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Posts: 2007
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Solo Flamenco guitar, Carlos Montoya (in reply to D.A.)
I agree the first one sounds like him. Second one too, but I'm not 100%
Sevillanas I think is him too.
No doubt he had compas together. Funny my first teacher Mariano spent little time teaching compas, especially bulerias. When he first introduced me to bulerias compas, he recorded thirty seconds of compas with some syncopations and said it was going to drive me crazy-he was right. Maybe he felt it was beyond gringos, or maybe he thought in the context of solo playing, it wasn't a big deal. In any case, he didn't really hammer it into me, and I had to learn it from other sources.
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Solo Flamenco guitar, Carlos Montoya (in reply to D.A.)
quote:
But try this. Tune your guitar down to B alittle sharper around B 458 Hertz on the tuner then place the capo on the third fret raising the pitch to 458 Hertz or so D. then play along with the video.
Basically he’s in drop D in that video
False. but no worries. He is tuned a 4th down. His fretted F# chord (with capo 3 that is the 5th fret) sounds as E. Nobody should want to tune their guitars down that way unless you are playing death metal. Actually farthest down my friend took his charvel was B. so props to Arcangel or barbero for getting that thing to sound at all. widdly widdly widely ligados I am sure are a blast.
RE: Solo Flamenco guitar, Carlos Montoya (in reply to Ricardo)
So Carlo’s guitar is tuned to Drop B but placing the capo on third fret, as he does in the video, raises the pitch of the guitar to D standard?
Is this what you’re saying?
Because playing a F# major bar chord at the fifth fret which now the second fret with capo on the third fret, the chord now becomes an E major bar chord.
That’s what I stated in my post.
The guitar is tuned to B standard or drop B but tuned sharper than 440 before the capo is placed
I use the terms Drop B or B standard interchangeably
So Carlos here low to high B E A D F# B before the capo is placed on the third fret.
He does this to make the guitar easier to play. The strings are very slack.
It seems he did this later in his career as he got older.
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Solo Flamenco guitar, Carlos Montoya (in reply to D.A.)
sorry, early you said "basically he is in Drop D", but yes, with capo it is close to that. You keep making a big deal about the hertz between B and C as if he deliberately needed it a hair sharper than B so as to not be completely ridiculous. No it is still ridiculous. And the Capo puts pressure on those floppy strings in a way to bend them all sharp anyway...so there is a good chance that if we could take the capo off and see what was really going on without that squeeze, my guess is the guitar is tuned even much lower than B.
Anyone with an electric guitar and floating bridge can try this. Take your standard tuned guitar and drop the bar so that the E drops to B then hold that position and play some ligados all over the neck.
RE: Solo Flamenco guitar, Carlos Montoya (in reply to D.A.)
In my father's musical memoires he also mentions his performance years including his flamenco encounters (he wrote it on request of a dutch flamenco website)
The discription below addresses how in that period of time (50ties/60ties) Carlos Montoya somehow gained a name among the general public in the Netherlands (and most likely elsewhere in the world) to be the greatest player ever....
In my father's words.
"In that period of time Carlos Montoya was extremely popular. It's such a strange phenomenon, people who have never listened to for instance a flute player before suddenly out of the blue (without any reference) decide that for some reason this or that flute player is way way better then all the other flute players. This also happened with Carlos Montoya. In the view of the general public Ramon Montoya was "unmatched". Record after record came out and everybody knew him. Rumors said his uncle had stated "he would never learn it"... Seriously, can you believe it. And now look at him.
"To me It was quite kitchy. Not a bad thing for me because he was very easy to imitate. His toques all had the same setup and as such were verry recognizable for the audience. Obviously also with the combination of rasgueado and Tambor. Next a tremolo which often started with one long held note. The most impressive however (in the view of the general public) were the endless ligado's, a relative simple technique with little musical depth. For my inbetween solo act I had great succes with it but there were also people who became disappointed..."oh, I always thought it was difficult.... but if you can play it I obviously was wrong".
I never saw him perform myself. If you have to perform yourself every night you can't go anywhere. So just like with Segovia I send my mother to have a look and to report me of the concert. From Carlos I know he used colored spots. I have to add that in that period of time you could not offer a serious solo flamenco performance yet since the public wasn't ready yet *. Carlos offered them the impression the whole palled of flamenco unfolded before their eyes. What he could do verry well was playing the folkloristic dances and songs".
So, as Ricardo rightfully pointed out, Carlos Montoya paved the way for the flamencoguitar to be accepted as a solo instrument on stage (like Segovia did for the classical guitar). Not sure how it fits in historicaly but I read once that Paco de Lucia's concert at the teatro real was a milestone in that sence as well.
* My father told me once that back in those days if a flamencoguitarists was asked/allowed to play 1 solo inbetween a group performance it ended up being either a soleares or a granainas.... a bulerias or otherwise would not have been accepted by the audience yet.
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