At wat speed to play soleares

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Schieper

Posts: 208
Joined: Mar. 29 2017
From: The Netherlands

At wat speed to play soleares

Morning all,

just a short question. Play my soleares now at app 80-90 bpm (Andante?). I like that littlebit slow as it suites my skill level and gives each note a bit more "breath" and sort of drama (at least to me). Is there something like a "standard" or recomendet speed?

Thanks

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 2 2020 7:02:40

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Schieper)

I have had to play super uncomfortably slow for some dancers. (50 bpm or less? Maybe 40 actually). Nino Ricardo solea (the only one on video) was 130bpm. That would be a good “normal” speed IMO.

What we think of as “Solea por bulerias” picks up from there up towards 180 bpm where it’s pretty much a slow buleria. So the overlap down in the 130bpm range is about how you would have heard all the cante back in the old days, so there was not really a distinction guitar wise between “soleares” and “buleria por Solea”.

The term “solea por buleria” as a distinct form GUITAR WISE is a modern conception that I have to believe was the result of the baile slowing Solea proper way down to the tempos you are working on.

Hope that helps.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 2 2020 14:24:48

etta

Posts: 341
Joined: Jan. 20 2010

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Schieper)

Ricardo; thanks for answering questions I have been thinking about for a long time. And thanks Mr."Foro Flamenco" for providing this source of information.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 2 2020 16:14:04

kitarist

Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

I have had to play super uncomfortably slow for some dancers. (50 bpm or less? Maybe 40 actually)

Where the 'beat' in 'bpm' is such that there are 12 in a compas? Yikes!

_____________________________

Konstantin

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 2 2020 18:04:24

Kaloguitarist

Posts: 126
Joined: May 12 2020

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Schieper)

This was going to be my next question...LOL

I find that when i play solea to metronome or dr. compas at very slow speed my rasguadeo drag...And, putting in feel sound robotic as well....

quote:

Nino Ricardo solea (the only one on video) was 130bpm. That would be a good “normal” speed IMO.

Wow, 130bpm....That is fast...What I get confused is are we talking 130bpm per note or 130bpm counting musical phrase subdivision. I hope this makes sense..

Kalo

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 2 2020 20:20:28

johnnefastis

Posts: 631
Joined: Jan. 10 2012

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Schieper)

Super interesting question. My experience is that Solea has to be the craziest palo for messing with tempo. I am not expert but as Ricardo says it can be super slow for dance a bit faster for cante and then there is also the thing when it doubles in speed and is felt like a Buleria. And then escobillas for baile that start crazy slow and build right up in speed.

As I understand it you just need quite a lot of different material to be able to move between the different tempos.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 2 2020 22:18:23

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to kitarist)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kitarist

quote:

I have had to play super uncomfortably slow for some dancers. (50 bpm or less? Maybe 40 actually)

Where the 'beat' in 'bpm' is such that there are 12 in a compas? Yikes!

Yes, well the rehearsal involved a llamada that was about 4 compases long. I was feeling 16th notes as my foot tap and rolling super fast rasgueados and stopping on the accents, so my foot was preventing rushing (I realize now it was slower than 40 actually). The singer and auxiliary dancers were doing palmas. Every time the palmeros rushed the tempo and were not with me (and her the dancer) she stopped us and we had to start at the beginning. It was like pulling teeth.

It took 3hours to get through that llamada with no mistake.

For folks reading, bpm means beats per minute. Most often we define a beat as what you tap your foot to, or a quarter note. For solea that means counts 123456789 10 11 12. Each of those falls on the click of the metronome, so 12 clicks per cycle. Most traditional metronomes run 40 to about 200. 60 is the same as one second. So two beats in a second is 120, a comfortable medium tempo we can all feel by looking at a clock. What happens to fast songs such as bulerias that go above 200, we might want to feel half the speed as the beat... tap my foot at 100bpm even though the song tempo is 200. One could say I’m now tapping my foot to the half note. So in solea por buleria some players are feeling a fast beat (Chicuelo for example) and others feel a slower beat (paco likes a slower foot tap). In the end, the counting you learn “uno Dos tres quatro” etc, cuts through that ambiguity and holds the same meaning regardless of tempo and beat feeling.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 3 2020 19:03:49

Schieper

Posts: 208
Joined: Mar. 29 2017
From: The Netherlands

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Schieper)

Lovely. Thanks all..

So 130 it is. Now I need to work on my triplets again to get them in compass ;-)

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 5 2020 8:00:31

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Schieper)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Schieper

Lovely. Thanks all..

