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The Importance of Being Rhythmic
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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 The Importance of Being Rhythmic
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I've made a lot of progress in my playing lately, I feel like I'm starting to edge over from "an amateur who gets paid to play" to the next step. It's very exciting. I've worked really hard the last two years, mostly on technique, left hand and right hand, speed, thumb, etc., etc. What got me over this last plateau was a real attention to rhythm.
I've realized that this rhythm thing is a very important thing.
What does that mean, really? I've played guitar for 13 years, and I'm starting to think about rhythm? What I think is, it's really easy to think you understand the concept of 4 sixteenth notes, it's quite a different thing to really understand them.
I think what most distinguishes pro players from ams is a definite, authoritative command of the rhythm. The four sixteenths an amateur plays is quite different than those of the pro. It's a very subtle, tiny difference in terms of execution, but the impression it makes on the listener is very powerful. Two years ago, a virtuoso flamenco player told me that I already know how to play,but that I had to learn how to be more definite with my playing. At the time, it didn't really make any sense to me and I didn't go very far with it. Sometimes you aren't ready.
Play a scale or a lick made of sixteenths...at a reasonable speed. Now THINK the notes... I would recommend starting with 1 e and a, etc., or ta ka ta ka. A miraculous thing will happen, you will find your fingers following the notes in your head. Any clunkiness or messiness will automatically disappear. You are using your natural ability to play, getting past the interference of the conscious mind. This technique is the foundation of playing well.
I've been taking all of my repertoire and "mentalizing" it. The difference is obvious... from my partner telling me he's never heard me play so well, to my fiance noting that a particular song was noticeably better, to the great sense of confidence and consistency I've been gaining. My fingers are relaxing and moving economically, surely. I'm playing quick, clean, powerful.
I hope all of those out there who are struggling with aspects of their playing will give this a try. Of course, I practice for hours every day, and have the patience to practice scales and exercises endlessly. I was primed for this thing to push me over the edge.
But the concept applies, I think, to anyone. Our normal way of playing the guitar is to have a quite amorphous sense of the rhythm, then we let our fingers find their own way. It is impossible, Impossible, to play something well if you do not, on some level, understand teh music quite well. My way is to study this intensively, then put my mind in a state which processes it in a definite way.
PART II
I have been taking a little break from flamenco to work on my gigging material, ie flamenco-like music such as Gipsy Kings, etc. A lot of us, me included, have had somewhat disdainful attitudes toward this sort of music, thinking that it is easy. But:
1. Even the simplest music is hard to play well.
2. Good spanish music, whether hard core flamenco or rumba, is heavily syncopated and thus Very Hard for Westerners..
I would play these Gipsy Kings instrumentals, and I would be able to figure out the notes easily, butwhen I played it, it didn't sound right. Then when I began to analyze the rhythm more carefully, I realized that the Spanish essence,the Spanish sound, lay in their sense of rhythm. It is so, so different from ours. I kept thinking about what Ron said about how the Andaluz always put their ornaments in differnet places than we do. To get it to sound Spanish, we have to figure out the system. What is it that makes it sound Spanish? There must be a system!
It is natural for us to play on the beat, a nice hard accent on the 1. That's fine, and in fact is a necessary first step. But a lot of the Spanish sound is to put a nice, hard accent off the beat. If you don't really know where that accent is, that is, if you don't have a solid understanding of where the upbeat, or the up-up beat is, then you can't pull it off. Thats' the second part... we have to get to know the notes.
We have to know, not just where the 1, 2, 3, 4 is...to the same degree, we have to know where the and, the e, and the a are. We have to know those just as well. It is natural to tap on the beat and ignore the rest of them... kind of look the other way becuase it's too much work, too complex to deal with those other divisions. Even though we are playing on those divisions, even though the very soul of our music is on hitting those other divisions with authority.
Notice I said 1 2 3 4. If we can't even do this in 4/4, what hope do we have in pulling it off in the crazy flamenco rhythms?
This is why I'm taking a break from flamenco. I need to get a handle on 4/4, thoroughly, and then I'll be ready to tackle these other beats. I have a feeling it will be much easier to do at that point.
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Date Dec. 7 2003 16:29:34
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Phil
Posts: 382
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Rota, Spain
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 RE: The Importance of Being Rhythmic (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Miguel,
I think you’re starting to over-analyze things. If you’re going to break everything down into its microscopic parts, you’re going to ‘miss the forest for the trees.’ Have you ever considered that your sudden ability to play better is a direct result of the long hours you’ve spent practicing and listening to Flamenco, and not from some metaphysical way of conceptualizing the music? It’s been my experience that the learning process consists of long periods of seemingly no progress followed by sudden bursts of progress that can be almost dizzying, rather then a slow and steady increase. It’s a long period of plateau followed by a peak, another plateau, and then a higher peak, and so on. I think you’ve reached a peak and are soon going to go into another plateau phase. The difficult part is to persevere during the plateaus and not get discouraged. I wouldn’t change whatever it is you’ve been doing, because it’s apparently working.
