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Posts: 370
Joined: May 23 2007
From: Frederick, MD
Solea composition
Hey everyone
To get away from politics...let's talk about Solea for a bit. I'm working on the palo and would like to make sure I'm getting the structure of it. As I understand it starts with your typical entrada from which you go to the basic rhythmic patterns. From there you go to falsetas alternating with a rhythmic pattern again. Is that it? and how do you finish?
I hear the picado and chord finishes a lot from Paco, is that the way? Am I missing something?
Hey, this is a good question, lets explore it. What to do for solo solea and what about playing for dancers. I want to start playing solea for dancers and really want to know what to expect etc.
OK, so you do the entrada and some basic compas, when do you introduce the escobilla F, C, F, E and how is the best way to jump into it?
Also, do you change to the key of C for a singer, like C, F, G7 etc for dance practice or stick to just por Arriba?
Do dancers want to here some falsetas or fuggetaboutit...
Solea is not structured in any special way. The smallest piece to understand is a simple letra. It is a 3 liner, and this about it. Meaning a total of 4 compases. That's a solea plain and simple. A singer can repeat the last 2 lines if he/she wants or not, repeat the first line, or leave a space....or not, or stretch it out by holding and embelishing a note. Then he/she can do another letra or not if they wish. So you have letras, and the singer improvises both the structure of those as I described. It is most typical in a single performance of Solea cante to do 3 or more letras, and the more valiente or high pitched ones toward the end. The actually ending may or may not be "por bulerias". So you have LOTS of room to improvise inother words.
Interms of guitar, you just have the basic compas and falsetas, again you improvise which ever how you like. If with a singer, the falsetas can start or go between the letras as you feel. A guitar solo is nothing more than a personalized mix of falsetas. Like the cante, it maybe typical to end "por bulerias". That is about all there is to structure.
The dance however is usually very structured. The basic skeleton of the dance is: Falseta intro Singer temple or warm up with ay ay ay llamada Letra (slow) Falseta or llamada Escobilla llamada for Solea por bulerias letra of Solea por bulerias Escobilla Build into bulerias rhythm Bulerias.
That is typical, at anytime special falsetas might be used, or extra letras of Solea, for example instead of first escobilla, a long llamada will go to a more valiente letra of solea. Likewise, there can a couple letras of Solxbul. There can be a "solo de pie" in there after or in place of an excobilla, bulerias letras added in to the escobillas etc etc, depending on what the dance wants. Point is, it is structured, and the above is just a blue print.
That's great. Thanks for the detailed discription. Llamada is one thing I had a question about . I'm guessing that it is a call for a singer to enter and it is usually played as a change from E to F major chord. Is that right?
That's great. Thanks for the detailed discription. Llamada is one thing I had a question about . I'm guessing that it is a call for a singer to enter and it is usually played as a change from E to F major chord. Is that right?
What about escobilla? What is the purpose of it?
Thanks Bogdan
The llamada is purely rhythmic, and can be done with just an E chord. Of course you can do other chords too and make a nice resolution if you want, but not necessary.
The escobilla is the footwork section of the dance. You supply the dancer with music, either rhythm, falsetas, or something thematic and repetative, that builds on the dancer's rhythm. The solo de pies would be also like an escobilla, but with no music accompaniment, it is purely rhythmic. Just palmas or apagado (muted strumming).
I also uploaded a audio example for Bogdan (and anyone else interested) ( i been giving u such a hard time on polotics lately i feeled i should make an effort )
Escobilla ending with llamada (its another pretty typical way of playing it..rithmical continous rasqueado for the whole first 10 beats on E) .
next the resolving chords for the second part of the llamada (I think of it as answer and call in rithm....first u ask a question and it feels left in the air for a split sec ...then u close it by answering and erasing any doubt lol i sound so profund ...)...this is a personal test to myself to see if i can describe and converse rithmical ideas in words... comes in handy when talking to dancers...
dont worry i dont get what i just said either ..i need to practice my words placement a litlle more
so in this audio the llamada goes for 2 compases after the llamada u can hear it progress into a slow buleria ....(llamada always starts on 1 and ends on 10)
Cool man, is that the guitar you guys were talking about?? Looks like a Santos peghead turbo cutaway with tuner! Does it have a pick-up too?
I read that second sentence you wrote as "just a nice bed for the dancer to ...LIE in..."
It is cool how the first 4 compases or so are solea, then you jump into bulerias so the count "1" of Solea becomes "12" of bulerias. That kind of thing happens a lot in escobillas.
I should have known you would pick up on the "bed" reference......
This is my cutaway blanca. It's not the "Hypermodern" design that Glenn is building exclusively now. I ordered a cutaway to play latin stuff on last year. It has a dynamic microphone inside wired to an endpin jack. I hate pickups.....Sabine Tuner stuck on the side..... It comes in handy playing Solea when Jesus Montoya is singing too. 9 por Ariba.....no problem
I love this guitar, but Nigel's new blanca blows this one away. Something crazy going on with the hypermodern thing..... they are consistently wicked.
