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NormanKliman -> RE: **CANTE CHALLENGE ENTRIES** (Oct. 13 2009 3:43:28)
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quote:
please let me know if this question is disrespectful or rude or somewhat rebelious
No way... You've got every right to ask for explanations. My criticism was based on my preferences, and I think I'm a very harsh judge in that sense. For example, what I said about Perca-Anders (and others) anticipating the rhythm amounts to an extremely small amount of time, a fraction of a second, but I've heard that kind of thing many times and am sensitive to it.
So, when I listen to anyone accompany, there are lots of "mistakes" that I don't mind hearing, but overshadowing the singer ruins it for me. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with modern vs. old, because guitarists have been overshadowing singers for a long time (for example, Ramón Montoya's accompaniment of Aurelio or Mojama in 1929). Good guitarists are always looking for "clever solutions," and it's not something that Paco de Lucía started doing. As a guitarist I like clever ideas, but as a cante enthusiast I'm very tired of hearing them happen during the singing. Cante is more than just the voice and the guitar, because there's a third element, which is the verse. When I'm listening to cante (not accompanying), I pay much more attention to the guitar and voice, but I know Spaniards who focus on the letra more than anything
else. It's logical, because most people don't have technical knowledge about melody, harmony or rhythm but they can understand the story being told. For these people, the technical aspects of music are in the background, and it's the other way around for people who are more interested in the technical aspects of the music (for whatever reason).
quote:
...i see it as something you do togheder
Me too, but we define "together" differently. Looks like we spell it differently, too. JUST KIDDING! The problem for me were the big rasgueados during the singing. Using the terms mentioned in my post, the things that I didn't like were "projection and juxtaposition" and "empathic dynamics (flowing with singer)."
Projection: Those rasgueados were too loud.
Juxtaposition: They shouldn't have happened at the same time as the singing or should have been MUCH softer.
Empathic dynamics: Notice that the word I've chosen is "empathic" and not "emphatic." According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, empathy means "the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in their situation." The big rasgueados were imitating what Félix was doing, and that's fine for a side-by-side presentation of guitar and voice, but I greatly prefer to hear the guitar under the voice.
But I think some people prefer to hear guitar and voice on equal terms, and that's why I said that your accompaniment might go over very well in some parts of Spain. The picado wasn't bad (technique could have been a bit cleaner, but that's not so important), but after hearing the big rasgueado, I was not looking forward to hearing another "big guitar moment."
If it helps, you should know that I don't like 80 to 90 percent of the accompaniment that I hear nowadays, so maybe it could be said that I'm not a fair judge. And in all honesty, I liked a lot of what you did, and the things I didn't like weren't nearly as bad as, say, the overuse of major seventh chords, which is something that I absolutely hate. But I prefer the approach of Melchor and Juan Carmona (there are modern players, too) for reasons that I've already mentioned.
Aire is hard to develop because its main ingredient is the passing of time. You can't really "put your finger on it," so to speak.
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