z6 -> RE: what typifies flamenco (Nov. 21 2013 15:45:24)
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Sex. I don't think it's compas. I don't really know what compas is but I doubt real flamencos give a rat's a r s e. Rhythm. Absolutely. But imagine a bar full of people who don't know how to play or sing or dance out of compas. But they still do and it doesn't matter. If I'm there I don't notice. Ricardo's not quite sure cause he's telling Rombsix to clam up. And Rombsix is telling Ricardo that he knows it's out. And he's right. But nobody bothers because the imperfections, even in compas, are crucial to its astonishing speed of development. (And everyone except Romb is drunk anyway.) Flamenco drips with sex. Blues is from the soul, country from the heart, flamenco is driven by our base urges. (And classical doesn't exist; it's too broad, a superset. Unless we're describing a period or movement.) Flamenco guitar is a beautiful snare drum. I can't watch male dancers, in the main, but I can watch men dance flamenco. And watching women dance flamenco is a trip to bonerland. I am never moved by recordings of cante but always moved by live performances. (Always, but I have not seen many; the best of which was by a guy in a bar one boozy evening without any instruments.) Flamenco is incredibly evolved, to me. It's always 'the groove' to me. The rhythms are like sonic fractals, as long as it 'rocks' anything goes. Flamenco guitar is like driving a fast car and classical guitar is like watching a nice game of cricket (although I believe Bach and all the rest have nothing to do, per se, with classical guitar (they cannot, for classical guitar does not exist). Flamenco technique 'sounds' haphazard and dirty. Classical guitar 'sounds' clean. But flamenco cannot be played without a 'mastery' of the basics. Classical guitar purports to interpret 'the classics' (and the proper name is 'classic guitar'). But flamenco has endless intellectually impenetrable rules across all dimensions (and even those dimensions are not separate 'things'). Flamenco has rules and regulations hidden within music so vibrant it belies its own depth. But it's all for fun. Nunez is a force of nature. In my estimation the equal of the greats in any genre. Paco is an alien sent to remind us, as seemed Mozart, of the potential of our species. And within a sprawling genre that has jiggling grannies and caterwauling retirees bringing us to tears of both laughter and deep, emotional states, sometimes touching pre-existing wounds or driving memories into the light. Above all, it's the sexual nature of the form that hits me. I expect that explains the puffy shirts and the lack of idiotic or artificial posing associated with genuine mastery. Even if it's 'only' mastery of the basics. We all know that a guy singing, or not, a single note, or a guitarist playing 'one' chord, or the way a woman might sway her hips before she even starts dancing can say it all. I believe that the evolution of the genre (some of the fuzzy little branches) is even taking place right here, in some of the music people are producing. And romb I love your posts. Keep em coming. You guys help to map out some of the roads for me. But, it all boils down to sex, in the end.
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