So 130 it is. Now I need to work on my triplets again to get them in compass ;-)

To be clear, I referred to Niño Ricardo at 130bpm as an old school reference where the tempo overlaps with what we think of TODAY as solea por buleria tempo. The baile has slowed it down to the tempos you described (80bpm towards 100+bpm) and NORMALIZED that tempo range for Solea. So you are doing fine IMO. But if you fell into a time warp wormhole and found yourself in Sevilla in 1920 and were asked to play solea for a singer, then yes it will have been time well spent working your stuff up to 130bpm.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 5 2020 15:12:37

JasonM

Posts: 2051
Joined: Dec. 8 2005
From: Baltimore

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Ricardo)

I remember seeing this track labeled as Solea and being confused. Now, whenever i see a "solea" track on a cante album I never know if its solea por buleria or solea until I hear it for the first time.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 5 2020 16:43:50

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to JasonM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JasonM

I remember seeing this track labeled as Solea and being confused. Now, whenever i see a "solea" track on a cante album I never know if its solea por buleria or solea until I hear it for the first time.

Tricky one cuz the first and third letras are both Buleria larga. The second one might be a solea but I can’t place the exact version the way he is delivering it. I would call the track “buleria por Solea” myself.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 5 2020 22:52:22

JasonM

Posts: 2051
Joined: Dec. 8 2005
From: Baltimore

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

Tricky one cuz the first and third letras are both Buleria larga. The second one might be a solea but I can’t place the exact version the way he is delivering it. I would call the track “buleria por Solea” myself.

That’s interesting I’ll see if I can find on Normans site.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 7 2020 15:24:37

mark indigo

Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Kaloguitarist)

quote:

I find that when i play solea to metronome or dr. compas at very slow speed my rasguadeo drag...And, putting in feel sound robotic as well....

not sure if this has been answered already, but I think Ricardo already mentioned having different repertoire for playing at wildly different tempos.

Same for rasgueados, so if at 120 bpm you are playing amii 4 stroke ras per beat or camii 5 stroke per beat, then at 60 bpm you need to double those up so 8 stroke amii amii or 10 stroke camii camii per beat.

Same deal with abanicos whether you do it p am p (marote) or pai if you do two of those per beat at 120 bpm, do four per beat at 60 bpm.

Also between those speeds (60 and 120 bpm) you can do 3 abanicos per beat say at 90 bpm and things like 3 x amii over two beats at that speed (works out 6 strokes per beat).

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 7 2020 21:39:29

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Kaloguitarist)

quote:

I find that when i play solea to metronome or dr. compas at very slow speed my rasguadeo drag...And, putting in feel sound robotic as well....

Give me a short list of tempos and I will show a quick example of what I would play at each different tempo along with Dr. Compas.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 8 2020 1:17:32

devilhand

Posts: 1598
Joined: Oct. 15 2019

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Schieper)

According to O. Herreo in this video at 26:03, Solea is played more or less around 90 bpm. Solea por Bulerias 140-160 bpm. Bulerias start from 200 bpm.

Btw, Soleares is old fashioned. Today we call it Solea.

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Say No to Fuera de Compás!!!

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2020 13:39:12

Morante

Posts: 2178
Joined: Nov. 21 2010

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to devilhand)

quote:

Btw, Soleares is old fashioned. Today we call it Solea.

¡Wow! un experto!

Soleares are played at whatever speed the cantaor/ bailaor requires.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2020 15:31:58

devilhand

Posts: 1598
Joined: Oct. 15 2019

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

Nino Ricardo solea (the only one on video) was 130bpm. That would be a good “normal” speed IMO.

What about 120bpm? Here's a good audio example. Antonio Arenas accompanies Solea for both baile and cante. You can hear 120bpm at 0:00-2:30. The tempo increases up to 210bpm at 2:30-2:50. I guess Solea turns to Buleria. Then the tempo normalises back to 120bpm.

The interesting part is at 3:50-4:35. Does anyone know what's happening there? Sounds like a totally different palo.

http://www.ivoox.com/listen_mn_2513480_1.m4a?internal=HTML5

if it doesn't work, try here

https://www.ivoox.com/de/tomas-huelva-soleares-audios-mp3_rf_2513480_1.html?autoplay=true

_____________________________

Say No to Fuera de Compás!!!

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 21 2020 16:02:16

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: At wat speed to play soleares (in reply to devilhand)

quote:

What about 120bpm? Here's a good audio example. Antonio Arenas accompanies Solea for both baile and cante.

I like how you pick and choose what to read. I’ll just quote myself from after that post:

quote:

To be clear, I referred to Niño Ricardo at 130bpm as an old school reference where the tempo overlaps with what we think of TODAY as solea por buleria tempo. The baile has slowed it down to the tempos you described (80bpm towards 100+bpm) and NORMALIZED that tempo range for Solea.

3:50- end is supida and bulerias.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 21 2020 20:54:09