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Learning basic Bulerias in a Peña in Huelva
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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Learning basic Bulerias in a Peña i...
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Hi guys. After having read the thread about choice of first bulerias, I thought that this might interest some. I knew some about playing bulerias when I moved to Huelva, I had a good compas and counted in 2, BUT I wish I had learned bulerias the way Antonio Dovao teaches it to Bulerias beginners. I would have learned twice in half the time and what I can play now I would have played a lot better At first its ALL about compas and soniquete. (sorry, dont know how to translate soniquete, but it has something to do with a repeated monotounous playing or lets say, the characteristic way you play a bulerias in a certain area, the repeated strumming scheme) Hardly any counting in the head, but yes tapping the feet 12 - 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 10 while learning the fingering and strumming of a basic Jerez soniquete. This slowly and easy untill you can get up at 6 in the morning and before your first cup of cofee play it at 200 - 220.....tapping your feet at the same time . After this comes part two, learning some basic chord progressions for accompanying cante. When you have learned that, you play in group with your teacher and a cantaor. After this, and it takes a month or two, you learn a SIMPLE thumb falseta, like Diego del Gastor or Manuel Morao. And thats it. You are now on your own. The fact is that some almost beginners with 150,-€ guitars and a lousy tecnique are capable of playing something which has all the important parts of a bulerias and they can sit along and learn more. When I read a thread like Bogdans, there are 2 things I dont like. 1) playing Paco or Paco or Moraito or whoever... Wrong... play simple things. I started with Paco and a lousy teacher and it took me forever. I know its difficult when you dont have the acces to what I just described, but there are ways. If you have a teacher, say you want to learn that way, use recordings to get the soniquete (I recommend M Morao y Cepero) and recordings to play with cante. If your teacher cant do that..... Find another or learn Malgueñas with him/her If you havent got acces to a teacher, use a slowdowner and do it on your own. When you can master this, you start working on falsetas. IMHO its totally wrong to work with scores before this stage. 2) as always it gets to tecnical, to brainy, to many looooooong explications on how this and that famous player do this and that. Bulerias you dont play with your brain but with your Cojones Saludos I´m not joining the Peña at the moment because of time issues, but I miss it. The level is low, but you learn a lot. Saludos Anders
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Date Feb. 15 2008 20:15:22
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Learning basic Bulerias in a PeÃ... (in reply to Bogdan1980)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bogdan1980 Anders What was that basic strum you were talking about? All anders said I agree totally. I have been saying many years don't count until later for dance class, learn rhythm patterns first, and simple falsetas. No pieces, no counting, no fancy metronome. Just keep a beat. The only thing I need to say is about being scared of Paco transcriptions. Look, in El Tempul, between almost every falseta, or fancy rasgueado, you have very fundamental BASIC bulerias compas strumming patterns, that everyone should know. I mean, the student needs to understand how to EXTRACT those little things from a score, and get them solid. It is not a part of the composition, the composition is just the falsetas, and each one is glued together by BASIC compas strumming patterns. At least with that piece. So no need to warn every beginner that Paco has NOTHING to offer them. It is not true. Also the thing about El tempul being uploaded here by some of us, understand it is not like we condone learning entire pieces as the way to learn flamenco. It was just supposed to be a fun thing to share and 'compete" with each other in a friendly way. It was already suggested numerous times that there are SOME falsetas there for a beginner to handle, and just ONE falseta upload was acceptable. We did not really meantion how important the compas strumming was in El Tempul and for sure Henrik and I have our own personal things we do inbetween, but for students, I mean that is the fundamental stuff right there. Don't be scared of it it needs to be learned early on. Ricardo
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Date Feb. 16 2008 9:03:30
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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RE: Learning basic Bulerias in a PeÃ... (in reply to Bogdan1980)
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quote:
Is it really that simple? Just strum within the basic beat you hear? Yes... If you can play a correct strumming like the ones I told you or the ones that fx Paco plays inbetween falsetas like Ricardo says, yes, its that simple, another thing is that you can use other chords tha A - Bb. There are many standard progression and also remates. When you can play the soniquete well, and some standard chord progressions, play with cante. In general standard Jerez. Parilla, M. Morao and Cepero Camaron and Paco is also good stuff because the music is great and also because the mix favours the guitar a lot, whereas on many other cd´s the guitar can be difficult to hear. When they play falsetas, concentrate on accompanying those falsetas. In general, listen........ and listen more to cante. Oh, I wish I had time to do this myself. Maybe thats why I posted this thread, because I´m frustrated because of lack of time. Reforming a house is time consuming and stiff mortar hands are not very precise.
