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Recently I started practicing foot tapping along with even metronome clicks to internalize the rhythm better.
I am working through the Alegrias (Lesson 6) in Juan Martin book (El Arte Flamenco De La Guitarra) . From the CD recording that comes with book, most sequences are played around 130 bpm except one sequence(#3, second falseta, CAMPANAS) around 65 bpm.
For practicing that, would you set metronome to click at 130 bpm and tap foot on each metronome click to be in that "fast groove" and then, during the CAMPANAS sequence, tap foot on alternate click to get in the "slow groove" or would you maintain foot tapping at 130 bpm even during CAMPANAS sequence?
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to himanshu.g)
If you have to tap your foot on each beat, let's say 12 times in 12 beat compas, then it's okay. But only in slower tempo palos like Solea. To me 130 bpm is relatively fast. I think Alegrias must be in 3/4 time. So I would tap my foot only 4 times instead. Why not rip your CD to mp3 and slow the fast part down to 60 or 80 bpm and practice until you can play that part with ease? In general, I try to tap my foot mostly on quarter notes and feel the off beats on my own.
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
I think Alegrias must be in 3/4 time. So I would tap my foot only 4 times instead.
Alegrías is in 12-beat compás, like soleá, bulerías, etc. with accents typically on 3,6,8,10,12 or 3,7,8,10,12. Tapping your foot on 1,4,7,10 would be weird IMO, but tapping the accents (so 5 taps per compás) is fine. I agree you don't have to tap every beat though.
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to himanshu.g)
For passages that the tempo is meant to be slow or otherwise change, you can stop and change the metronome. In the end the foot will be the best tool to practice full musical pieces with after it learns what perfectly even tempo is supposed to feel like.
Alegrías is in 12-beat compás, like soleá, bulerías, etc. with accents typically on 3,6,8,10,12 or 3,7,8,10,12. Tapping your foot on 1,4,7,10 would be weird IMO, but tapping the accents (so 5 taps per compás) is fine. I agree you don't have to tap every beat though.
I learnt 12 beat compas Solea this way. I count or tap my foot on every beat. If I'm lazy I reduce it down to 4 beats (one beat in every bar) or switch between 12 and 4 beats. As for the accents, either I ignore or I feel them. But this is only from the listener's perspective. I haven't played a full Solea yet. When I start playing maybe I'll change the way I tap or count. I'll see. Do you think it's better tap only on accented beats?
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
I learnt 12 beat compas Solea this way. I count or tap my foot on every beat. If I'm lazy I reduce it down to 4 beats (one beat in every bar) or switch between 12 and 4 beats. As for the accents, either I ignore or I feel them. But this is only from the listener's perspective. I haven't played a full Solea yet. When I start playing maybe I'll change the way I tap or count. I'll see. Do you think it's better tap only on accented beats?
When you are first learning I definitely would not ignore the accents. You have to internalize that 12 beat cycle with accents to build a solid foundation for any palo. Tapping your foot on the first beat of every bar I think is training your ear to hear the wrong beats as important.
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to himanshu.g)
quote:
When you are first learning I definitely would not ignore the accents. You have to internalize that 12 beat cycle with accents to build a solid foundation for any palo. Tapping your foot on the first beat of every bar I think is training your ear to hear the wrong beats as important.
I dunno I think it's fine to tap six quarter notes and syncopate the second one. Tapping your foot isn't emphasizing it's just marking. It's much easier to mindlessly keep tapping at a constant tempo than worrying about syncopating your foot AND your hand.
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
I think Alegrias must be in 3/4 time.
Flamenco palos are not "in" any time signature like 3/4 or 4/4 or 6/8 or whatever, because those all refer to WRITTEN music and flamenco was created and developed for most of it's history by people who didn't read or write music.
Flamenco guitarists don't write and/or publish scores of their music, and it is still learnt and taught primarily by ear.
