a stretch MUSICALLY.....now the lyric part of it is a different story, those types of “songs” mixing into the flamenco genre are at best, a joke like I did with despacito, to worst, in horrible taste or insult to the art of cante. But it would come down to the specific song in this case. So, once again, a taste issue nothing more.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 17 2018 16:33:33
|
|
henrym3483
Posts: 1584
Joined: Nov. 13 2005
From: Limerick,Ireland
|
|
RE: "Flamenco IS fusion" i... (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
quote:
Well, you provide no video so this is all about what one person’s words and ideas are compared to another person’s. So my brain has to fill it all in. I will say that Raggaeton is clearly your typical Rumba pattern and tempo, so musically could fit right in to any rumba, tientos or Tarantos escobillas etc etc, depending on the chord progression, I have already tossed in some despacito as a joke myself....the pattern has been universal as probably the most successful fusion/rhythm pattern everywhere on earth accross dozens of cultures. So in my mind, I don’t see it as much of a stretch MUSICALLY.....now the lyric part of it is a different story, those types of “songs” mixing into the flamenco genre are at best, a joke like I did with despacito, to worst, in horrible taste or insult to the art of cante. But it would come down to the specific song in this case. So, once again, a taste issue nothing more.
Still waiting for a recording of i like big butts and i cannot lie in rumba compas.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 18 2018 9:01:45
|
|
 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
