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Classical guitarists: Is my chair the right one? What about the height of the footstool? Is the room temperature ideal? Too hot? Too cold? I haven't done proper warm up, I'm sorry I cannot play casually like that.
In the meantime, flamenco guitarists:
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
Well... I should have listened to Ricardo. Playing the evil P who's name shall not be henceforth mentioned is some bad news.
Got run down by a big bull moose this morning. Was under his belly dodging hooves as he tried to kill me.
He got one on my foot, broke a few bones, hit the clinic for X-rays, now off to a walk in orthopedic clinic, (is that a joke?) hoping they can fix it and not have to hit the big hospital ... No luck, it's ugly, off to get an MRI... Looks like I get to have some hardware installed at our big hospital to fix a few crushed bones but in a week or more once the swelling goes down. Right in the middle of a world wide pandemic. Hurts like ****...
Was running, thought I slipped but my buddy says moose knocked me down with a head butt. My buddy was yelling RUN! RUN! but I was trapped in a 4-5 feet deep snow blower trail and nowhere to turn. After was down I could feel his hooves coming down on my down coat and I was jagging side to side just missing his deadly stomps as he tried to get me.
It's 10:pm just took my first pain pill, only half and thinking I'll ask the boss if she would bring down her parlor guitar for me to play...
PENETENARA!
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
It started like this, I asked about playing a Pentenera…
Worse than that, did it not first start with you lining a guitar inside with a petenera score and I first warned you then but you continued interest with that post? I have those red flags in my mind about it.
Almost 6 years later I can shed some light regarding my comment. This was about a year before my big "discovery" about what I believe are the true origins of the cante. The melody of Peteneras ended up front and center of my research. Ironically at the time of this event in 2020, I still loosely respected the witchcraft and avoided the palo as much as possible, resulting in my musical mind not having much proper understanding of the structure (the version of Menese in the Flamenco Saura film I used to skip over, and is strongly relevant). This mainly do professional work where this palo was avoided, and when a novice would appear playing Cafe de Chinitas or whatever everybody would get uncomfortable in my professional circle. Of course the superstition thing was a joke, and I now have concrete explanation for the stigma which is completely not magical or spooky, but makes perfect historical sense as to its avoidance (I can't yet reveal it without the whole can of worms coming to light...will in the future).
But as to what was the horrible thing I experienced, there was a silver lining. My favorite flamenco guitar fell on the floor that day, having been engaged both with practice and "remote school learning" with the kids and being distracted. The guitar was rendered unplayable in the blink of an eye. My luthier friend was stuck home as well and I was able to have him repair it. It was not pretty but after it was restored, the neck angle seems to have shifted into an optimal geometry that made the guitar much easier to play. Ironic, the guitar has lost its value due to the repair, however has gained as a functional tool. I hope that moose disaster might have lead to some good for you as well.
So since then I did engage with the melody and noticed its relevance and special function in the Soleá de TRIANA hybrids (Soleá petenera of Silvero, the macho for the polo/Caña etc.), and that engagement lead to coincidental professional performances of it (I went from doing zero peteneras in shows to having done half a dozen or so by coincidence). The relation between certain old "Romances" and the petenera also allowed me to convince certain skeptics of my musical correlations, also spooky coincidence but as I am saying there was a quite logical historical explanation behind this subject of dark mystery of the cante. If I had continued the superstition it likely would have gone unnoticed by me to this day. To be clear, my discover was not the peteneras cante itself, but rather it turned out to be part of the limited repertoire where Soleá, Fandango, Cante minero, etc., are central (based on my interpretation and correlation). Happy new year!
Oh ya, I forgot about using that score to reinforce the back of my parlor guitar rosettes… if I recall there were some posts that got deleted that I didn’t get to see. I would repost the build foto but dog knows I wouldn’t survive another moose attack!
Now I wonder who ended up with that guitar… one went to California and another is in Anchorage AK. No moose in San Diego but plenty of town moose in anchorage ;)
Ha! Remember the drama my posting moose ribs on that cooking thread a few months later ;)
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
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