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RE: The best Tremolo lesson ever (in reply to n85ae)
Well, what Jeff says is true, however I've seen it now and can't "unsee" it if you know what I mean. Todd, your title of the post is spot on. Gerardo is a truly remarkable player. As you know, I saw him play live a couple of years back to a mainly Classical audience and he wowed them all out. I must admit, I'd never really listened to him much until I started reading Ricardo's posts way back. He's such an enigmatic person..with such refined feelings and technique while looking a bit like a nightclub bouncer.
Hey nice video you posted yourself there Todd. That's not an easy technique!
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Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: The best Tremolo lesson ever (in reply to ToddK)
The coolest one was the Solea Por buleria "with compas" as he calls it. Usually the phrasing of tremolo in Solea, or Solxbul is 1,4,7,10 like escobilla, but he actually has the bass notes on 12,3,6,9...very cool effect that I think feels better when you do it at that tempo. Compare this to M. Sanlucar's "De Capote" or Paco's "Solera".
RE: The best Tremolo lesson ever (in reply to kovachian)
quote:
Mr. Nunez never fails to amaze me. Would this video of his be available with subtitles?
No but if you buy the book (encyclopedia) that comes with the DVD a transcript of most of what he is saying is included in the back. If watching this segment hasnt already inspired everyone without the DVD and book to go get...today... I can only say its the best 50 bucks you will spend this year!
RE: The best Tremolo lesson ever (in reply to ToddK)
I was feeling good about my tremolo until I took that link. It’s amazing how easy professionals make playing look at levels seeming near impossible for most players to master.
RE: The best Tremolo lesson ever (in reply to kovachian)
quote:
ORIGINAL: kovachian
Mr. Nunez never fails to amaze me. Would this video of his be available with subtitles?
would you belive me if i tell you that i actually singed in for spanish lessons throughout last year, just to be able to understand these videos (Nunez, Herrero and so on..)
RE: The best Tremolo lesson ever (in reply to Ron.M)
quote:
There was once when Gerardo approached tremolo for the very first time too!
I became interested in flamenco during the 1940’s when hearing it occasionally in the States via Spanish shortwave broadcasts. While attending high school in the 1950’s I worked evenings as a popular music disk-jockey for a U.S. broadcast station. The station had subscribed to a service that had been sending new recordings from all over the world since the early 1930’s and it had a huge music library. Even though I had to pretend on the air to like the music I played, I have never had much interest in popular music and I used to listen to other kinds of music (primarily classical and flamenco) from the station music library while playing popular music to the listening audience.
One day the station manager asked if I would be willing to come in on a Saturday and haul all the records in the music library that were not popular music to a dump, because the station had run out of storage space and it only played popular music on the air. Wow – I couldn’t believe it. He was asking me to throw thousands of perfectly good recordings away. In fact, many of them had never been played. I asked if he had any objection to me keeping the ones I wanted for myself. He said he didn’t care what I did with them, except that the contract the station had with its supplier stipulated that they couldn’t be sold.
Well, you can imagine what my bedroom, our garage, and every other spot I could find to stash records looked like after that Saturday. Most of those records were eventually given or thrown away over the years, but I still have some rare old flamenco recordings. Among them are some early Sabicas flamenco recorded in the 1920's, but released in the early 1930's. Ron’s comment about Gerardo also having to approach tremolo for the very first time caused me to think of Sabicas. Sometimes when I am frustrated with my own playing I listen to the way Sabicas was playing early-on and I think if Sabicas was able to progress from that to the way he played years later, maybe there is hope for me.
We all should keep in mind as we struggle to learn new things that the terrific players we all admire probably didn’t sound any better at some point early on than we do.
Printable Version
(I already have it!)... 
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