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Posts: 16059
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981
We saw some black and white clips of this show years ago, but the full concert in color is very inspiring for me.
Why do I like this one so much?
1. Paco makes TONS of mistakes. Even Ramon and he are laughing at all the mess. In a way I find it endearing and inspiring for some reason as the concert is still enjoyable with all the errors. He even has to improvise a lot of variations to get out of trouble.
2. I always loved that guitar that he used briefly. The sound from Friday/Saturday in San francisco and later Solo Quiero Caminar and Castro Marin that this instrument was used on I enjoyed. It has a very dry percussive mid range sound that makes the treble notes pop out. Also the look of it, the Rosette really pops out for some reason. Also I have clocked his runs over the years and he always pushed past the normal range using this guitar for some reason. Even in this video we can see that Rio ancho at 105bpm, wow. Anyway, this negra unlike his others has a very dry blanca sound to my ears. He admitted it was not his "best guitar" which was stolen in 79 or 80, so perhaps he was upset even playing this thing as a 2nd tier guitar. He never pulled it out again in public after replacing it with his main guitar in 1982.
3. The repertoire is a great mix of old and new material.
4. It has been a long time since I was inspired by guitar concert. Nobody new is really doing it for me like this guy did. Flamenco I listen to years now is only old cante.
5.Paco has a beard. He said his family thought he was disrespectful doing this so it is rare to see until they had passed away and he started wearing a beard on stage in the mid 2000s til his death.
6. The sound is uncompressed and natural, the guitar sounds like mine when I play in the living room. The video shots of close up technique are great, you can even see the detail in the cejilla.
RE: My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981 (in reply to edguerin)
quote:
ORIGINAL: edguerin
Great material!!!! Reminded me of why I admired Paco and fell in love with flamenco. BTW 1983? 1981?
Yeah, saw that too. I figure 1981 Liege is when the concert actually happened, and the 1983 reference is the year when it was shown on RTBF (la radio-télévision belge de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles)
It is a great find, very inspiring! (got something in my eye... BRB)
Posts: 16059
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981 (in reply to devilhand)
he messes up every technique at some point in this, it is really great! But mostly his left hand in wrong fret, forgetting what he is doing, etc. He was probably mad at one little screw up after the first piece and couldn't get out of the funk.
pretty sure that rasgueado is i down, p up, a down, i down, p up.
Posts: 4654
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
RE: My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981 (in reply to Ricardo)
Is that a fret marker on side of the neck at 7th fret?? Maybe that threw him off with all the capo position changes 1st, then 3rd, then 2nd, then no capo, then 2nd .....
Fret dots would visually unconciously f. you up a bit in flamenco, since we use capo so much imo. Then again, it's Paco and he can play all these pieces blind, so hmm maybe not and I'm just tripping and he just was a bit hungover
But I have to admit, I was surprised to see that on Paco's guitar. Never even noticed this
Posts: 16059
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981 (in reply to Arash)
quote:
But I have to admit, I was surprised to see that on Paco's guitar. Never even noticed this
Any over the shoulder shots reveal this. First time I noticed was the Concerto de Aranjuez, which was a different guitar. He puts that on deliberately, looks like a blob of white nail polish or paint. Those angles also revealed the picado movement from the big knuckle very clearly, rather than the middle finger joint (a fun argument over the years on foro thanks to Graf Martinez method etc.).
Posts: 16059
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981 (in reply to Ricardo)
This is a question for luthiers actually, also seen in the San Francisco video when light shines into the soundhole, this guitar has a bizarre diagonal brace on the back. I read in the archives about a weird "floating back brace", however, on a Conde or similar flamenco negra I have not ever seen this thing. Could this be a repair (weird at that angle) or an actual structural design?
seen at 21:41, to the left of the cross made by the harmonic bar and the center strip
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RE: My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981 (in reply to Ricardo)
It has to be a repair or anyway a strut added occasionally to support a weak spot of the back. I never saw that feature in any other Conde of that epoch nor I think it may improve the tone of a guitar but to address wolf tone issues. The rosette was quite common for the time.
Printable Version
1st, then 3rd, then 2nd, then no capo, then 2nd ..... 
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