I’m still a mediocre Flamenco guitarist because I’ve always allowed myself to backtrack during the plateau phases, but I’m trying to force myself to not let that happen again. Keep practicing; keep listening, and congratulations on your progress. Go with the flow and don’t try to analyze everything to death.
Phil
PS. Tom and Paul, I hate to get in the way of a good argument, but I think you’re both saying essentially the same thing. Maybe one of you misinterpreted something in the other’s post.
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Date Dec. 8 2003 0:22:41
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: The Importance of Being Rhythmic (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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I'm glad to spur on a little discussion. I think it is good to disagree with me, but I hope that my views would be considered before dismissed out of hand. Why? Not because of ego, but because I feel I am getting on the right track,and I would want anyone else to feel the same optimism I have.
I have been accused of being over-analytical by almost everyone I know. Analysis is a tool that we, as rational adults, have, and that uneducated people or children do not have. It is a tool for learning and not a tool for playing. Most good musicians agree that the time for analysis is the practice room. When you are playing you just have to play!
1. Gypsy children do not have the ability to analyze.
2. Gypsy children (who grow up in flamenco families) are as familiar with bulerias as we are with rock, etc. And just like we need little instruction on where the 1 is, they don't need much instruction on where the 3 6 8 10 is.
If you are learning a foreign language (sorry for overusing this damn cliche of an analogy, but it works!) you cannot learn it in the same way the children do. To attempt to do so is probably naive. You can use rational thought to break down the patterns, to memorize what is needed, and in doing so achieve high levels of language use. You can listen to as much Spanish as you want, but if you do not analyze it, you will probably always speak like a gringo. People immigrate to the States when they are 15 and speak with varying degrees of accents, often very strong, for the rest of their lives, yet they are surrounded in the idiom.
1. The way Andalucian guitarists learn is simply not available to us. We should not try to imitate their way of learning (to a large degree).
2. We can learn the rules of the language, and then internalize them.
3. If you rely on osmosis to learn the accent, you will probably fail.
4. If you use analysis, you can probably figure it out.
I think music works in much the same way. It is instructive to find out how good musicans of any culture learn their craft. But let's remember there are very good musicians who are not "naturals," who, say, come late to the art. Their way of playing is not mystical. They have systems, they rely on patterns and on heuristics or rules which they derive from listening or analysis.
It is not so different to say that Spaniards pronounce their 's', 'th', and to say that they like to hit the sixteenth note after the beat, instead of the beat (for example).
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Date Dec. 8 2003 1:44:01
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: The Importance of Being Rhythmic (in reply to Paul Bruhns)
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Hi Paul,
Maybe we are saying the same thing here, but I just felt that your post finished on a down note...I felt you were suggesting that to play Flamenco convincingly, one would really have to be brought up in Andalucia. Sorry if I misunderstood.
Mind you, I don't think that's so very far from the truth.
Extremely difficult? Yes.... but I don't think impossible.
I have heard only very few "foreign" guitarists myself who have a good, pretty convincing sound.
Anyway, let's for a moment get away from ideas of playing like a born Gypsy or with a technique like PdL.
Most of us here are hobbyists, what we enjoy doing is learning and getting as good as we can, so let's look at playing from that aspect.
My main point is that learning the structure of the compás is only the very beginning of learning Flamenco.
I'm sure there must be many others like myself who thought that once they had managed to stay in compas and acquired a basic technique and some falsetas, that somehow they would sound Flamenco, only to be disappointed when eventually visiting Spain and listening to some basic players there and finding something missing in their own playing.
Learning compás is so difficult for us.... so counter-intuitive to our own culture and upbringing that we tend to focus on two main things...Compás and Technique.
I think this is because of our "Science/Technology" driven civilization and culture which demands everything be analysed and documented and that the more powerful the microscope the more complete will be the understanding.
Mike said:
"To get it to sound Spanish, we have to figure out the system. What is it that makes it sound Spanish? There must be a system! "
How do we understand the Mona Lisa?
By measuring the dimensions or by doing mass-spectrometer analysis of the paint?
We have managed to document the structure of the compás and technique of the guitar, the verses, styles and chord changes of the cante and the techniques and moves of the baile.
Therein lies the danger, for if we focus too closely on this information we will, as Phil said, "Miss the wood for the trees".
At the end of the day we are talking about Music, not Science.
The dynamics and chemistry of good Flamenco artists in full flight is something which can only be absorbed by a great deal of exposure, not analysis.
If you are unable to reside in Spain, then the next best thing is to listen to recordings.
Tabs may be great for fingering but will not indicate that special ingredient.
Practising scales etc will make you only more proficient at the guitar in general, not Flamenco in general.
That's why I constantly go on about learning "how" to play is the easy part.
Learning "what" to play is harder!
Sorry for the rambling nature of this post!
I'm trying to say too many things in too few words and it's another Monday morning LOL!
