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Mark2 -> RE: Got my Juan Martin book in the mail. (Aug. 20 2011 0:06:25)
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He is an amazing flamenco considering his age. I'll agree that it's not remotely possible for a newbie to play compas like this kid before learning to change from Bb to A on 3 and 10. But plenty of guitarists spend many years polishing really old material, some of which requires way more technique than the boy has, which may not really prepare them to do what this kid is doing so well.
Speaking strickly from a guitaristic point of view, what he is playing is more relevent today than much of what you'd find in a tutorial that is based on fifty-seventy year old stuff, in particular some solos of the period. All the kid is doing is playing compas, so if a guitarist with a bit of experience and compas learned what he was doing, he would be taking a huge step towards an understanding of bulerias compas as it is played today-much more so than the guy who tries to play a Paco solo without understanding the compas. I don't think you need to work your way through JM's, Gerharts, and Granados books before having a shot at what's happening in that vid. But that is a judgement call, and subject to individual interest and ability.
It's true that people who have been into flamenco for years have the benefit of hindsight, and while I think everyone should study the old masters before learning Gerardo's modern style material, if a little kid is playing bulerias compas in B and sounding great, why ignore that by working exclusively with old materials? I think that many guitarists, especially those with a little bit of experience in flamenco technique and not new to the guitar, could manage to work out what the kid is playing, and would be much better served by it than learning a "piece" by JM. Just my opinion, and I could be wrong in many cases.
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ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
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As someone who spent a lot of time studying old school flamenco, if I was starting today, I'd want to start with stuff that is more relevent today.
Understandable, certainly; but it seems to me a question of learning to walk before you can run. If you can’t play the early stuff, you certainly can’t play Gerardo and the rest. Likewise you need to learn to keep in compás with easy stuff, so it becomes automatic, before you start on all the syncopations.
One year when I went to Paco Peña’s course in Córdoba, we got a bloke who was a session guitarist -- he had a Paco de Lucía locket around his neck. He played a bunch of Lucía’s pieces, but he obviously didn’t understand what he was doing, because the accentuation was all wrong. When PP asked him to play two straight compases of bulerías, he couldn’t.
Yes, there are these nine-year-old Spanish whizz-kids, but they’ve grown up knowing it all their lives.
Plus when you’re beginning, there’s a nasty period when the novelty’s worn off, but you can’t yet play anything interesting. That period is going to be a lot shorter if you try to learn Perico del Lunar’s falsetas than if you try Chicuelo’s. When you’ve mastered that, you can move on.
Look at the portraits Pablo Picasso did when he was fourteen.
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