Yes indeed, in solea escobilla there is often a shift from one feel to the other. That's really what the point of the lesson was. The arpeggio section in the middle is just a super basic solea arpeggio compas in double time.
Thats not technically escobilla for solea. You are already in bulerias. A lot of players jump ahead to this, but there is a whole lot of super funky things to do in solea BEFORE you double the time...... Maybe I'm just getting old
Sounds good though, and it is where things inevitably end up going in an escobilla.
You forgot the part where the dancer stops and tells you that you are playing it too fast with an insulting look of disgust.....thats my favorite part of an escobilla.
Thats not technically escobilla for solea. You are already in bulerias. A lot of players jump ahead to this, but there is a whole lot of super funky things to do in solea BEFORE you double the time...... Maybe I'm just getting old
oh u right ...but we still refer to it as escobila..but ofcourse technically u are right..we dont jump ahead we do the solea one too i just setelled on this part of the escobilla for an example cause it had a llamada...to give reference on llamada and how it comes in.
ok heres the same solea escobilla before the timing shift...Audio
quote:
You forgot the part where the dancer stops and tells you that you are playing it too fast with an insulting look of disgust.....thats my favorite part of an escobilla.
hehe no atm we going trough this poloticaly correct stage where we pretend we take blame ourselfs...but we both know in our minds its fake and in our heads we still blame the other person...
nothing funnyer then a room full of self involved people all trying to pretend they low maintenence i cant see it last long
ORIGINAL: Florian but we still refer to it as escobila...isnt that how u refer to it there ? timing shifts into buleria but its still part of the escobilla
Yes. We refer to it as escobilla, but it's nice to differentiate between the feel of solea and the double-time(bulerias) feel. It has been the rage in flamenco since Manuela Carasco started doing it many years ago.
Actualy a quic question Jason, while i have u here ..i asked everyone else this allready
for that llamada in my first Audio where it is almost continous rasqueado for 10 counts...if u wanted to get it perfectly loud..perfectly even without the accent, just continous and intense...
what rasqueado combination would u use ?
i use P up M down I down repeat....but i am open to all your ideas..( if i can get more even and intense with another combination i wana try it) i remember u had some mean rasqueados in your videos..my focus is on absolute contiuos feel..so theres absolute no brake or accent in the continuity of that long rasqueado...what would u use ?
heres an Example of what effect i am after..but without the accents ...just conituos...what would u use ?
theres 2 guitars in there but I will get this effect if it kills me.. (Ricardo we talked about this but this is a good example of the efect i was refering too before)
The meanest and loudest is just all fingers down and thumb up.... CaveMan style. You can do it really fast with practice.
I would in that situation though probably use up with the thumb, down with a+m,up with the thumb. Abanico. To get more attack, you put your hand deeper into the "sausage grinder". Aim for the back of the guitar....... The strings have to slap the frets to get that effect.
lol i was hoping u wouldnt say that i used to do it alot and used to kill my nails and my hands were so raved up after that i couldnt go straight into a falseta after my hands were a writeoff for about 2 compases lol..its so uncivilized
quote:
I would in that situation thought probably use up with the thumb, down with a+m,up with the thumb. Abanico. To get more attack, you put your hand deeper into the "sausage grinder". Aim for the back of the guitar....... The strings have to slap the frets to get that effect
going to work towards the effect with this..Mark and a few other people were also suggesting this.....
ok..i know i am repeating myself but one last time lol its very very important to me ( most important thing in the world right now) that i have it right and u probably allready answered the question i apologise for repeating the same question but i dont wanna leave any room for doubt lol cause at the moment in my head could be any of the 2 options u gave me...what do u think the most likely combination that was used for audio Example i posted ? the effect is perfectly the one i want..
i just dont wanna practice the wrong one for ages and realize i cant get the exact dynamics because i picked the wrong one for this effect....and then i start questioning the choice of rasqueado instead of myself....if i know i am doing the same technique for sure..the effect il get..il practice it till i get it, il figure it out...just as long as i am sure of the fingering..
do you think Thumb up and A+M down was used for this ?..i know u not psychic and probably cant tell me 100% certain but i am settling for your closest gues..sorry again if u allready answered the question but id rather look like a foul now then practice the wrong thing for months cause i didnt clarifie for myself lol
I have nothing but the highest admiration, love and respect for you but if you give me the wrong finger combination il sue your a*s just the same
Check it out. I got an i phone recently and downloaded a metronome app that has programable accents. Also a tuner app and some other crazy stuff. -just amazing stuff.
If you can get an i phone from Apple -get it. There's a ton of cool music applications that can run on it. Some are free. Some cost a dollar. almost all are under 10.00 I paid two bucks for the metronome.
Thank you all for posting examples and explaining things. Thanks Jason, that's very useful and informative. Florian I apreciate that too , and of course thanks to Ricardo.
I've been on a long business trip this past week hence couldn't respond to all on time. This week more travel. And then I'll try to schedule another session with you Ricardo. I've practiced this thing to death now. So hopefully we can make a bit of progress.