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Quick Review on "Understanding Flamenco"
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Jon Boyes
Posts: 1377
Joined: Jul. 10 2003
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 RE: Quick Review on "Understand... (in reply to Ron.M)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ron.M
Hola Amigos,
This morning, the postie brought good and bad news.
The good news was that my package of goodies arrived from Flamenco World. 
The bad news came in the form of a brown envelope from the Inland Revenue. 
Earlier this week, my very own package of goodies arrived from Flamenco World. A Tomatito album (more later..) and the above book. Thought I'd add my thoughts..
As Ron has already said, this is a kind of flamenco rhythm reference manual. I have to say I have mixed views on it.
A lot of time is spent describing compas structure in terms of in terms of standard theory - time signatures and bars. So for example, the Solea compas consists of two bars of 3/4 followed by one bar of 6/8 if it were notated 'properly'.
This will be a good thing for people familiar with theory who want to get a grasp on flamenco, but I wonder how useful it is to people learning flamenco who haven't studied theory? I imagine a lot of the stuff about binary and ternary subdivision would be a little tough going, when its much easier to think of a twelve beat cycle with acents in the right places.
It has a few gems in it that do a geat job of clarifying little details that seem murky or poorly exaplained elsewhere.. Here's a good example - confused by Solea Por Bulerias? Think of it as a Solea por medio, but played with the aire of alegrias, thats the crucial difference.
That might sound odd at first, but when its played on the CD, its obvious. It makes all the difference to the palo and sets it apart from being simply a slow bulerias, or a fast Solea por medio, which is where I had it.
Another major plus is the dissection of rhythm WITHIN the compas itself. Most guitar methods cover compas, and discuss rasgeado tech in great detail, but I haven't seen this attention to the internal rhythm itself before -what you should be doing WITH the rasgueado to give the palo its true characteristics. I'm not just talking about accents (though they are covered), but the actual foundation rhythms of the rasgueados themselves. The is probably confusing if you can't hear the CD, but for me this is the main thing I'll get from the book. Its opened my eyes (ears) to Sevillanas and Fandangos, for example, and what I'm supposed to be doing with all that ras.
There are some very frustrating things about the package - like the fact that the book and CD don't follow each other! It would have been nice to have each track on the CD clearly labelled in the book, and have them both progress together, but there are things in the book not on the CD and vice versa, and the order does seem to jump around a bit.
Another frustration is the different ways of displaying the rhythms - in some sections the author does this just by notation which is fine by me - and in other sections he uses his own simple system which is described at the start of the book. It would have been better if both systems were used side by side for every example. He (the author) badly needs a good editor.
Other points of interest - there is an interesting little Cante reference section, some pointers on palmas variations in the main toques and a flamenco jargon buster (which has most, but not all, of the main spanish terminology).
The guitar technique section as Ron has already pointed out, is pretty worthless, and would have been better left out. And I agree that the guitarist is a great player. He makes the simplest rhythm really come alive, and is certainly capable of virtuosity as the background 'fills' demonstrate.
Thats about it after a few days with the book. If I come across any other gems/drawbacks, I'll post them here.
Jon
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 26 2004 10:31:28
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Patrick
Posts: 1189
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Portland, Oregon
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RE: Quick Review on "Understand... (in reply to Ron.M)
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I just got the book-CD yesterday so I haven't had much time with it. I parrot everything from above. Ron you are correct, the guy can really play!
I do see merit in the way he breaks Solea down in 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,1,2 ,1,2
The real gem is the CD not the book.
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Date Mar. 2 2004 20:52:09
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: Quick Review on "Understand... (in reply to Guest)
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Yeah Andy,
It's almost like the guitar was an "in thing" in Spain.
At one time, if you came up with a cool falseta, then only other fellow guitarists would appreciate it and keep it to themselves.
In the opening up of Flamenco due to tour companies travelling Europe and the US, Japan and Australia etc, a different audience was stimulated in my opinion.
That audience was composed of the Folkies, the Rock Players and Classical Guitarists who had never heard the guitar played in that style before and were excited by this music.
It was gutsy, it was ballsy, it was hard to define, it contradicted a lot of musical theory in a cool way.
So a new audience was born, which is still a bit of a puzzle to those prima donna singers and dancers who would rather wish things to remain in the traditional Spanish hierarchy and are a bit miffed that things have rather got out of control since that upstart Paco de Lucia spoiled things.
I think it should be pointed out to those who still feel that way, that a great part of their success in reaching a large International audience and the financial benefits it brings, is largely through the work of the guitarists whose creativity and talent have provided an inroad to the intelligent, curious and musically aware folk outside Spain to investigate this Art more thoroughly.
OK, I know that this is nuts to say, but...
Take away the guitarist.
Who is going to come (say, in Europe or the US) to hear a concert of an unaccompanied Flamenco singer?
Who is going to come (say,in Europe or the US) to see an unaccompanied Flamenco dancer?
And how many are going to come (say,in Europe or the US) to hear a solo virtuoso Flamenco guitarist?
I rest my case.
Dancers and percussionists can come together to produce a spectacular show (such as Kate's Taller de Compás), but these shows are still slightly fringe of the mainstream idea of Flamenco as Cante, Guitar and Baile in my own view and I believe that Taller would benefit mucho from the addition of a very good guitarist, just my own view.
For my own part, if the Art of Flamenco had not had the element of guitar, then I must admit I would most certainly be amongst the people who are a bit confused between Flamenco and Flamingo.
All the singers and dancers I know of and appreciate now, I would never even have heard of.
cheers
Ron
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Date Mar. 2 2004 21:01:15
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Kate
Posts: 1827
Joined: Jul. 8 2003
From: Living in Granada, Andalucía
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RE: Quick Review on "Understand... (in reply to Ron.M)
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quote:
OK, I know that this is nuts to say, but...
Take away the guitarist.
Who is going to come (say, in Europe or the US) to hear a concert of an unaccompanied Flamenco singer?
Who is going to come (say,in Europe or the US) to see an unaccompanied Flamenco dancer?
And how many are going to come (say,in Europe or the US) to hear a solo virtuoso Flamenco guitarist?
I rest my case.
Hey Ron,
In Chicago Taller de Compás sang and danced flamenco every night simply with percussion as accompanimient, 16 shows in 20 days, great audiences, standing ovations, no guitar, pure flamenco.
But I do get your point too, and flamenco audiences are changing. I hear Jos Merce is going down very well and he has NO DANCE in his show, there was a big question mark with promoters whether or not people would come. They came.
saludos
Kate
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 3 2004 10:25:56
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