But I hope you get the general drift of my own thoughts on this interesting subject.
cheers
Ron
_____________________________
A good guitar might be a good guitar
But it takes a woman to break your heart
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Date Dec. 8 2003 9:45:56
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Paul Bruhns
Posts: 77
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
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RE: The Importance of Being Rhythmic (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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To Ron and Miguel:
I'd like to respond generally to both of your points of view. I think we are very close to being in agreement; we just sense it differently>
With Miguel's post, I was side-tracked by the music theory explainations and I probably misinterpreted your message. Yes, there is something to knowing where the upbeats and down beats go, and how some flamenco guitarists accent them within the compas. I think my pont to that is, that they feel it and sense it that way, rather than "knowing it" from a musical theory perspective. Another great teller of a true flamenco is where they "don't play". It's how they pause and then...feel where and when and how loudly to play the next notes. This, is what they know how to do without the learning of theory and analysis. This is what makes a knowledgeable audience chant "Ole"!!!!! And, I think this is what we struggle with until we learn to FEEL the music as they do.
I empathise with Ron... I make a living outside of music
quote:
That's why I constantly go on about learning "how" to play is the easy part.
Learning "what" to play is harder!
The Spanish kids, who grew up in their little communities in Andalucia doing palmas to bulerias while their Moms and Dads yaked out the cante letras at the weekend family juergas, have the feel and sense of the music inside them. They could make a bulerias out of a Sheryl Crowe tune and it would sound athentic and full if Aire.
When I asked my guitar teacher, who has grown up in Malaga and who has played guitar for over 50 years, how will I ever get my playing to sound like yours, he said to me: "Listen to flamenco and nothing else until you feel everything, play flamenco and nothing else until you feel everything, and when you think you feel it, let it come out of you, I'll tell you if you are right"
Well, maybe some day!
In the mean time, I listen to a lot of cante. To me, it's the best way to sense what NOT to play, and what to play next.
Best Wishes,
Paul
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Date Dec. 8 2003 22:23:22
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: The Importance of Being Rhythmic (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Paul,
Your guitar teacher doesn't know, it's like asking a native language speaker how to learn how to speak English! Respectfully, Paul, analyze it. Then, forget the analysis, the e's and a's, and you will feel it just fine. Sometimes the source of your smile is your joy. Sometimes the source of your joy is your smile.
I've said enough. I know that my viewpoint on this is certainly in the minority of musicians. I hope you at least try it. I know that I listen to cante all the time, as well!!
Cheers amigo,
Miguel
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Date Dec. 9 2003 1:50:21
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Paul Bruhns
Posts: 77
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
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RE: The Importance of Being Rhythmic (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Oh Kay Miguel:
I'm not the right person to convince you because I'm just an afficianado who happens to play some flamenco guitar. So, my appologies if I have offended you with the analogies I chose.
Still, having said that, I'll take my teacher's word for it. He has played with Ramon de Algeciras, is personal friends with Paco de Lucia, Monolo San Lucar, Has played Flamenco for the President of the United States as well as the King of Spain. He knew Sabicas. As a kid in Malaga, he and his contemporaries learned to play flamenco guitar by listening to Nino Ricardo on the Radio. He has more flamenco in his little finger than I have in my whole body. So, I would say he has earned the right to his opinion.
And lastly, I don't want to personally offend you. I realize you are trying to make a point about a learning technique you are studying. I just miss the point somehow. I really want to use an analogy here, but I'm afraid to!!! LOL
Let's try it again sometime... maybe I'll understand
Regards,
Paul
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Date Dec. 9 2003 3:03:39
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: The Importance of Being Rhythmic (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Paul,
no offense taken, and sincerely, none intended. Especially with regards to your teacher, he sounds like a very accomplished man and flamenco.
I'm only 29 years old, so I probably still suffer a bit from the "nice to be young and know everything" syndrome. I can only speak from personal experience, 13 years on the guitar and a mere 4 or so in flamenco...
I don't know much about flamenco, really. What I do know, is that we humans have amazing capabilities, much, much, more than most of us give ourselves credit for. Our minds are amazing things, used only in fairly limited ways for most of our lives. Once in awhile, we get a glimpse of what we can be, and it's an amazing thing. I'm not necessarily talking about rational stuff, analysis, although that is how I tend to approach things. There are other ways to do things. Rationality has limits, oh yes. I meditate and chant (being a Buddhist) and am only starting to tap this whole can of worms!
But, really, I just don't want people to limit themselves. You can do anything you set your mind to. Today I had a class with Pedro Cortez, a good, modern-style player here in the States. He moved really, fast, throwing these tangos falsetas full of chords with multiple numbers after their names, weird techniques I didn't know, and highly syncopated compas. I just listened, struggled to catch on. But a couple of times he looked at me and said, "You are going to play very well, young man." Which embarassed me... I'm just not used to receiving compliments. I replied, "I work really hard." He said, "Yeah, of course, but you have to have potential." I wasn't going to argue with him. Anyone who worked as hard as me would be as good, or better, than me and I know it!
As Ron pointed out, most of us aren't obsessed with music and don't have hours a day to devote to it. Since I am obsessed with music and spend hours a day on it, I have a different set of goals. There are things I Have to do. otherwise I'm going to be a very poor musician....but anyways, I'm certainly rambling now. And forgive me for saying: Never limit yourself--other people will always be trying to do that for you!
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Date Dec. 9 2003 4:27:49
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