The Flamenco sound

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The Flamenco sound

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Ron.M

Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland

The Flamenco sound

I had an afternoon off today and was playing around with some basic Tomatito "cante accomp" stuff.
Some things sounded better than others.
Looking at it it really closely, it's actually the LEFT hand which really gets the Flamenco sound (assuming you can do the basic RH stuff).
The finger pressure constantly modulates between "full" and "damped", letting some notes sustain and others not.
This is so quick and changes from note to note, that you hardly even notice it.

There is no way you could ever indicate this graphically, in tabs or score IMO.

Something to think about maybe...

cheers

Ron

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 5 2006 20:52:22

Ricardo

Posts: 14833
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M)

LH plays an important part, but honestly it is mainly the right hand achieving the sound. Classical and flamenco LH style is not as terribly different as the RH style. LH has more to do I feel with subtle personal differences between players of the same genre. For example PDL vs Nino Ricardo.

The perfect test is to have someone else learn the same passage as yourself, but play the RH part and you reach over and do the left hand yourself on the same guitar to see how different the sound really is between the two of you. The person doing the RH will have more of the overall "sound" and personality come through, the person doing LH will be getting very small things of his own style in there, less noticeable.

Ricardo

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 7 2006 16:16:41

Ron.M

Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ricardo)

I dunno Ricardo,
I feel that this "Flamenco is all in the Right Hand" stuff is a bit like folk saying "Wow..you must really need long nails to play that!"

The Left hand in Flamenco is not just making chords and pressing fully on strings, but is constantly varying in pressure to get the attack/decay sound and is worthy of close examination by any Flamenco student IMO.
Not just for accuracy etc...but the way it is used in Flamenco to get the overall sound.

I really don't think you could (theoretically) line up Julian Bream playing LH and Tomatito playing RH and expect it to sound close to verdadura Flamenco IMO.
No way.

That's my feeling anyway.

cheers

Ron

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 7 2006 17:34:31

Jim Opfer

Posts: 1876
Joined: Jul. 19 2003
From: Glasgow, Scotland.

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M)

quote:

Looking at it it really closely, it's actually the LEFT hand which really gets the Flamenco sound (assuming you can do the basic RH stuff).

Acht! no way, it's the quality of the guitar. LOL!

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 7 2006 19:29:37

Ron.M

Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Jim Opfer)

LOL! Jim,
But , you of all people must ken fit a mean here min!

Crap is crap on a great guitar as much as it is on a non-crap guitar.

cheers,

Ron

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 7 2006 19:56:05

edgar884

Posts: 1975
Joined: Nov. 16 2005

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M)

Left hand is so important to your sound, many players have a muddy sound because they don't focus on leaving the left hand fingers down as long as possible.

I agree Ron,,,,,,,,,

Give me a guitar with one string and I will show you something hahahahahahhahaha

A good guitar player can make a piece of crap sound good.

A crappy guitar player can't make anything sound good...hahahhahaa

_____________________________

May we find God through Flamenco instead of Angels and Demons

www.gabrieledgar.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 7 2006 23:29:05

ivan

Posts: 73
Joined: Oct. 6 2005

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M)

no way guys..it is all in the attack of the RH as previously mentioned. It is the way you play rest strokes, and the angle of your nail attack w/ the RH, etc... you ever heard a good classical guitarist learn a falsetta and then play it to you? the notes are right but the sound is FAR from flamenco. If you observe the right hand, it is all there..

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 8 2006 2:06:07

edgar884

Posts: 1975
Joined: Nov. 16 2005

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M)

Truth ok, it's both ehhhhhhhhh.

_____________________________

May we find God through Flamenco instead of Angels and Demons

www.gabrieledgar.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 8 2006 3:09:44

Francisco

Posts: 879
Joined: Jun. 13 2005
From: SW USA

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M)

LH...RH...who knows? I always thought no matter what tone you seek, it was usually the result of the trinity of mind/hand/guitar. So, if I had to pick one thing that was more responsible for a particular sound, it would have to be the corpus callosum! But, then again, I can't play in compas without my Flamenco Master metronom, so what do I know?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 8 2006 3:38:02

cneberg

Posts: 257
Joined: Apr. 20 2006
From: Sončno polje pri Večnosti

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M)

Guitar IS important and it does affect the sound.

If guitar wouldn't be important, then Paco would just pick up one of those Wal-mart guitars and play in Teatro Real.

It is true though, if you can't play, then even Conde guitar can't help you.....

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 8 2006 11:01:59

koella

Posts: 2194
Joined: Sep. 10 2005
From: holland

RE: The Flamenco sound (in reply to Ron.M) 1 votes

I see it like this:

On my old guitar ( ricardo sanchis 1 af ) I played agrresive and with much force, to get a flamenco sound.

On my new guitar (gerundino) I don't need to play loud or aggresive. It has the right sound from it's own. So now it's easier to concentrate on "tension-less playing".

So for me the instrument is very important.

( just an opinion of a freeloading payo

)

Ps: I don't want to say the sanchis is a bad guitar. I enjoyed it for quite some time. It plays very easy. But it's no gerundino.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 8 2006 14:45:58