When someone else writes down flamenco music in notation or tablature that is always an interpretation of the music, often simplified, omitting various nuances, and often wrong.
There are certain typical ways of transcribing flamenco and writing it, and Alegrias and Solea are usually written down in 3/4. I have also seen Solea written in two bars of 3/4 and three bars of 2/4! And bulerias in 3/4, 6/4, 12/4, 3/8, 6/8 and 12/8. All "wrong" because bulerias is not "in" a written time, but all convenient ways of rendering the music in written form.
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to mark indigo)
I agree with everything you mentioned above. To me 3/4 time is the most appropriate and correct time signature for 12 beat compas flamenco music. The other notations are, as you wrote, wrong and make everything look uneccessary complicated.
quote:
When someone else writes down flamenco music in notation or tablature that is always an interpretation of the music, often simplified, omitting various nuances, and often wrong.
Yes it's true. However, when it comes to time signature, let's say 3/4 or 4/4 time, I doubt it omits important nuances of flamenco except for polyrhythmic palos like Tanguillo.
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
ORIGINAL: devilhand
I agree with everything you mentioned above. To me 3/4 time is the most appropriate and correct time signature for 12 beat compas flamenco music. The other notations are, as you wrote, wrong and make everything look uneccessary complicated.
quote:
When someone else writes down flamenco music in notation or tablature that is always an interpretation of the music, often simplified, omitting various nuances, and often wrong.
Yes it's true. However, when it comes to time signature, let's say 3/4 or 4/4 time, I doubt it omits important nuances of flamenco except for polyrhythmic palos like Tanguillo.
Remate is not really clear in standard notation. Most musics of the world have musical phrases that follow through to the downbeat of the first bar of a phrase or cycle. Flamenco, whether in 3, 4, or 6, typically has phrases the lead into and end BEFORE the down beat, such that a breath is needed before continuing on to the next cycle. Two important examples are to observe the playing of the drummers of miles Davis “Solea”. Live versions exist to see and feel... they take the 3/4 meter literally (perhaps 12/4?) and you can sense them always over emphasize the 1 of each cycle, even though the pattern of accents is correct, the feel is all wrong, and it’s the fault of conventional notation. The other example is Mclaughlin and Dimeola improvisation over Pacos Chiquito.... here a different error of feel, they sense 3 or 9 as down beats because the chords change there... Pacos improvisation is quite different feel wise of course. 1:36
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
To me 3/4 time is the most appropriate and correct time signature for 12 beat compas flamenco music. The other notations are, as you wrote, wrong and make everything look uneccessary complicated.
no, ALL written "time signatures" are technically wrong for an oral music that is not created in written form.
quote:
when it comes to time signature, let's say 3/4 or 4/4 time, I doubt it omits important nuances of flamenco except for polyrhythmic palos like Tanguillo.
the palmas for tangos omits beat 1 and ends on beat 3 (if you count in 4's, or 7 if you count in 8's). 4/4 begins and ends on 1, so the fundamental basics of the compas of the palo are lost already as soon as it is put into an alien written form...
while the harmony for solea and alegrias often sits comfortably in bars of 3/4, the flamenco rhythmic cycle is 12 beats, which is 4 bars of 3/4, so already there is a mis-match between the actual music and the written down interpretation, then there are the 12 beat accents on 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12. So you have two bars of 3/4 with the accent at the end of the bar instead of the beginning, one bar with an accent in the middle not at the beginning, and another bar with two accents, one at the beginning and one at the end. And you have an element of poly-rhythm between the way the harmony and accented compas often cross. Plus the "accents" are often played 3, 7, 8, 10, 12....