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Date Feb. 16 2008 18:08:35
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NormanKliman
Posts: 1143
Joined: Sep. 1 2007
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RE: Learning basic Bulerias in a PeÃ... (in reply to Bogdan1980)
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quote:
Is it really that simple? Just strum within the basic beat you hear? Yeah, just keep things in threes (two groups of three): 12 and 2 and 4, 6 and 8 and 10. That's the rhythmic context that you want to feel. Lots of falsetas start on 1, end on 10, end on 6, start on 9.5, etc., and in each of those situations, there's a different relationship between the beginning/end of the falseta and the rhythmic context. That sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. For example, falsetas that start on 1 come in after the very first foot tap (beat 12), falsetas that end on 10 are going to be followed by the first foot tap, falsetas ending on 6 are going to be followed by 2 foot taps, etc. After you've got a good strong sense of compás, work out a few ways to go from A to B flat in the first three foot taps (notice how the B flat falls between the second and third foot tap), then work out a number of ways to resolve (end up in A again) in the last three foot taps. Mix and match those beginnings and endings, and you'll be on the road to glory! Another thing that you'll want to work out are the rasgueados heard in the last three foot taps, almost always on an A or A7 chord. For years, the only one I did in bulerÃas was q-m-p, q-m-p, q-m-p, q over 7-8-9-10, because it's always been easy for me and I couldn't figure out the others. I'd always played (e)-a-m-i rasgueados in soleá, siguiriya and other styles, but not in bulerÃas. So one day, thanks to the explanation of a good friend and some other things that I'd seen, everything clicked into place. I'll try to describe this below. Before we start, remember that tapping your foot on the even-numbered beats means that there's one foot tap for every two beats, so when you're figuring these things out, start slow and tap your foot on every beat. When you've got the rasgueado pattern working, go back and commit it to memory at normal speed and with one foot tap for every two beats. These kinds of patterns (over beats 7-10) start between the fourth and fifth foot tap: 12-2-4-6-(start rasgueado here)-8-10. Play (e)-a-m-i-i three times on an A chord, with or without the little finger (e), over beats 7-10, one "cycle" per beat. If you play equal cycles of a-m-i-i, that'd be sixteenth notes (four strokes per beat), and e-a-m-i-i would be quintuplets (five strokes per beat), and you can hit beat 10 with another index downstroke. a-m-i-i, a-m-i-i, a-m-i-i, i There's a variation on this idea that sounds a lot more flamenco but is a lot less obvious, and it's what had me puzzled for so many years. For example, if you play a-m-i-i in triplets (a-m-i, i-a-m, i-i-a), you're left with a middle-finger downstroke for beat 10, which is awkward. The way to make it work is to play some cycles in triplets and others in sixteenths in order to get another finger to fall on beat 10. There are a few ways to do this, because you can play the faster cycle(s) on any of the three beats--whatever works for you--but it sounds a little better to "crowd" the ending rather than the beginning. For example: a-m-i, i-a-m, i-i-a-m, i. If you prefer to hit beat 10 with an index upstroke, play two of the cycles faster: a-m-i, i-a-m-i, i-a-m-i, i. The same idea applies to e-a-m-i-i (with the little finger), but you'd be playing combinations of sixteenths and quintuplets instead of triplets and sixteenths. There are all kinds of crazy combinations, and you don't have to use the same fingering, either. For example: i-a-m, i-i-a-m, i-i-a-m-i, i. Just look at that: a triplet, sixteenths AND a quintuplet. Cool, huh? There are many other possibilities, like the q-a-i rasgueado, or playing three complete cycles of e-a-m-i-i starting on beat 6, like Diego del Gastor. The best thing to do is to find something that works for you (=easy), analyze it if you can (and don't worry about it if you can't), and then look for other ways to get the job done.
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Date Feb. 16 2008 20:12:51
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Learning basic Bulerias in a PeÃ... (in reply to cathulu)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: cathulu I think everyone learns differently. For me, I need to count, at least to learn the falseta and to practice it at slow speeds. At the speeds I learn it, to not count would be impractical as there is no rhythmic feel to go by. Not much happens at 60bpm or less! Which is frustrating because some falsetas you cannot easily count you have to feel. That makes me uncomfortable but I am slowly getting over that. Which I guess means I am slowly getting to the place where you would say I should have been starting at. I want to second all Anders said in posts earlier once again, especially about it being easy "1,2,3". Like I have been writting for years on the foro. Funny how something so simple can become a debate (if you see the archives). And to the quote above, I suggest not worrying about the count to 12, even going VERY slow. Rather, if it is a falseta or strumming, or simply feeling empty space, just go one beat to the next without missing/adding anything in between. Feel each on or off beat or space or whatever, don't think about the 12 business or where you think accents need to be. Just play the notes one beat to the next, and feel that time from one beat to the next, and don't add notes until you feel just that little bit. As it adds up, the music literally dictates the compas for you, assuming you are not adding or subtracting anything. I prefer to practice at a medium speed, but not "in compas" rather just one beat to the next and loop it. Then I add the music for the next beat. Then the next, and so on, just keeping a simple steady beat. If you tap your foot 12,2,4 etc as Anders describes, you dont'even need to think that hard about it. Just tap your foot. Between the taps you have 12&1&, 2&3&, 4&5&, etc. Simply, 4 sounds per beat. So you fill those spaces with your notes or strumming, or when you have no sounds, you FEEL those spaces. But you don't even need to figure out where you are, just keep an even steady groove, and once you have all the music added up, you will see it feels just fine and in compas. No need to even check unless you MUST, you can put on a palmas loop or compas cd or whatever. Eventually you will trust yourself that it just feels right, and can do pretty much ALL your practice and learning with the foot going at a steady speed. For the record, the only time I think about WHERE I am in compas is getting in or out of a falseta from just rhythm. The starting point of a falseta is relative to your compas struming pattern. Perhaps you start after a golpe, or rasgueado, or an up stroke contra, etc. But once you know the proper feeling of the starting point relative your basic compas strumming, then you just keep your groove going, it is really that simple. Ricardo
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Date Feb. 20 2008 2:38:38
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