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I've been practicing flamenco for a couple weeks now. Learn chords, scales, and a few techniques. I even wrote a few riffs based on what I learned. Anyway, I was wondering, what's the best way to play flamenco with distortion? Especially when playing rasgueadoes.
All the chords and scales are nothing if you don't apply the things that make something be flamenco. Learn compas and then apply it to what you want to do.
The thing with the chords will be difficult on an e-guitar. I heared you only can use power chors with three different tones in one chords. If there are more you only get woooooooooooooooowwwwwwww but no identificable harmony. Is that right? So 95% of the chords which are used in flamenco have more than 4 diffrent tones. So its no possible on an e-guitar, I think.
Put the amp to 11, palm mute, tune down to B, bang head. That is it in a nutshell.
Ricardo
Morgan, There is a guy Benjamin on the W.Coast USA who has a Flamenco based Rock Band. He calls the music "Flametal". You could google for that to find his site. Or maybe someone here knows?
isn't it funny when someone says they have been playing flamenco for a few weeks and is writing flamenco material already or someone may say, " I have been playing flamenco for a few weeks and have a gig in a few days". To just learn the basics in flamenco and to get the right sound alone takes years. People seem to think that because when they see experienced flamencos, they think the rasgueados and everything else related to the technique is just sensesless strumming or something.
isn't it funny when someone says they have been playing flamenco for a few weeks and is writing flamenco material already or someone may say, " I have been playing flamenco for a few weeks and have a gig in a few days". To just learn the basics in flamenco and to get the right sound alone takes years. People seem to think that because when they see experienced flamencos, they think the rasgueados and everything else related to the technique is just sensesless strumming or something.
Did I say I was writing flamenco? No. Did I say I was playing flamenco? No. I'll take whatever I can from the style and you can call it whatever you want. Be it flamenco or something else. No need to be stuck up about it.
You said you had come up with a few riffs (falsetas?). That can be interpreted as "writing".
quote:
I'll take whatever I can from the style and you can call it whatever you want
It's tough - Robby Krieger of The Doors was heavily influenced by flamenco (and influence is what you may be after). You would need to study flamenco for a couple of years, with a flamenco guitar.
We used a flamenco guitarist to intro a track but did not attempt any of the techniques or compas.
I am not stuck up about it but the difference between good flamenco guitar and coming up with a riff (which may last the whole song, save for the middle eight) is about the same as making a paper plane and piloting the space shuttle. Believe me, all of us here know this to be self-evident, after our first lesson :-)
Don't let it put you off. I try to go back to the electric and the fingerboard suddenly gets too narrow. You may just end up with Am, G, F & E power chords in 4/4. If you come up with anything better - please post it here.
I am not sure if anyone would bother with a ras on an electric (distortion only adds to the problems). A flamenco guitar has a very short sustain compared to a humbucking Explorer.
Morgan, I appreciate what you're saying. I actually dipped my toes into Flamenco a long time ago when I played Folk/Blues steel string stuff. I really just wanted to know how they did that rasgueado stuff and some of the effects I heard. That's all...no further interest really...
This stuff has a habit of getting to you and not letting go. Almost like (or even more powerful than) a class A drug.
Some ex-metal players have said that the power of Flamenco guitar is what they had always been seeking...but just contented themselves with amps turned up to 11 and screaming solos...which now felt "hollow" compared to the challenge of this stuff
You sound like a pretty young guy.. Depends what you want to do in your heart man... Stand up there with a Flying V and heaps of amplification, picking out solo lines...
Some ex-metal players have said that the power of Flamenco guitar is what they had always been seeking...but just contented themselves with amps turned up to 11 and screaming solos...which now felt "hollow" compared to the challenge of this stuff
Your so right about this Ron. The worst thing is that I will never be able to steel the show with flamenco the way I was able to (more or less ) with a Van Halen solo. Guess I should have put aside the electrical thing a long time ago.
ORIGINAL: koella Your so right about this Ron. The worst thing is that I will never be able to steel the show with flamenco the way I was able to (more or less ) with a Van Halen solo.
You sound like a pretty young guy.. Depends what you want to do in your heart man... Stand up there with a Flying V and heaps of amplification, picking out solo lines...
Or this?:
Yes I am young, no I'm not a guy and yes it is an Explorer, not a V. But I do want a V. Think I like the first one, but am lost on why I have to chose. I think I'm still gonna learn it though. How much? I don't know but my music teacher told me there is no style you can't learn from.
ORIGINAL: Morgan Yes I am young, no I'm not a guy and yes it is an Explorer, not a V. But I do want a V. Think I like the first one, but am lost on why I have to chose. I think I'm still gonna learn it though. How much? I don't know but my music teacher told me there is no style you can't learn from.
Your music teacher is right. The differences between styles are so big though, thats it better thought of as a different instrument altogether.
You CAN learn stuff from flamenco in the same way as you can from listening to a great sax player, for example, but I wouldn't recommend holding the neck of your Explorer in both hands and blowing down the headstock to get a note - get my drift?
The techniques in flamenco have evolved to suit that artform and that instrument. I think you are wasting youur time by trying to learn some flamenco on your electric guitar. Rasgueados on an electric guitar with distortion? Forget it.
Personally, I think there are only a few things that you can take/adapt from flamenco with what you are doing and they are really mainly to do with the harmony. For example, lots of metal players use the phrygian and phrygian dominant mode (like Yngwie) - it won't sound flamenco, but it will give your music a Spanish flavour.
If you really want to immerse yourself in flamenco, you need a nylon strung guitar at the very least, but be prepared for a style who's rhythmical and technical complexity makes metal look like nursery rhymes. Its much more than a 'guitar style', really, its a whole culture.
For those of us who are bitten by this, its worth it, but many of us gave up other styles long ago just to get off first base with this stuff.
take it friom a person that plays with a ****load of gain. It does not work with flamenco. Metal/Hard rock is one thing but flamenco is another. Does not mean you can't do both, I do both fine. Hell, people here will flame me but I have a song where I have a flamenco part in between heavy electric guitars. I just switch instruments.
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