Bulerias phrasing can start on 1, or 12, or 10, or 9 1/2... ok, so the last of those is a kind of pick-up, and maybe starting on 10 is a pick-up too, and maybe starting on 1 is a pick-up to the 3, but either way, whether someone writes down what SOMEONE ELSE HAS CREATED WITHOUT WRITING they can choose all those time signatures I mentioned above, and they then have to choose whether 12 or 1 is at the beginning of a bar. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and what that means is that none of them are quite right, and all miss out on some nuances of the compas. And then there are the poly-rhythmic elements of the 1,2, 4,5, 7,8, 10,11 pulse, and six beat phrasing and 12 beat phrasing and 2 rhythm and 3 rhythm and crossing 2 over the 3 rhythm (which, incidentally I was just listening to this morning on a Sabicas recording from 1960 so is hardly "modern")....
I also don’t understand your point about Tangos palmas. That’s perfectly easy to write out in 4/4. What fundamental basics of the compás is lost?
I think what he means is in 3/4 or 4/4 time the first beat is always a strong beat, which is not the case for flamenco or in this particular case for Tango. But the problem can be solved with accent marks. But in Tango, beat 3 is accented?
RE: foot tapping and tempo (in reply to mark indigo)
quote:
no, ALL written "time signatures" are technically wrong for an oral music that is not created in written form.
geez you're so dogmatic. 6/8 + 3/4 where 1/8 = 1/8 describes the 12 beat compas perfectly. it's just a hemiola like "i want to live in america".
quote:
I think what he means is in 3/4 or 4/4 time the first beat is always a strong beat
says who? there's even a term "syncopation".
"time signatures" (like "keys"), can be used as reference points and not some end-all-be-all. it's supposed to make it easier to read, not interpret it for you.
Not completely wrong... he means no one single way is correctly capturing the intended feel, unlike most other musics can achieve with standard notation practice. A pop rock jazz or classical song meant to to be felt in 6/8 but carelessly written as 3/4 is simply not correct, there are good reasons why. But with flamenco we have multiple ways to accept the meter on paper, which is not normal. I’m not talking about subjective musical feeling I’m talking about objective mathematical timing and phrasing.
Chester is correct once we understand how a score is meant to be interpreted as a tool, it’s fine to use. But it is analogous to particle physics. We treat photons as waves and do everything on paper as wave function and it all works out fine. But deep down we know that a photon multiplier shoots out one at a time like bullets....but we don’t do calculations as if they are bullets. So inherently the description on paper is not the natural complete truth. But it’s ok. I feel the same about Flamenco scores. It looks great in 3/4 sometimes, even though something else deeper is going on with the meter.
I must say that capturing a more complete truth is doable on paper for Flamenco, though it can get complex. I tend to gravitate toward the more accurate transcription work of certain individuals that seem to grasp these discrepancies between the Flamenco feel and the limitations of normal standard notation. At least I very much appreciate when special care and extra work is put in.
Here’s an example... the rumba remate at 1:41, is identical to the buleria remate of Jucal at 1:05. The count in buleria is &ah7&8 9&. Two different meters can share the identical phrase and feel and musical purpose of conclusion...this phenomenon is pointing to something of the bigger picture of rhythm going on that the standard notation is not able to capture completely.
In a similar way, it’s almost inconceivable that someone nowadays would attempt to play a Bulerias from the music notation without already being familiar with what a Bulerias sounds like. If they did, the results would be predictably bad, no matter how good they are at reading music.
Absolutely false. If the player of any instrument is adept at reading and playing, then a well written score can reflect this if care is taken. But it falls heavy on the person writing it out. Hell, a computer can spit out a buleria with fake harpsichord sound if the details are inputted.
when i wrote "technically wrong" I used "technically" to try to get over the point that because the composer didn't write it down, writing it down is an interpretation, and there is no one single right way to write it down, not that it can't be written down, or that all transcriptions are completely wrong. Like Ricardo said, it's a tool.
quote:
"time signatures" (like "keys"), can be used as reference points and not some end-all-be-all.
partly what i was trying to say.
but also if the composer doesn't read or write music, and doesn't write the music down, and someone else comes along and writes it down using a time signature, that doesn't mean that the composer wrote it "in" that time signature. I think that is an important point to make to someone new to flamenco who is coming from other music with whatever preconceptions they bring.
