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turnermoran -> RE: Workshop in San Francisco/Berkeley with Diego del Morao? (Oct. 28 2011 6:24:34)
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I am curious to hear the opinions of other attendees, especially because most everyone seemed to speak good Castilian Spanish or understand it, whereas my Brazilian Portuguese was of little to no use. Not surprising. (I was told there would be a translator, but there wasn't. While that was a factual inaccuracy, I don't see how I can complain. That's on me that my Spanish sucks..)
Anyway, given the language barrier, there's a lot I missed, but all in all, i think it was just OK.
Day 1 was very crowded. I counted 19-20 guitarists. He started by saying "don't video me. We'll do that at the end".
Then he showed some material - a falseta here, a snippet of compas there - but there were so many guitarists it was too chaotic for everyone to play at once. So he switched gears and had us play some chord hits for bulerias for accompaniment. He answered various questions about accompaniment (where generally he stressed the importance of not playing some modern fancy compas for singing at the expense of something really solid and more traditional). Then at the end, he let us video 2 falsettas; solea and bulerias. Pretty basic ones, that he did slow, then at tempo.
I missed day 2.
Day 3 was a lot more Q&A, and a lot more videoing options. He also had a singer on hand and demonstrated accompaniment ideas.
Throughout both days he humbly stressed that he does things his own way, but in the style of his family and his experiences.
He talked a lot more on day 3, and most of it was beyond my limited Spanish skills. I am curious to hear the thoughts of others on that subject.
He showed us some tunings he used on Orate, and played excerpts of the pieces he uses them for, but didn't break down the compositions at all. (this was day 1). And he didn't let us video them. This was a bummer, as that stuff is hard to transcribe if you don't know the tuning. It would have been great had he showed us that, but maybe it's too proprietary.
All in all, given the cost ($75) per day for 1.5 hrs, I think one would get a lot more out of a one hour private lesson.
I'd give the experience a solid "B". But for a Spanish speaker, the experience was probably much different.
Anyone else care to comment?
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