History of the Guitar

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Dougie

Posts: 16
Joined: Jan. 17 2007
From: Northern Ireland

History of the Guitar

I was looking forward to seeing Alan Yentobs new three part series "The History of the Guitar" which started on BBC1 on Sunday the 5th October. But I have to say I was dissapointed at the lack of Flamenco content, in the 1 hour program there was just a few minutes of Paco Pena, despite the fact that Mr Yentob spent a resonable amount of time in Spain. I was hoping to see in depth interviews with Paco de Lucia and Vicente Amigo, but it wasn't to be.
To be honest the Tv coverage of the Seville Expo 92 was better, much more informative, and lots of shots of a young Vicente doing his thing. Maybe the next couple of episodes will be better, though I doubt it, as episode one was called "In the begining"
Heres hoping.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 6 2008 9:41:39

Ricardo

Posts: 14856
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to Dougie)

Not sure what you guys expect. I mean "guitar" is a HUGE category. Flamenco is a small genre relative to the world of music. Guitar is used in almost all major music genres. I was impressed Bream gave 20 minutes to flamenco in his 8 hr program "The guitar IN SPAIN".

If you are into flamenco, why not just cut to the chase...get Rito y Geografia.

Ricardo

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 6 2008 9:48:52

kovachian

Posts: 506
Joined: Jan. 30 2008
From: Americanistan

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to Dougie)

+1 to what Ricardo said. As vast as the world of guitar is, and while flamenco guitar may seem like something almost as vast, it comprises only a small part. To devote 20 minutes to just flamenco guitar when there's about 3093498572983757923847 other guitar-oriented genres/styles/guitarists to cover, well, 20 minutes sadly seems about right to me.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 6 2008 18:01:40

henrym3483

Posts: 1584
Joined: Nov. 13 2005
From: Limerick,Ireland

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to kovachian)

i was peeved there was no indepth mention of the delta blues, im mean robert johnson is the daddy of the delta blues and modern rock n roll.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 7 2008 3:00:23

HemeolaMan

Posts: 1514
Joined: Jul. 13 2007
From: Chicago

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to Dougie)

Besides henry, if you examine the writing of Gaspar Sanz among others, in the 17-16th centuries, the guitar was more important in italy, france and germany. With most of the bulk of the composition done by baroque composers, very little of the flamenco world was considered. The "spanish" guitar was only spanish because it had 5 strings, as opposed to the 4 of a renaissance guitar. thus giving way to the popular misconception that the guitar is somehow more spanish than italian, french, german etc. For example, in soundboard magazine, the guitar foundation of americas periodical, there is an article on the restoration of an early baroque guitar built in prague for the hapsburg family.....sound spanish to you??? lol

Other than that, we see some early early early guitars popping up in the Duchies of Burgundy in the early 16th century, though mostly belonging to menestrels.

Really flamenco is just a tiny tiny blip on the radar.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 7 2008 3:53:15

Pimientito

Posts: 2481
Joined: Jul. 30 2007
From: Marbella

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to Dougie)

quote:

the TV coverage of the Seville Expo 92 was better, much more informative, and lots of shots of a young Vicente doing his thing

I know this might be changing the topic somewhat but does anyone know if that material has been released comercially on DVD somewhere. I have the 5 guitar concerts from Expo 92 recorded on VHS video from the TV at the time. I also have the TV show that you are talking about which was amazing. Sadly the quality is fading now and the soundtracks are really bad. I would love a digital version....any ideas?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 9 2008 6:03:32

Estevan

Posts: 1936
Joined: Dec. 20 2006
From: Torontolucía

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to HemeolaMan)

quote:

Besides henry, if you examine the writing of Gaspar Sanz among others, in the 17-16th centuries, the guitar was more important in italy, france and germany. With most of the bulk of the composition done by baroque composers, very little of the flamenco world was considered. The "spanish" guitar was only spanish because it had 5 strings, as opposed to the 4 of a renaissance guitar. thus giving way to the popular misconception that the guitar is somehow more spanish than italian, french, german etc. For example, in soundboard magazine, the guitar foundation of americas periodical, there is an article on the restoration of an early baroque guitar built in prague for the hapsburg family.....sound spanish to you??? lol

Yes - the Hapsburgs ruled Spain from 1517 until 1700.

Hem, you might be interested in the article about flamenco on Rafael Andía's site.
He has some ideas about possible evolutionary connections between baroque guitar and flamenco.
Yeah, I know - at first that sounds nuts, but maybe it's not so far-fetched. Impossible to prove or disprove, but maybe food for thought.
The original is in French, the English version is very dodgy but generally understandable.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 10 2008 14:46:44

Estevan

Posts: 1936
Joined: Dec. 20 2006
From: Torontolucía

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to henrym3483)

quote:

robert johnson is the daddy of the delta blues and modern rock n roll.

Debatable in the off-topic section, although I don't really want to pursue it.
Robert Johnson, although a great performer, was neither well-known nor influential in his time nor for over twenty years after his death. He influenced some (mostly English) rockers in the 60s after his recordings were re-issued, but rock n roll had been around for quite a while by then.

see:
Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of Blues

Interview about Robert Johnson

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 10 2008 14:58:24

eddie

Posts: 12
Joined: Sep. 8 2008
From: Middlesbrough

RE: History of the Guitar (in reply to Dougie)

As a classical guitarist who is in the very early stages of learning Flamenco I would overwhelmingly agree with HemeolaMan on the matter.

To my knowledge the "Flamenco Themes" are mostly transcriptions of piano music by the likes of Albeniz and Granados who were of the Nationalist style of composers, in this case Spanish.

Their music, where appropriate, was only meant to be representative of Spanish regional music and not pure flamenco. There are probably more pieces based on Spanish folk tunes than flamenco.

Most of the music is, in fact, not based on anything remotely Spanish.

eddie

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 12 2008 13:19:05