There is a natural tendency in people when encountering something new to try to understand it in terms of what they already know, so people new to flamenco ask things like "what time signature is it written in?", "is it in a minor key?", "what's the chord sequence?" and "what scale/s do i play over the chord sequence?" which might all be legitimate questions in other types of music, but are way off in relation to Soleá, IMO.
I’m not talking about merely getting the notes/rhythms correct.
Well, that’s usually where average joe guitar player is falling short of being a convincing Flamenco player. Singers too. The details can capture the flavor, but it seems tedious on paper, most teachers of piano and guitar are trying to transmit personal sensations of how it feels to execute certain musical passages. But a piano is not much more than notes and rhythms with dynamics plus sustain pedal execution. This info is easy for a computer to read and execute, same for high level sight readers of piano music. If Diego Amador can capture the aire of buleria on Piano, and he does imo unlike his friend dorades, well, his playing can be notated.
I admit watching a piano player execute a score from sight with all dynamics and timing exact is quite impressive for guitar players to witness, but it’s not a rare phenomenon.
While the player above knows Flamenco, the real time transcription Generated (imagine it gets written in score form) can later be understood easily by say a classical player with great reading abilities without ever hearing the original, and executed the same.
When you are first learning I definitely would not ignore the accents. You have to internalize that 12 beat cycle with accents to build a solid foundation for any palo. Tapping your foot on the first beat of every bar I think is training your ear to hear the wrong beats as important.
Apologies if I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but as a beginner this is something I've been thinking about.
It's natural to translate flamenco to a "time signature" in the western tradition if that's what you're familiar with. And I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, as long as you understand that is the first step on the road to internalising the palo, not the end point of understanding.
It's more efficient to adapt the rhythms you have internalised than start entirely from scratch. If you know what 3/4 is, then "Why is this not 3/4, even though it looks like it?" is a better starting point than "What the hell is going on here?!". You just have to make sure you continue past the point where your existing musical understanding can't take you.
For example - my experience with bulería. I can definitely feel it as 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2. I don't really think of it as 3/4, I'm slowly starting to grasp the "feel" of it as rhythmic structure all of it's own. However, part of my brain still wants to feel the second accented beat (the 3 if you start on 12) as syncopated, that the "true" accent is on 4. I just need to concentrate on breaking that habit - it's all part of the process of flamenco-ing a musical sense developed in a different cultural context.
It's natural to translate flamenco to a "time signature" in the western tradition if that's what you're familiar with. And I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, as long as you understand that is the first step on the road to internalising the palo, not the end point of understanding.
It's more efficient to adapt the rhythms you have internalised than start entirely from scratch. If you know what 3/4 is, then "Why is this not 3/4, even though it looks like it?" is a better starting point than "What the hell is going on here?!". You just have to make sure you continue past the point where your existing musical understanding can't take you.
it may be natural, but it is a bad thing because it is inefficient to learn something the wrong way and then try to relearn it the right way.
if you can get everything by ear then go ahead and use as much written material as you like, but if you can't get everything by ear don't waste precious time on written stuff, just work on getting things by ear.
quote:
my experience with bulería. I can definitely feel it as 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2. I don't really think of it as 3/4, I'm slowly starting to grasp the "feel" of it as rhythmic structure all of it's own.
that count is probably the last thing you want to learn in bulerias. I spent years wanting to only hear that count in bulerias and ignoring all the other more fundamental rhythms
listen to this for the rhythm, not the technique or the composition, just the rhythm of the accompanying guitar tapeado throughout:
However, part of my brain still wants to feel the second accented beat (the 3 if you start on 12) as syncopated, that the "true" accent is on 4. I just need to concentrate on breaking that habit -
Please don’t. In this case your brain is onto something important and actually correct.
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