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Pimientito -> Sanlucar Curso Flamenco 2012 (Jul. 25 2012 13:59:28)
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Its been quite an eventful year with one thing and another and this year at Sanlucar was really a highlight so far. If you dont know what Sanlucar is all about then search through previous years.
Despite the current economic crisis it was very well attended with around 120 students in total although most coming from Europe. From the rest of the world we had one Japanese dancer and a guitarist from Argentina. Only a handful of flamencos from across the Atlantic this year including our own Conrad for his first time. Conrad plays exceptionally well by the way!!
Gerardo was in very good form, very happy and playing lots of new material. He has been recently talking publicly in interviews about his hand injury and he seems to have accepted the disability he has in his first finger. There has been a lot of speculation about his injury in the last year or 2.
The good news is that even with 3 fingers, Gerardo is still probably the best guitarist around. He has adapted now to the point where is new technique sounds almost the same as before. The biggest problem is that the trauma to the first finger caused some type of proprioceptive nerve damage which means he cant always feel exactly where the finger is. It has not affected the strength of the finger so his rasgueos are the same as previously. His picado is mainly a,m now but he can do this better than most players with i,m. He can now do short bursts of i,m picado ( but ironically only at speed) His tremelo is exclusively p,a,m,a,m p,a,m,a,m and its sounds the same as p,a,m,i, tremelo. Its the tricky arpeggio work which has suffered. The reverse arpeggios are the same but he cant do Forward then reverse (since they start with i) or the buleria arpeggios any more. The most dramatic adaptation is the thumb work though. It was scary before but now its truly unbelievable. He can do tremelo passages with his thumb in a way that left the guys in the advanced class close to tears. He showed us a lot of improvisation techniques and ways to get from one chord to another which I found very useful.
Apart from Gerardo, the dance course was as usual with carmen Cortes. Cepillo taught the percussion and we were lucky to have Antonio Carrion doing the accompaniment course again, Rafeal de Utrera taught cante, and special guest was Jorge Pardo teaching flamenco for flute/saxophone/violin.
The fiestas were amazing, Jorge is a real party animal playing until at least 6.00 am every night and to hear him play standing close was a real treat. Some nights the stage was like an all star cast. Gerardo got up and danced on one occasion, rafa was singing, Antonio and manuel valencia on guitar, diego villegas and jorge pardo on flutes...
It was a real wake up call to realize just who those teachers were in the flamenco world. If the course had been a jazz course then our teachers would have been Pat Methany, George Benson, Miles Davies, Courtney Pine and Louis Armstrong.
Yet being such great artists, they are all very friendly and approachable.
Rafael de Utrera came up and said hello. "Hi, hows work going?" I asked
"Pretty good.....still singing for Vicente" he replied as if it were bar gig.
Of course with Jorge there we heard a lot of cool stories about Paco and Camaron and Gerardo talked a bit about his times meeting Sabicas and also in Madrid with the cano roto guitarists.
I didnt get to take many photos this year but with so many good photographers there, Im sure some of the other guys will upload some cool images. Once again, a fantasic flamenco week.
pim
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