Erik van Goch -> RE: Vicente Amigo -- "La Tarde es Caramelo" (Jun. 14 2013 18:47:39)
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When it comes to the question ear playing vs transcriptions i feel very blessed because i can enjoy the best of both worlds. Being the son of a (at first classical) guitar teacher my ears were tuned into processing guitar sounds even before i was born and at a very young age i was able to sing every classical guitar piece that was played (or better said studied) in my presence (quite a repertoire actually including the Bach Suites). When i was old enough to attend one of his concerts i was extremely surprised to hear him play complete pieces WITHOUT REPETITIONS...... at home he always studied fragments of pieces and fragments of fragments... and when he stopped halfway a Bach suite his 4 year old son continued singing from beneath the table :-). At the age of 12 (playing the guitar for 3 years) i could easily outplay adult players when it came to finding the right chords to songs. While the adults were still surging the corresponding page in the songbook (only to discover it was published in a different key then the one chosen by the singers) i was already playing on automatic pilot since the first couple of notes had told me this (to me unknown) song was a typical C-major song with a capo at 4. Around that period of time i stopped taking guitar lessons from my father and started to ear play all the records of Paco Peña. At 18 i consulted my first music book (well, the first one since i stopped taking lessons) covering a couple of songs of Harry Sacksioni. Not able to read classical notation i first had to translate it into tabs, using a handy translating-chart my father made me. When i tried to play the first results i soon had inflicting ideas so i consulted my father again..... Does this translation match what is written here? Yes it is.....but half of the notes are missing ??????:-( ??????....well, yes, publications like these are often simplified to make the music accessible to more people. Accessible my ass, i obviously lost interest in written music on the spot and decided (once again) to trust my ears rather then that bunch of idiots. Soon i ear played all the records of Flairck, playing both the guitar, 12-string guitar, bouzouki, citar, banjo and violin parts. At 22 i auditioned for Paco Peña's university school of flamenco guitar, playing Sabicas farruca, Vicentes childhood tarantas and 2 pieces on 12 string guitar. As it turned out i had impeccable ears (i was the only one out of a 100 with zero mistakes in re-playing whatever they throwed at me) and since they valued my musicality as well they allowed me to enter. At the time i could not read notes, i had no idea of the name of the notes (i could only name the open strings) and i couldn't name a single chord by name. I didn't even now how to name a 3/4 or 4/4 beat. At music university school i learned musical theory and how to write and read notes and rhythm (i secretly used my fathers hand written Bach partitures to practice reading since they were pretty easy to read and on top i knew that music by heart since i was 4 so i would immediately spot a mistake when i misplayed a note). I also had to learn again how to play the guitar (basically from scratch), trying to get rid of numerous bad habits, replacing them with better moves and fingerings. My repertoire came partly from things i ear-eye-played myself and partly from things that were ear-eye-played and annotated by my father, who collaborated with Paco and happened to be the main teacher for (flamenco) technique, musical history and didactics. On top he was the one who single handedly produced over 1000 partitures of flamenco used by the institute. Those partitures are the very best flamenco partitures in existence, revealing in full detail the notes, rhythm, compas treatment, left and right hand finger management and the correct interpretation. I'm pretty sure that for most people those particular partitures would be a better source of information than ear-eye-playing it themself. They showed me different and better ways of looking at things and different and better ways of using my hands and brain. Don't forget they pair 30 years experience of Paco (1 of the most refined flamenco players i know) with 30 years experience in transcription and didactics of my father (1 of the most knowledgeable and all round musicians i know with over 20.000 hours of stage-experience and even more hours on the clock as a teacher of classical/flamenco guitar). If they offer you there combined knowledge on a piece of paper it's worth to give it a serious look. Memorizing a complete piece of Paco Peña from paper would took me about 3 hours. Ear playing it myself would cost me much much more time and only give me the right notes (but not necessarily the correct finger management and/or compas treatment)....1 student (way more experienced in flamenco then i was) was not able to read music and once needed 6 mounts to memorize Paco's solea por bulerias by monkey see, monkey do... i memorized the same piece in 3 hours, leaving me 12 lessons to work on interpretation with the masters (in stead of wasting valuable time with re-finding the notes week after week). Also i use written music (tabs) to annotate and analyze the music i ear play. Only after i put it on paper i noticed Vicentes famous (price winning) soleares intro was missing 1 beat... 4 times in a row. I played that record hundreds of times without noticing it and Vicente himself overlooked it for over 10 years as well. So as i see it, partitures can be very handy (and even a real eye opener when they are done by someone way more experienced then you are or by yourself for on paper analyses). Unfortunately many partitures that came to me via other sources were extremely difficult to read, pretty useless and sometimes even dead wrong (especially in finger management and rhythm). If i want to work out a falseta which is not included in my fathers collection, i don't look elsewhere but ear-play it myself. And with my present level of understanding (and my extremely poor reading skills) i prefer to ear-play basically all music myself (including the ones written out by my father).... it's part of the learning process, sharps the mind and in a way is more rewarding. But like i said, a huge part of my present level of understanding (like compas treatment, finger management, interpretation, phrasing etc.) comes straight from my fathers partitures....and his wise face to face lessons and corrections :-). I can't answer the question about how accurate the Vicente piece is since don't play it myself. The link also offered a score of Manolo Sanlucars Solea por Bulerias. I checked the falseta i ear-played myself 20 years ago and it seemed to be a perfect match (as far as the notes are concerned because there was indeed no rhythm notation).
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